Welcome to the first established County Amphibian & Reptile Group

Sightings. We need them!

Events. Come along and enjoy

A Simple Way of Combating Chytrid Infection
It seems Chytrid, which causes a deadly skin disease, is susceptible to high temperature. Froggy saunas have proved a powerful defence for some species. More...
Rare Reptile Walk. A chance to see smooth snakes and sand lizard with Paul Stevens Click Here

Test your observation skills with this great video from ARG UK
Finding terrestial GCNs using a trained dog. Presentation from the ARG UK site
The Importance of Ponds
Ponds have generally been heavily neglected by world conservationists perhaps because of their small size compared with other water habitats, In fact, despite their small size ponds are far more diverse than other water bodies. Ponds are more diverse, because of their relative isolation. Flowing water in streams and rivers mixes everything up into a relatively homogeneous medium. By contrast ponds maybe clear due to tannins, cloudy because of livestock disturbance, sunlit or heavily shaded. This diversity leads to a subsequently diverse flora and fauna.
Ponds may have been neglected just because they are small, for example the EU Freshwater Directive ignores water bodies smaller than 50 hectares, but change may be on the way. The Ramsar Convention xiv.15_small_wetlands_e.pdf, an international treaty, introduced a resolution on small wetlands and the EU funded project, PONDERFUL, is collecting data on European ponds.
Based on New Scientist article June 24.


Rare Good News on Chytrid

Roland Knapp, University of California, has had success in re-establishing populations of two species of yellow legged  mountain frog, Rana muscova and Rana sierriae. The researchers moved frogs from wild populations which appeared to be resistant to areas where all frogs had been lost, a process known as evolutionary rescue where population recover through the spread of beneficial genes.
Over 15 years hundreds of frogs were translocated by helicopter or snow-packed back packs. Genetic studies found differences in the immune system genes in the translocated frogs, which suggests this is the reason for their success.

USFWS/Rick Kuyper, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Tap Dancing Frog
New Scientist video of this odd tapping behaviour to flush out prey. Link  

Female Frogs include playing dead  in their armoury for avoiding over-amorous males. other strategies include rotating away and mimicking male release calls (Carolin Dietrich, Museum of Natural History, Berlin). Females can be drowned by too much attention multiple males.

Angus Kirk

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Learn about amphibians and reptiles

Paul Stevens calming a smooth snake. Click picture for video

Effects  of Pet Flea Products on the Environment
Interesting croak from Froglife
Pollution and Biodiversity
A recent lab based study looking to see if biodiversity reduces parasite infections finds that the reduction is only seen when there is salt pollution. Link

  Adder Tracking
Julian Robinson, SxARG Events Coordinator has carried out a literature search on adder tracking. Adder tracking is something that SxARG has considered, but not yet committed to as it does require a lot of person power to run. The list of articles that Julian has found make interesting reading and can be found here

From Christian Moss. Melanistic Common Lizard on Ashdown Forest

Avoiding Sex Pests
Male frog enthusiasm can lead to several males attempting to mount a female at the same time causing the hapless female to drown. Research by Carolin Dietrich, Natural History Museum in Berlin, has shown that the female has defences. Females were observed rotating away from an oncoming male, mimicking the male release call normally used by a male who is mounted by another male or just playing dead!

Is Conservation Effective?
There is a great deal written about the importance of creating new ponds, but does it work? Thankfully a new study in Switzerland suggests that it does (Moor et al 2022). They analysed 20 years of data in the densely populated state of Aargau, Switzerland, and found the addition of hundreds of new ponds to the landscape stopped the decline or stabilized the populations of the majority of the monitored amphibians. They demonstrated the significant positive impact of restoring habitat dynamics by increasing habitat availability and connectivity.

Froglife Science Croak
Reproduction without sex in reptiles. Following on from recent news reports of the captive croc in Costa Rica that produced fatherless eggs.

Brilliant photo of male Adders 'dancing' in Sussex (fighting over a female) Christian Moss 26 Apr.

2023 events details here.

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Bright colouring  warns of 'eat me and die', but how does this trait evolve in the first place without great risk? Click here for a hypothesis

Reticulated poison frog (CC-BY-2.0, Tony Hisgett

Clever Western Fence Lizard (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Lizards Have Learned  to Fear Fire More than Predators
Lola Alvarez-Ruiz of the Spanish National Research Council noticed that Western Fence Lizards in the US were better at surviving wildfires than other species. In 2019 Lola and colleagues broadcast sounds of wildfires and predators to lizards in burned areas and non burned areas of California.and measured the attention given by lizards to the broadcasts. Lizards from the burned areas paid more attention to the fire broadcast, whereas in unburnt regions the predator broadcast received more attention. Clever researchers and clever lizards.

Glass Frogs, How to Make Yourself Transparent
Hyalinobatraciun fleischmann spend their days sleeping on bright green leaves (nice if you can get away with it). But how do you make yourself near transparent when your blood is bright red? Jesse Delia, American Museum of Natural History, noticed that the frogs were more transparent when asleep. In fact 61% more transparent. By tracing the movement of blood using photo-acoustic methods they found that the frogs could hide 89% of their blood in their liver while sleeping. This is interesting since squashing blood cells together should induce clotting. Further research could throw light on possible anticoagulents for human use.

Reptile and Amphibian Pet Trade
Concerns

Snake Fungal Disease. A report from the US of a fungal disease circulating in the snake population. Fortunately not as devastating as chytrid in amphibians, but of concern.

Some reptiles don't age. What is their secret?

Aesculapian snake FelixReimann, CC BY-SA 3.0

Aesculapian Snakes If like me you have not heard of these beasties, then you will be surprised that these tree-climbing reptiles, up to 6 foot long, are living successfully in North Wales and Regents Park, London. The Welsh population became established in the usual way following a zoo escape in the1960s and has been monitored since 2004. This snake's native range is southern Europe so they are aliens in the UK, but should thrive as the climate changes. The current Welsh population is estimated to be 70 adults and 120 juveniles. There is discussion about their status. Should they be classed as invasive aliens and removed? Current studies at the University of Bangor are designed to clarify their ecology. Dr Wolfgang Wurster of the University thinks we should welcome species able to cope with climate change. Find out more about Aesculapian snakes here and here.


Nadders   should you be a fan of the Canterbury Tales you will know that in Middle English Vipers beris was a nadder from the Old English nā̆ddre. I suppose a nadder easily becomes an adder.

Adder taking a rapid swim, BBC videoclip

Toads in Trees
A report on the New Scientist website tells us of recent research on the tree climbing habits of the common toad (Bufo bufo). Watching a toad’s ungainly gait one might be surprised to learn of this climbing ability ------->
Adders Dancing in Pembrokeshire super video from SxARG member, Sam Kelly.

From Froglife:

Recording of the February Sussex Toad Summit

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South Downs dewpond

Dancing Adders. YouTube video