Welcome to the first established County Amphibian & Reptile Group
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. 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.
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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
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