UNLABELLED Snake fungal disease (SFD) is an emerging skin infection of wild snakes in eastern North America. The fungus Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola is frequently associated with the skin lesions that are characteristic of SFD, but a causal relationship between the fungus and the disease has not been established. We experimentally infected captive-bred corn snakes (Pantherophis guttatus) in the la...

Diamond pythons (Morelia s. spilota) are large (to 3 m) snakes of temperate-zone coastal eastern Australia. Foraging behavior was studied by observation of telemetered snakes, and diets determined by dissection of museum specimens and collection of fecal samples from wild-caught snakes. Five adult snakes monitored in the field by radiotelemetry were found to be ambush foragers. In summer, telem...

Current hypotheses that use visually guided reaching and grasping to explain orbital convergence, visual specialization, and brain expansion in primates are open to question now that neurological evidence reveals no correlation between orbital convergence and the visual pathway in the brain that is associated with reaching and grasping. An alternative hypothesis proposed here posits that snakes...

background: information on the epidemiology of venomous snake species responsible for envenomation to humans in iran has not been well documented. in the kashan city, venomous snakebite remains a recurring medical problem. information providing the correct identification of snake species responsible for envenomation in this geographic region would be useful to regional medicalclinics and person...

Sunshine virus is a recently discovered novel paramyxovirus that is associated with illness in snakes. It does not phylogenetically cluster within either of the two currently accepted paramyxoviral subfamilies. It is therefore only distantly related to the only other known genus of reptilian paramyxoviruses, Ferlavirus, which clusters within the Paramyxovirinae subfamily. Clinical and diagnosti...

Ontogenetic shifts in habitat use are widespread, especially in ectothermic taxa in which juveniles may be an order of magnitude smaller than large adult conspecifics. The factors that generate such habitat shifts are generally obscure, but we studied an unusual system that allowed us to compare consequences of habitat selection between adults and juveniles. Pit-vipers (Gloydius shedaoensis) on...

Fifty Nerodia sipedon living along two kilometers of an urban stream in northeastern Pennsylvania were radiotracked over three activity seasons, yielding more than 2520 relocations. Half the stream length is urbanized, flowing through a city park at the head of the study area and an industrial area at the downstream end; the half between is relatively natural, flowing through a conservation cor...

West Nile virus (WNV) has a complex eco-epidemiology with birds acting as reservoirs and hosts for the virus. Less well understood is the role of reptiles, especially in wild populations. The goal of our study was to determine whether a wild population of snakes in Pennsylvania harbored WNV. Six species of snakes were orally sampled in the summer of 2013 and were tested for the presence of WNV ...

Several investigators have studied cold-blooded animals in terms of contamination by different types o f organisms. Hinshaw and M cN eil4 isolated Salm o­ nella rubislaw from 3 out o f 12 Sceloporus occi­ d e n t a l specimens. Zwart24 reported the iso­ lation o f Salmonellae from 37.5% of lizards. LeN oc and Brygoo9 isolated 58 different types o f sal­ monellae from 48 out o f 127 chameleons e...

Climate change and rapid habitat degradation have led to a decline in the population of snakes. Hence constant monitoring their diversity wellbeing is necessary. During present study under our Sarpa Sathi project, we surveyed for snake using time-constrained search, incidental encounters around Mysore city, Karnataka, India, first time. period three years, identified 24 species snakes, belongs ...