Herp Nation

Along with local iwi, Department of Conservation and other institutions, Zoo staff helped to transport 73 Tuatara from Southland Museum & Art Gallery to their a...ncestral home in the Marlborough Sounds this week. Our Senior Veterinarian, Baukje assisted with the health screenings of the 73 Tuatara prior to their departure from Invercargill, while our Team Leader of Reptiles and Invertebrates, Dave and Veterinarian, Phil helped with the release. We are incredibly proud to be involved in this conservation project and we're excited to see this taonga species returned to the Marlborough Sounds! Video via Department of Conservation.

Kristen Wiley cares deeply about snakes and works on the venom production line to help create antivenom in Kentucky, USA. She believes looking after snakes and... is key for venom production which can support cheaper, effective and locally sourced antivenoms available anywhere and to everyone. She is one of our women champions of snakebite working towards ending the suffering from snakebite. Learn about our other champions: snakebiteawareness.org.

Today I was lucky enough to see a wild lace monitor, Varanus varius, raid a sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) nest. The monitor was quite a small one,... so this was quite a bold thing to do, given how strong a bite cockatoos have and the vigour with which they defend their nest hollow. The monitor was really struggling to swallow the chick and the constant harassment from the adult cockatoos wasn't helping, so when it had the opportunity it bolted from the hollow, ran down the tree and disappeared. I feel particularly lucky seeing this, as I watched it from the back deck of my house. The tree is on the other side of a gully and the hollow quite high off the ground.

Western Pond Turtle Wednesday! The Western or Pacific Pond Turtle (Actinemys sp.) complex has seen its fair share of changes to its scientific nomenclature sinc...e its first description. And boy, it's been confusing. Since its scientific description in 1852, the turtle(s) have been placed in the genera Clemmys, Emys, and Actinemys. In 1945, ninety-three years after its initial description, the "Pacific" Pond Turtle was split into two subspecies, the Pacific Pond Turtle (Clemmys marmorata marmorata) and the Southern California Pond Turtle (Clemmys marmorata pallida). In the early 2000s, however, genetic studies fractured the genus Clemmys into three genera, Actinemys (Emys), Clemmys, and Glyptemys. With this fracture, the "Western" or "Pacific" pond turtles were assigned to the genus Actinemys. In 2014, this genus again saw change as studies of the subspecies' mitochondrial DNA elevated the southern form to full species status. Today, they are commonly known as the Northern Western Pond Turtle (Actinemys marmorata) and the Southern Western Pond Turtle (Actinemys pallida). Even now, however, scientists often interchangeably refer to the two species in this complex as Actinemys or Emys. Confused? Luckily, you will learn all about Western Pond Turtles through 9 incredible talks on the genus in TOMORROW's Virtual Symposium! See the schedule HERE: https://turtlesurvival.org/2020-symposium/schedule/day6/ WATCH the LIVE STREAM at 11 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Thursday, September 10th HERE: https://www.youtube.com/user/TurtleSurvival/videos Photo credit: Mike Jones

The International Herpetological Symposium community is saddened to share news on the sudden loss of our recent Past-President Ken Foose. Our deepest sympathie...s go out to his family, friends, and coworkers and we will share more information on any services as they are made available to us. See more