Active contours or snakes are widely used in object segmentation for their ability to integrate features extraction and pixel candidate linking in a single energy minimizing process. But the sensitivity to parameters values and initialization is also a widely known problem. Performance of snakes can be enhanced by better initialization close to the desired solution. We present here a ne mouth r...

Eighteen snakes representing 11 species were subject to mouth swabbing on 58 occasions. Of these swabs, 52.2% were positive for bacteria. A total of 92 bacterial isolates were cultured, representing 30 species of which 81.5% were Enterobacteriaceae, 16.3% gram positive cocci, and 2.2% anaerobes. Swabs from non-venomous snakes were more commonly bacteriologically sterile than those from venomous...

Data on viral infections in apparently healthy snake collections in Germany were obtained with respect to husbandry conditions and health status. Samples from 100 boid snakes (from 14 collections) were examined microbiologically and for the presence of paramyxoviruses (PMVs) using RT-PCR. Blood was tested for the presence of antibodies against PMV, adenovirus and reovirus and for inclusion bodi...

snakes is a general purpose Petri nets library, primarily for the Python programming language but portable to other ones. It defines a very general variant of Python-coloured Petri nets that can be created and manipulated through the library, as well as executed to explore state spaces. Thanks to a variety of plugins, snakes can handle extensions of Petri nets, in particular algebras of Petri n...

Deformable models have recently been accepted as a standard technique to segment diierent features in facial images. Despite they give a good approximation of the salient features in a facial image, the resulting shapes of the segmentation process seem somewhat artiicial with respect to the natural feature shapes. In this paper we show that active contour models (in particular, rubber snakes) g...

The primary predators of primates are all ambush hunters, and yet felids, raptors, and snakes differ in aspects of their ecology that affect the evasive strategies of their primate prey. Felids and raptors can traverse long distances quickly, thus the urgency of threat they present increases as they come closer in proximity to primates. In contrast, snakes do not move rapidly over long distance...

Constriction of prey by gopher snakes Pituophis melanoleucus and king snakes Lampropeltis getula is highly variable in posture, muscular activity and force exertion. These snakes typically use lateral bends of the anterior trunk to wind the body into a vertical coil around the prey. Three common constriction postures are fully encircling loops that form a coil, partially encircling loops, and n...

Cryptosporidia are 5-7-mm apicomplexid coccidian parasites that infect humans and many other species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish. In humans and cattle, infection by Cryptosporidium parvum usually affects the intestinal tract, resulting in self-limiting diarrhea.4 Respiratory and intestinal cryptosporidiosis occur in birds infected with C. bayleyi and C. meleagridis.5 Sneezing, coughin...

The Persian Gulf is known as the westernmost distribution limit for sea snakes, except for Hydrophis platurus (Linnaeus, 1766) that reaches southeastern Africa. Previous identification guides for sea snakes of the Persian Gulf and its adjacent waters in the Gulf of Oman were based on old data and confined mostly to written descriptions. Therefore, a series of field surveys were carried out in 2...

Navigational ability is a critical component of an animal's spatial ecology and may influence the invasive potential of species. Burmese pythons (Python molurus bivittatus) are apex predators invasive to South Florida. We tracked the movements of 12 adult Burmese pythons in Everglades National Park, six of which were translocated 21-36 km from their capture locations. Translocated snakes orient...