HERPUTOPIA NEWSLETTER Promotion, Care and Enjoyment of Reptiles and Amphibians through Education SEPTEMBER 2012 Estab 1998 Vol 7 Issue 7 """#$%%&"&''&'()*$%(+,-$(*.#-,/#&01,'(230$'$(+-,2*&-* 0429 600 962 4567898::;<66="#$#%&'()*$+#,")-.,/01213 COMMITTEE 4;<6>:<?7@&'*A;&2B$2CDEFGEHGIHgarthfay@bigpond.net.auJ>K<4;<6>:<?7L'&2-(+?&*A&2$(%CDMNEGOCOE 6<K;<78;P9,'(%%(4(/Q'$RS(CDCMCOMCOI7;<86T;<;9.22(U"(('+DEOEEDID4TV9>K5LL>K<;4A$%$)U"(('+ DEOEEDID?<W69<77<;<:>75;L&.6/$*ADEGODFFD4TV9>6X<;4A$%$)U"(('+#487;5?YZ<?@;>LL>7X6 MEETINGS: First Monday of the month at 7.00 pm (excluding January, April & October) Fairy Meadow Community Centre: Guest Park, opposite Woolworths corner Princes Hwy and Cambridge Ave, Fairy Meadow AT EACH MEETING - Lucky Door Prize, Sausage Sizzle $2.00, Drinks $1.00, Free Tea and Coffee 454,67)*4,8)- Monday September 3 rd 2012 Rob Ambrose - Rob is a professional snake catcher, who has a passion for venomous snakes. Come and hear about one of Rob s favourites, the Red Belly Black Snake. A must for the enthusiast. -4"6+*4-);$*+,</ Monday October 8 th 2012 There will be no meeting on this night, as we will have our annual picnic day at Shoalhaven Zoo, formerly known as Nowra Wildlife Park. Nick, Trent and the staff always make us feel welcome and it is only a short scenic drive from the Illawarra. Entry and food is free to members, so don t miss out on this special day. THERE IS NO MEETING IN OCTOBER Instead we are having our annual picnic day at Shoalhaven Zoo on Sunday 7th October 2012 at 11.00am...lunch at 12.30.Free entry and fully catered BBQ for MEMBERS. Drinks are available at the kiosk. A great day should be had at the most picturesque zoo in Australia. Be aware that if you only have a single membership only you will be allowed in and fed for free. Monday November 5 th 2012 Darren Earnshaw. Manning River Turtle (photo courtesy of John Cann) "*4)/4 /9""#-6 #9- /"#,/#-/ 0:# /9""#-69/ It was such a treat to have Colin South as our guest speaker at out August meeting. Col is vice president of the Hawkesbury Herp Society and is a renowned
artist. One of his accomplishments being the wonderfully detailed drawings in John Cann s BIG book Freshwater Turtles of Australia. Colin is very concerned about the impending fate of many of our fresh water turtles including the Manning River Turtle elseya purvisi. He detailed how with human interference species are driven to the brink of extinction, then with human help, bred back to safe numbers. The four species Col highlighted were:- Galapagos Tortoise, The Western Swamp Turtle, The Mary River Turtle and The Manning River turtle. The Manning River turtle has been in decline for about 10 years along the length of the Manning River and it s tributaries, which exit, at Taree NSW. The reasons for the decline can only be determined by surveying the river and gathering enough information to ascertain the reason. Then a breeding program can be tailored for this endangered species. Money and volunteer man-hours has worked wonders for other species and hopefully the Manning River turtle can also benefit. Following the talk, two members indicated they would like to be part of the fieldwork for this turtle. With this enthusiasm there will be better days ahead. A big IRS thanks to Col South for bringing this important conservation topic to us. Breaking news Our common interest with Shoalhaven Zoo in promoting reptiles continues to make our association even bigger as our hobby grows. Nicholas Shilko owner of Shoalhaven Zoo, has announced a very generous offer to ALL IRS members. The zoo will allow ONE free visit per year on presentation of your membership card. This offer does not include the picnic day. Fantastic offer, thank you Nicholas. New Members Mat Cochrane, Kirsty Ashton, Peter Mandaric, Colleen Dalton, Joanne Alexander, Elise Ramsay and Chris Comb. Membership Fees are Due Your membership fees are due in August. Due to our strong financial position, our fees will be the remain the same as last year. Single Member is $20 and Family Membership is $30. Yearly fees are due in August. Direct Deposit to the following account. ILLAWARRA REPTILE SOCIETY INC BSB: 012 593 ACCOUNT:197838498 Please put your member No. in the xxx field for your identification. Col South THE IRS ANNUAL PICNIC DAY This year our popular picnic day will be held on Sunday 7 th October 2012. The venue, being the Shoalhaven Zoo (formerly the Nowra Wildlife Park). Entry and food is free to members of the IRS, drinks can be purchased at the kiosk. This is a fantastic way to socialize with other members and wander around one of Australia s most beautifully situated zoos on the banks of the Shoalhaven River. It starts at 11.00am, lunch at 12.30pm with animal shows all day. Will be great to see a lot of you there. If you only have a single membership and want to bring the family, it would be wise for you to update your membership to a family one. Adrian Reptile World - DVD available from the front meeting desk for $25 Flexible Snake Armor Could Inspire Abrasion-Resistant Materials ScienceDaily (Aug. 15, 2012) Snakes are highly specialized legless animals, which evolved around 150 million years ago. Although without extremities, their body is exposed to constant friction forces. The PhD-student Marie-Christin Klein and Professor Stanislav Gorb of Kiel University found out how snake skin is adapted to legless locomotion. The skin is stiff and hard on the outside and becomes soft and flexible towards the inside, independent of habitat. Biology could inspire systems in engineering with minimized abrasion.
=#-/)*4>/4"64;$4-1?&1 8R+"$%%,2%.&))(&'1,'E/,2*A+ Womas Blonde Macs Albino Darwins Mark 0407 501 360 Rats & Mice- live or frozen Garth 42564884 Children's pythons- 2 pairs Macquarie short neck turtles Saw shell turtles 4", 5", 6" shells Frank 0413563037 Baby turtles Bob 95212725 Northern Velvet geckos (4) $80 Levis male 6 months $100 Small ($14) & large ($30) snake hooks Sue & Tim 0421426575 Members Notices: A&T Custom Cabinets-custom built reptile cabinets in all sizes 0466279239 Reptile keeping books available at the meetings at a good members discount Madagascar Poison Frog Releases Both Sweet and Deadly Secretions on its Skin The Madagascar poison frog (Mantella), in addition to secreting poisons on its skin, also secretes sucrose in the wild (captive-born Madagascar ),$+,2 1',S+ do not secrete the sucrose), which marks the first instance of an animal secreting the sweet substance, according to a report on Discovery.com. Citing the study, "An Endogenous Bile Acid and Dietary Sucrose from Skin Secretions of Alkaloid- Sequestering Poison Frogs" published in the Journal of Natural Products, the report says that the poison frog acquires the sucrose by ingesting ants, which ingest sugars from the sap of plants on which the ants rely on for food.
Puerto Rico Offers Incentives for Iguana Hunters decimating local fish populations. The state of Florida has held '(R%$,21$+AR('Q$(+ for the past several years in hopes of eradicating it off the state's reefs. "##"$%&'()*+,-+*".,$/+)*')+*0$)&1-+%,((+ 2'.)01&+,/0'$'-+'$3+&4."1)+)*&+#&')+)"+ ")*&1+2"0$)1,&-5+ August 21, 2012 I wish I was in Tijuana, eating barbecued iguana-- Wall of Voodoo, 1983 Could barbequed iguana soon be a widely accepted staple food item in your neck of the woods? The Puerto Rican government is hoping so because Puerto Rico has a S'((2 $S0&2& (Iguana iguana)problem. The invasive lizard, with some estimating the population at 4 million on the tiny island, has been blamed for chewing up and destroying the island's native plants and food crops, and digging holes under roads and dikes, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. So the government has decided to do something about what residents call the "green plague." The commonwealth's Department of Natural and Environmental Resources has come up with a solution-- and that is for hunters to capture the iguanas and offer them for sale in other countries that enjoy eating the large terrestrial lizard. Daniel Galán Kercadó, secretary of the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources said that Puerto Rico has a serious problem with these reptiles and exporting iguana meat is a solution. Hunting the iguana and offering them up for sale would help to alleviate the iguana problem in Puerto Rico and create jobs in the process, he told the paper. The government has stepped in, encouraging iguana hunting entrepreneurs to get into the iguana exporting business, offering up such incentives as subsidized rent. This is not the first time that a solution to an invasive species problem is to hunt that species. In Florida and up the Atlantic coast, the lionfish has established itself on warm water reefs, Burmese Python Snake Cake Goes Viral on Internet 6789'-&3+2':&+9':&1+9&2"#&-+;$)&1$&)+ -&$-'),"$+<"1+*&1+2':&+1&$3,),"$+"<+"#$%&' (%)*+*,'-./.##0#*,5+ August 17, 2012 An amelanistic Burmese python cake (Python molurus bivittatus madagascan vanillan bean spongen) has caused quite a stir on Facebook for Francesca, a UK-based baker and owner of North Star Cakes who created a cake that resembles a Burmese python for her daughter's 6th birthday. As of August 17, 2012, the image of her snake cake creation on Facebook has garnered more than 4,002 shares and 2,493 likes. In addition, more than 23,000 Facebook users are talking about her Facebook page. And she says her orders have gone up quite a bit since a link to her creation was posted on Twitter. The image was picked up by a fellow cake baker, Duff Goldman of Ace of Cakes who tweeted about the cake, providing a link to Francesca's Facebook page to his 40,000 followers on Twitter. The cake by the way was Madagascan vanilla bean sponge with jam and buttercream wrapped in white chocolate fondant. The baker, Francesca, said he was delicious, and she grew quite fond of "him" as he was making him. She also noted on her Facebook page that she is not sharing "quite just yet" how she made the Burmese python snake cake.
Scientists Develop a Powerful New Adhesive Inspired by Gecko's Feet released with a gentle tug and restuck to another surface as many times as needed, leaving no residue. =2,&$),-)-+,$>&$)+?@&2:-:,$AB+'+3&>,2&+ 2'.'9(&+"<+*"(3,$/+CDD+."0$3-+"$+'+-#"")*+ %'((5+ by David Alderton February 17, 2012 For years, biologists have been amazed by the power of gecko feet, which allow these five ounce lizards to produce an adhesive force roughly equivalent to carrying nine pounds up a wall without slipping. Now, a team of polymer scientists and a biologist in Alfred Crosby s polymer science and engineering lab at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered exactly how the gecko manages to do so. This has led them to invent Geckskin, a device capable of holding 700 pounds on a smooth wall. Scales & Tails $8 Available at each meeting and at Garth s What makes geckos feet unique The group includes biologist Duncan Irschick, a functional morphologist who has studied the gecko s climbing and clinging abilities for over 20 years. He has observed how geckos are equally at home on vertical, slanted, even backward-tilting surfaces. Amazingly, gecko feet can be applied and disengaged with ease, and with no sticky residue remaining on the surface, Irschick says. These properties - high-capacity, reversibility and dry adhesion - offer a tantalizing possibility for synthetic materials that can easily attach and detach heavy everyday objects such as televisions or computers to walls, as well as having medical and industrial applications, among others. This combination of properties at these scales has never been achieved before. Crosby says Our Geckskin device is about 16 inches square, roughly the size of an index card, and can hold a maximum force of about 700 pounds while adhering to a smooth surface such as glass. Beyond its impressive sticking ability, the device can be released with negligible effort and reused many times with no loss of effectiveness. For example, it can be used to stick a 42-inch television to a wall,
Scientists Discover New Type of Virus Responsible for a Devastating Disease in Snakes Green tree python, Morelia viridis. (Credit: Copyright CAU, photo by Marie Klein-Christin Klein) ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2012) A mysterious condition called Inclusion Body Disease (IBD) strikes captive boa constrictors and pythons, causing bizarre behavioral changes and eventually death. Scientists investigating an outbreak of IBD among snakes at the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco report they may well have found a virus that is responsible for this common but deadly disease, a discovery that could eventually lead to prevention and treatment options. The study appears in the August 14 issue of mbio, the online openaccess journal of the American Society for Microbiology. The authors report that the virus represents a whole new class of arenaviruses scientists have never seen before. Among captive boas, IBD is the most commonly diagnosed disease that is thought to be caused by a virus. Snakes that have contracted IBD may initially regurgitate food, but they eventually show dramatic neurological problems, says Michael Buchmeier, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of California, Irvine. Neurological signs include "stargazing," in which the snake stares upwards for long periods of time. "Some of the symptoms are pretty bizarre -- this stargazing behavior, looking like they're drunk, they tie themselves in a knot and they can't get out of it," says Buchmeier. The condition, which is named for the inclusions, or pockets of foreign material, found inside the cells of affected animals, is ultimately fatal. IBD is devastating for large aquariums, as it can infect a large number of snakes before it is identified and quarantine measures can be put in place. Since there is currently no treatment for the disease, infected snakes must be euthanized to prevent them from infecting other animals. HAINES GLASS - DAPTO 298 Princes Highway, Dapto PHONE 02 4261 7295 FAX 02 4261 7898 MOBILE 0412 617 290 K5J<;>?@7X<65T7XK5867L5;899 P5T;@9866;<[T>;<\<?76 @9866L5;;<47>9<K8V>?<768 64<K>897P.*Domestic Specialists * Laminated Glass *Table Tops Shower Screens. Framed Mirrors. Rear view Mirrors