World's Rarest species of sea turtle nested on Hilton Head beach for first time ever!

   On April 26th a Kemp's Ridley turtle was seen making her trek to the sandy dunes of a beach in Hilton Head SC. Tons of tourist and DNR officials spectated the even from start to finish. DNR marked the nest after taking samples for future testing of the eggs. The eggs are scheduled to hatch June 21st and it will also be a monitored process to ensure most if not all the young make it to the ocean. This is said to be one of the only 7000-9000 nesting females in the world!


    This article not only was made to impress the locals of the new coming rare species of turtle but to also bring up the subject of how protected the beaches are and if they should be monitored more strictly than they already are. A list of beach restrictions can be found within the article stating that no large shovels can be used, no holes dug in the sand should be left unfilled as well as the use of lights at night time; all to aid the baby turtles make their way to the water safely.


News Article link: https://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/untamed-lowcountry/article229722764.html

Natural History: Anolis Carolinensis

The other day, just after arriving home from my herpetology final, I spotted this little guy on my front steps. He or she quickly ran under the steps and while I tried my best to get a good photo, they were just a little too quick. My roommate who was with me at the time freaked out and was afraid it would try to run in our house (this has happened many times with a few geckos), but I assured her that it likely didn't want anything to do with us.

I was able to identify this guy to be Anolis carolinensis, or a green anole. While I wasn't able to get too close to it, I believe this one was an adult female due to its smaller size (about 4-5 cm in length). It's behavior was not that surprising, as she quickly ran when we started to walk up the steps and continued to run away as I tried to sneak behind the steps to take a picture, likely showing that she could in fact see me and did feel fearful or that I was a predator.

While I'm not sure of this individuals habitat, she was hiding in some leaves/debris that are beneath our steps. While they are primarily arboreal, this makes sense as there are a ton of trees surrounding my house, especially compared to other locations downtown. These anoles are native to our area, so it makes perfect sense that she was hiding around near my house!

It was really interesting for me to find this anole, and I found it really ironic that she was sitting right there in front of my house, right after our final exam for this class. It was really cool to be able to identify it in nature and tell my roommate about it. She thought it was really interesting to hear about it as well...although she didn't quite know why I tried so hard to get a picture. I can't wait to see more herps out in nature and get to identify them in the future!

Article Review: Polyarthritis in Sea Turtles

I recently discovered an article outlining an interesting issue affecting many sea turtles, that I had never known about. This article discussed the frequency of polyarthritis in sea turtles, joint swelling, and how it was observed at a rehabilitation center in Reunion Island, France. The article discussed how when the turtles are affected by this issue, they can experience a number of detrimental side effects including anorexia, lethargy and inability to use the limbs. This can lead to increased rate of other infections in the turtle and is overall a major threat to the health of many species of sea turtles.

These researchers performed a study where 13 turtles were radiographically confirmed with polyarthritis and tested on a treatment dose of injectable florfenicol, at individualized dosages, for 4 weeks and then reassessed to determine if more dosages were necessary. Overall, this treatment proved to be fairly successful, with 9 out of the 13 turtles showing stabilization. This article provided a potentially useful solution to the treatment of this detrimental issue.

This article provides us with knowledge about disorders that are affecting sea turtle populations that we may not otherwise know about. This can be very valuable in leading to improved conservation efforts and allow us to take these factors into consideration when dealing with turtle injuries and conservation as a whole. This was very eye opening to me, as I never realized problems like this may be contributing to factors affecting our populations of sea turtles as well as other reptiles and amphibians.

Article:
Cruciani B, et al. (2019). Management of Polyarthritis Affecting Sea Turtles at Kelonia, the Reunion Island Sea Turtle Observatory (2013-17). Journal of Wildlife Diseases 55(2), 455-461

Natural history - Spadefoot toad

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to find a spadefoot toad (Scaphiopus holbrookii) one night after a hard rain. It was found sitting in a crack in the driveway of a house that backs up to a pond. These toads are highly fossorial and are known to only emerge for brief periods after rain to breed. This toad is an adult and I'm guessing a male, based on the loose skin around the throat. I tried looking for nuptial pads on the hands in the pictures I took but couldn't say whether they were present or not. You can see the spades in the hind feet in the pictures, as well as a darkened pelvic patch, which I read is an area of skin that is more permeable to water. I also read that many people have allergic reactions after handling spadefoots, but luckily I was not one of them. I think these frogs are really cute and I hope I find more of them!

Herps in Society and Culture: Artwork of a turtle

https://www.redbubble.com/people/resonanteye/works/10969893-swamp-hag-snapping-turtle-in-the-night?cat_context=u-prints&grid_pos=2&p=art-print&rbs=82302377-6843-458c-a340-6a39db499098&ref=shop_grid&searchTerm=herpetology%20art-prints

The herp you see above is an artwork of a Chelydra Serpentina or in common terms a common snapping turtle. You can tell this is a snapping turtle by its strong looking mouth that has a sharp beak on it. The head ends in a point and the feet are not aquatic. Other indications from this detailed artwork include the keels on the carapace and the claws on its terrestrial feet. This turtle is a predator that has a powerful jaw that can rip and pierce through many things. Some other indicators that are not shown in this picture above could also be the presence of a long tail and extendable neck that has a good amount of reach. These turtles tend to be large and live across the east coast and through the midwest of America. If you see one in real life be careful! They are pretty cool herps though!

American Crocodile Conservation

Something that really excites me is, success stories of conservation. Recently I stumbled upon a story about how in a nuclear plant in south Florida there is a very large and thriving population of American Crocodiles (Crocodylus acutus). This is very important because south Florida is the only place you can see both an American Crocodile and an American Alligator cohabitating. This interest leads me to doing some of my own research on the American Crocodile.  I found the research attached to the power plant that first peaked my interest. It is the Turkey Point power plant in Miami. In this article by Venetia Briggs‐Gonzalez, Christophe Bonenfant, Mathieu Basille, Michael Cherkiss, Jeff Beauchamp and Frank Mazzotti they use multiple techniques to study the size, sex and age of each crocodile. They do so by doing a catch, tag and release procedure, which is very common in conservation and population monitoring. Tey found that over the past 30 years that the population of American Crocodiles has steadily increased at an average of four percent each year. The author also talks about the reason why this population is thriving and how it is seen as an success story of how humans can disturb an environment and not harm local species. The power plant gives off a lot of heat causing the water temperature to be high through out the year. It also has very disturbed sandy banks that are perfect for nest making. I believe that conservation like this is very important because the likelihood of people not disrupting environment to create homes is very small, but I do believe that there is a way that we can teach people to build correctly and allow local wild life to thrive within human communities.

https://besjournals-onlinelibrary-wiley-com.nuncio.cofc.edu/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2656.12723

Oldest Frog in North America Discovered in Arizona

            The oldest frog fossils known from North America were discovered recently in the Chinle Formation of Arizona, USA. These fossils were identified from fragments of pelvic bone fossils no bigger than a fingernail according to reporter Josh Gabbatiss in his article from The Independent. The fossils date to approximately 216 million years ago, or the Jurassic Period. This suggests that these tiny amphibians, no bigger than a fingertip, coexisted with the megafauna dinosaurs we know so well today. The article recalls that the oldest known frog fossils are from Madagascar and Poland, and date to about 250 million years ago, or the Triassic Period. The Arizona fossils were discovered alongside crocodilian-type fossils using a new, microfossil collection technique. Dr. Michelle Stoker, the paleontologist who discovered the fossils notes that she and her research team are planning to use this technique more frequently to uncover smaller bones that may help “fill in a lot of those missing smaller components” of the fossil record. The article states that these newly discovered frog fossils are more similar to modern frogs than to the oldest known frog species, but that the fossils are not a direct ancestor of the modern frogs. Further recovery of amphibian fossils from this formation and from those like it is needed to better elucidate this proposed evolutionary history.

            The Independent is not a specifically scientific news journal. It is important to keep this in mind when digesting an article like this. Paleontological discoveries such as these are easily-sold stories when it comes to informing the general public, so any information obtained from the article is to be taken as a generalization, and not necessarily factual. However, the article does mention that the fossil findings were published in the scientific journal, Biology Letters (I have attached the link to the abstract below). The scientific paper is not available online to the public or through the CofC Library, but may be accessed through ILL. Nonetheless, the abstract of the published paper confirms that these fossils are more similar to modern frogs than to the oldest known frogs.

            I found this article extremely interesting because we do not usually think about the little guys when we think about dinosaurs. It is so fascinating to think that tiny frogs existed alongside these huge creatures, right under their feet! I also really appreciate the article because it speaks to the value of studying microfossils since they can be very telling of past environments and the creatures that lived there. I work with small fossils myself, and it’s nice to hear that other scientists are turning to these studies as well. You know, it’s not all about the big ones…

News Article:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/frog-oldest-fossil-rocks-arizona-chinle-formation-a8799306.html

Scientific Paper Abstract:

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0922

Oldest known frog fossil, Triadobatrachus.

Restoration of an extinct frog species (not one discussed above).