NEWS & RESEARCH
Reptile News
Read about reptile research, conservation, and new discoveries, complete with links to original sources. We have compiled published news, organized by the latest date.
Latest Reptile News
Ten Minutes of Handling, Three Snakes — Why “No Problem” Is Still Too Strong
A study of three regularly handled zoo snakes found no major adverse behavioural shift after brief sessions. Its tiny sample and behavioural-only measures cannot establish that handling is harmless for all snakes or settings.
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A Lineage Split in Mist at 1,909 m — Borneo’s New Crocker Range Mourning Gecko
Lepidodactylus crockerensis has been described from Gunung Alab in Sabah, Borneo. We examine the genetic, morphological, scalation and geographic evidence—and the conservation questions still unanswered.
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They Maintained Body Temperature but Lost Half the Day: The ‘Thermal Shield’ of 376 Desert Lizards
A study of 376 Liolaemus lizards in Argentina’s Monte Desert found that they maintained body temperature while losing 18.3–50.0% of their potential activity time—the hidden cost of behavioral thermoregulation.
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Imaging Was Not Enough: The Diagnostic Sequence in a Tegu Oviductal Adenocarcinoma Case
An adult female tegu presented with anorexia and abdominal distension. This case traces the diagnostic sequence from radiography, ultrasound, CT, and inconclusive cytology through surgery and definitive histopathology.
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Four sea turtle species washed ashore in a single day — The link between Texas strandings and red tide remains unknown
Four species of sea turtles were rescued from the upper Texas coast in one day. While the timing coincided with a red tide event in Galveston, the cause remains undetermined; this article examines the distinction between confirmed facts and causal relationships.
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Reunited 1.6 km away after 727 days — A question raised by a male hawksbill sea turtle
An adult male hawksbill sea turtle, tagged in the Gulf of Paria, Venezuela, was recaptured 727 days later at a location approximately 1.6 km away. We examine what this initial local record reveals and what remains unproven.
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Only 22 Found in the Wild — Release of 17 Copperbelly Water Snakes and the Need for Connected Wetlands
Field records from 2020 to 2026 show 22 individuals, with 17 captive-bred snakes released. This examines why the restoration of the northern population of the U.S. Copperbelly Water Snake involves addressing both the wetlands and the forests that connect their breeding grounds.
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Over 900 embryos all coiled to the right—the ‘slow gut’ that shapes the snake’s spiral
Micro-CT scans and over 900 embryonic images from 39 species explain the snake's early rightward coiling. The study highlights a developmental mechanism where the trunk grows faster than the gut and the left-side yolk biases the direction.
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New records after 66 years — DNA analysis re-establishes two Thai blind skink species
*Dibamus alfredi* and *D. somsaki* from Thailand—rarely recorded since 1960 and 1995, respectively—have been confirmed in new locations. Initial micro-CT skeletal data and three mtDNA fragments support the existence of these two distinct lineages.
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