From tiny, burrowing lizards to rainforest canopy-dwellers and giant crocodiles, reptile populations everywhere are changing. Yet government and conservation groups are often forced to make important ...decisions about reptile conservation and management based on inadequate or incomplete data. With contributions from nearly seventy specialists, this volume offers a comprehensive guide to the best methods for carrying out standardized quantitative and qualitative surveys of reptiles, while maximizing comparability of data between sites, across habitats and taxa, and over time. The contributors discuss each method, provide detailed protocols for its implementation, and suggest ways to analyze the data, making this volume an essential resource for monitoring and inventorying reptile abundance, population status, and biodiversity. Reptile Biodiversity covers topics including: • terrestrial, marine, and aquatic reptiles • equipment recommendations and limitations • ethics of monitoring and inventory activities • statistical procedures • designing sampling programs • using PDAs in the field
El desarrollo de la herpetología en Colombia Medem, Federico
Revista de la Academia colombiana de ciencias exactas, físicas y naturales,
12/2017, Volume:
41, Issue:
Suplemento
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
En este artículo, el Dr. Federico Medem hace una síntesis de los grandes grupos supragénéricos (Superórden, Orden y Familia) de los géneros y de las especies que hasta ese entonces, los conformaban. ...Hay que reconocer que éste fue un gran esfuerzo si se tiene en cuenta que se incluyeron todas las especies de reptiles. Es interesante el hecho de haber realizado un repaso paleogeográfico de las cordilleras colombianas con el fin de comprender mejor la complejidad y distribución de nuestra herpetofauna. Destacable también es su revisión histórica con respecto a los momentos en que se registran, por primera vez, datos sobre la herpetofauna colombiana comenzando con exploradores del siglo XVIII, como fueron los misioneros que estuvieron en el Orinoco. Se nombra aquí al Padre Joseph Gumilla quien, en 1741, narró sus observaciones de reptiles de la zona. Luego se pasa a mencionar a los autores colombianos y extranjeros que publicaron obras, ya sean libros o artículos, en los siglos XIX y XX sobre la herpetofauna de Colombia. Estos son algunos de los nombres a resaltar: Alexander von Humboldt (1799-1801), Carl Lehman (1892, 1893, 1898), Emmett Reid Dunn (1943-1944), el Hermano Nicéforo María (1920-1958) entre los extranjeros; y los colombianos Evaristo García (1892, 1896), Posada Arango (1889, 1909), y los hermanos Osorno Mesa (1938, 1946), entre otros. La última parte, la más larga, está dedicada a presentar una lista de los grupos de anfibios y reptiles. Se presenta, igualmente, un diagnóstico para las clases (Amphibia y Reptilia) y, dentro de éstas, para los órdenes, por ejemplo, Apoda en anfibios y Sauria en reptiles, e igualmente, para algunas familias. Para los reptiles, se hace la lista de todas las especies, pero para los anfibios solo se ofrece la de los géneros, lo que muestra su clara preferencia y, tal vez, su conocimiento asimétrico de los grupos. Julio Mario Hoyos H, Ph.D.Profesor TitularPontificia Universidad JaverianaSandra Baena, Ph.D.Miembro Correspondiente
Survival strategies for a changing world Reese, Devin
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
10/2021, Volume:
374, Issue:
6563
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Traveling trees, color-changing owls, and gale-proof reptiles showcase nature’s adaptability
ABSTRACT
Marine reptiles and mammals are phylogenetically so distant from each other that their marine adaptations are rarely compared directly. We reviewed ecophysiological features in extant ...non‐avian marine tetrapods representing 31 marine colonizations to test whether there is a common pattern across higher taxonomic groups, such as mammals and reptiles. Marine adaptations in tetrapods can be roughly divided into aquatic and haline adaptations, each of which seems to follow a sequence of three steps. In combination, these six categories exhibit five steps of marine adaptation that apply across all clades except snakes: Step M1, incipient use of marine resources; Step M2, direct feeding in the saline sea; Step M3, water balance maintenance without terrestrial fresh water; Step M4, minimized terrestrial travel and loss of terrestrial feeding; and Step M5, loss of terrestrial thermoregulation and fur/plumage. Acquisition of viviparity is not included because there is no known case where viviparity evolved after a tetrapod lineage colonized the sea. A similar sequence is found in snakes but with the haline adaptation step (Step M3) lagging behind aquatic adaptation (haline adaptation is Step S5 in snakes), most likely because their unique method of water balance maintenance requires a supply of fresh water. The same constraint may limit the maximum body size of fully marine snakes. Steps M4 and M5 in all taxa except snakes are associated with skeletal adaptations that are mechanistically linked to relevant ecophysiological features, allowing assessment of marine adaptation steps in some fossil marine tetrapods. We identified four fossil clades containing members that reached Step M5 outside of stem whales, pinnipeds, sea cows and sea turtles, namely Eosauropterygia, Ichthyosauromorpha, Mosasauroidea, and Thalattosuchia, while five other clades reached Step M4: Saurosphargidae, Placodontia, Dinocephalosaurus, Desmostylia, and Odontochelys. Clades reaching Steps M4 and M5, both extant and extinct, appear to have higher species diversity than those only reaching Steps M1 to M3, while the total number of clades is higher for the earlier steps. This suggests that marine colonizers only diversified greatly after they minimized their use of terrestrial resources, with many lineages not reaching these advanced steps. Historical patterns suggest that a clade does not advance to Steps M4 and M5 unless these steps are reached early in the evolution of the clade. Intermediate forms before a clade reached Steps M4 and M5 tend to become extinct without leaving extant descendants or fossil evidence. This makes it difficult to reconstruct the evolutionary history of marine adaptation in many clades. Clades that reached Steps M4 and M5 tend to last longer than other marine tetrapod clades, sometimes for more than 100 million years.
Microplastics are plastic fragments with a size less than 5 mm in length. In addition to a threat to the marine environments where these are abundantly present, these have also started polluting ...freshwater ecosystems. However, the uptake of microplastics by living organisms differs depending on their habitats and feeding behaviors. We investigated the presence, size, type, and color of microplastics in the gastrointestinal tract contents of two water snakes, namely Natrix natrix and Natrix tessellata. The snakes were collected from different regions of Turkey and preserved as museum materials. Our results showed that fibers constituted the predominant polymer type in both snake species (94.7% for N. natrix and 87.9% for N. tessellata), whose dimensions ranged from 250 to 3750 microm. We did not find any significant difference in the number of microplastics ingested between the two species. In addition, the uptake of microplastics did not relate to the size and weight of snakes. Microplastics were not consistently present all years, and similarly, these were not detected in all samples within the distribution area. These results could be attributed to the environment and diet of two snake species.
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