fauna

Two male Texas Tortoises (Gopherus berlandieri) get they scrap on over some territory and females, Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, southern Texas, USA. The Texas tortoise is a threatened species.

For more information visit Texas parks and Wildlife Dept.

(Photo: Carlos Fiol)                             (via: Laguna Atascosa NWR)

A faded old Red eared slider (Trachemys elegans) with algae on its shell, crawls from a pond, Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, southern TX, USA.

(photo: Steve Sinclair)             (via: Laguna Atascosa NWR)

A rare albino green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) swims in a tank at the Sea Turtle Reserve Centre in Kosgoda, Sri Lanka. The centre collects turtle eggs from the beaches for hatching before poachers remove them as they are considered a delicacy. Once hatched the small turtles are let free in the sea. (2010)

(Picture: EPA)                               (via: Telegraph UK)

animals-animals-animals:

Louisiana Milk Snake (Lampropeltis triangulum amaura), SE United States :3

(photo by SkyDarko | Deviant Art)

My Milksnake brings all the boys to the… nevermind.

denotational:  Mary River Turtle (Elusor macrurus)

- Endangered, found occurs in SE Queensland, Australia

(photo: Manda @ I Love A Sunburnt Country)

Newly Discovered Dome Headed Dinosaur Discovery

by Stephanie Pappas

A newly discovered dome-headed, dog-size dinosaur suggests that small dinos were more diverse than paleontologists have realized.

The dinosaur, discovered in Alberta, Canada, is named Acrotholus audeti; Acrotholus means “high dome,” as the new dinosaur was a pachycephalosaur, a group known for their thick, bony skulls. The new specimen is the oldest pachycephalosaur ever found in North America, and rivals the oldest specimen in the world, scientists report today (May 7) in the journal Nature Communications.

“Acrotholus provides a wealth of new information on the evolution of bone-headed dinosaurs. Although it is one of the earliest known members of this group, its thickened skull dome is surprisingly well-developed for its geological age,” said study researcher David Evans, the curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum…

(read more: Live Science)        (illustration by Julius Csotonyi)

Dino Discoveries:  Nyasasaurus parringtoni

If Nyasasaurus parringtoni isn’t the earliest dinosaur, it’s the closest thing to it that scientists have found so far. Working from an upper arm bone and six vertebrae found in Tanzania in the 1930s, researchers surmise that Nyasasaurus would have been about the size of a Labrador retriever, but with a much longer tail. In a paper published last year in Biology Letters.

They argue that it lived in the southern part of the supercontinent Pangea about 243 million years ago, predating all other known dinosaurs by at least 10 million years.

Image: Natural History Museum, London/Mark Witton

(via: Wired Science)

llbwwb: African Spur-thighed Tortoises (Geochelone sulcata) enjoying a warm summer day :)

(photo by Matthew Crowley Photography)

Tortoise Trafficking Raging Out of Control in Madagascar

Conservation groups urge authorities to clamp down on black market trade

WCS Press release

Since the beginning of the year, more than 1,000 individual tortoises have been seized from would-be smugglers.

Illegal trafficking of two critically endangered tortoise species from Madagascar has reached epidemic proportions, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Turtle Survival Alliance, Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership, Turtle Conservancy, Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund and other groups who urge authorities to clamp down on wildlife smuggling before some species are collected out of existence.

According to the groups, more than 1,000 radiated and ploughshare tortoises have been confiscated from smugglers in the first three months of 2013 alone. In late March, 54 ploughshare tortoises made it as far as Thailand before being seized by authorities. A recent report by TRAFFIC states that the radiated tortoise is now the most common tortoise for sale in Bangkok’s infamous Chatuchak wildlife market.

The groups say that since the beginning of Madagascar’s continuing political crisis in 2009, smuggling has increased by at least ten-fold due to weak governance and rule-of-law. In addition, erosion of cultural protection of the tortoises for short term monetary gain has contributed to their sharp decline. In the past, tortoises were protected by “fady” – a local belief that harming the tortoises is taboo. However, with years of drought and increasing levels of poverty, people from regions outside the tortoise’s natural range, who do not practice these types of fady, are capturing and illegally selling tortoises…

(read more: Wildlife Conservation Society)

(photo: Tortoise Trust)

Feathered Dinosaurs were Diverse, Like Darwin’s Finches

by Megan Gannon

Flightless feathered dinosaurs with parrotlike beaks and long, skinny claws that scampered around North America may have been the Darwin’s finches of the Late Cretaceous era.

Fossils of at least five species of vegetarian birdlike dinosaurs known as caenagnathids have been found from West Texas to Canada with wide variation in their beak shapes and body size, giving scientists clues about how the small creatures could coexist by carving out different dietary niches.

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was famously inspired by the diversity of beak shapes among finches on the Galapagos Islands, which he took as a sign that the birds had somehow adapted to the specific environments where they lived. More recent research has shown that Darwin’s finches can evolve quite quickly. For instance, one species shrunk its beak size to better compete with another bird for small seeds in a mere two decades.

Millions of years ago, different species of caenagnathids may have similarly adjusted their beak size across western North America…

(read more: LiveScience)        

(illustration by  Nicholas R. Longrich/Yale - This new species, Leptorhynchos (“little jaw”) gaddisi, belongs to a broader group of bird-like dinosaurs characterized by toothless beaks and long, slender claws.)

The Cape Gopher Snake aka Baja Gopher Snake (Pituophis vertebralis) is found in arid habitat along the Baja California peninsula of Mexico. They attain a length of up to 18 inches (48cm). Baja gophers feed on a variety of birds, bird’s eggs, and small mammals in the wild. They are know to be a nervous and aggressive species, if cornered or handled.

(photo: San Diego Natural History Mus. - Herpetology Dept.)

Lilford’s Wall Lizard (Podarcis lilfordi)

… is endemic to the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain. This species was once present across the archipelago, including the large islands of Mallorca and Menorca. Today it is only found on small, rocky islands with no human inhabitants. Morphologically distinct subspecies have emerged on many of these isolated islands.

More about this lizard on EOL: http://eol.org/pages/791009/details

(image by DanyelAndre via Wikimedia Common)