Anyone can enjoy a reptile trade show

I took my grandson to the Repticon Reptile and Exotic Animal Convention in Columbia, S.C., last month. Herpetoculturists (people who keep reptiles and amphibians for pets) gather at Repticon extravaganzas in different cities to trade, sell or simply display their animals. You can buy a ticket just to look around, with no intent to buy. That's what we did, and it's a bargain for anyone wanting to entertain kids (or adults) interested in snakes and lizards.

Our initial animal encounter was not with reptiles, but mammals. Not monkeys swinging from branches or lions lounging in an African savanna. Oh no. We saw mice and rats. Hundreds of them. Some wriggling, just-born pinkies; others full grown with waving whiskers. Most were part of a neatly packaged frozen food section. We moved on, not needing to ask why people with pet snakes might want a mouse or six.

Our first face-to-face with a reptile was an enormous monitor lizard walking around on a leash. At least 5 feet long from nose to tail tip, it was taking its stroll alongside a sign that read Photo of You and the Dragon. $5.00. A bargain to be sure, but not one we succumbed to, although my grandson got to pat the big lizard for free.


Over the next hour we saw hundreds of other lizards, including venomous Gila monsters and the easy-to-care-for bearded dragon lizards kept by many herpetoculturists. Snakes came in all sizes from baby king and garter snakes to boas, pythons and anacondas. A few token amphibians, such as poison dart frogs and fire-bellied newts, were interspersed here and there. All of the animals being sold were bred and raised in captivity. Corn snakes took the prize for displays of the most bizarre color patterns of any snake. Corn snakes are a native species already beautiful in their natural colors of blotched red, orange, white and black. At the Repticon they came in designer snake patterns ranging from pigment variations of solid white, solid red and solid orange to blotched pink, lavender, yellow and everything in between. Looking at a table with little plastic containers of baby corn snakes was like gazing at a kaleidoscope of coiled serpents.

Events like Repticon serve a useful purpose in fulfilling the desire many people have to possess and care for a pet snake, lizard, turtle, salamander or frog. Such a longing might seem peculiar to some people. To me it's no odder than acquaintances I have known over the years who collect ball caps, matchbooks or thimbles. Reptile enthusiasts are worldwide and most are well meaning.

As with all professions, a few individuals engaged in the business break the law. Unscrupulous pet trade dealers sell illegal commodities, in this case wildlife. Many of these are simply greedy, having little interest in the reptiles themselves beyond their commercial value. But a valid reptile trade show, one in which the animals for sale are truly ones born and bred in captivity, often by private individuals who enjoy the challenge, helps reduce the collection and commercialization of animals from the wild. With legitimate captive-raised reptiles and amphibians, people have an opportunity to try their hand at keeping an unusual pet that is easy to maintain. If properly cared for, most carry virtually no diseases that are transmittable to humans. With a little education, anyone can learn the proper techniques and how to pick out the best animal for their personal situation. As we made the rounds past exhibits, I explained to my grandson that none of them were suitable for our personal situation.

To find out when a Repticon show might be coming to your neighborhood, check out their events calendar at www.repticon.com. The next one is July 9 and 10 in Atlanta. Even if you are a thimble collector or model ship enthusiast, rather than a herpetoculturist, you should find it fascinating. And you won't have to spend any time making decisions about what to get at the food locker that greets you when you walk in.

Why does a female antelope have horns?

Who would turn down an opportunity to read a journal called Gnusletter, a publication of the Antelope Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature? Gnu is the African name for wildebeest, from the rather unimaginative Dutch name meaning "wild beast." Gnus are one of the 140 species in the true antelope family, the Bovidae.

Antelopes are distinguished from other hoofed animals such as deer, pigs, and horses by having unbranched horns. Ironically, the American bison, aka buffalo, is in the family of "true antelopes" whereas the pronghorn antelope of the American Southwest is not. Familiar members of the antelope family are sheep, goats, and cattle. Most people have also heard of African gazelles and impalas, as well as muskoxen of Arctic tundra regions. The size range within the family is impressive. Cattle known as gaur, of Southeast Asia, are the largest, reaching a shoulder height of nearly 7 feet and weighing more than a ton. The tiniest are African royal antelopes, which are about the size of a 6-pound house cat.

According to the ASG, Gnusletter "is intended as a medium of communication on issues that concern the management and conservation of antelopes both in the wild and in captivity." Since the Gnusletter's inception in 1982, 65 issues have been published, with a primary focus on threatened and endangered antelope species of Africa and Asia. In addition to reports on the status of different species, the publication allows ASG members and others "to communicate their experiences, ideas, and perceptions freely, so that the conservation of antelopes can benefit."


A recent issue of Gnusletter reported on the status of various species, such as the decline of sable antelopes in their natural range in Kenya and the increase in population size of the Tibetan antelope in China. The most intriguing article was written by Richard D. Estes, an expert on African mammals and the founder of Gnusletter. The article is a well-written rebuttal to a published hypothesis that the horns on females evolved as weapons against predators, which at first glance seems like a reasonable assumption.

Estes' account covers wide-ranging behavioral literature about animals with horns and considers extensive biological and evolutionary nuances. But his basic premise is that when females of species in the antelope family have horns, they did not evolve for purposes of defense for themselves or their offspring. Most antelopes use their speed to escape predators rather than staying to fight them. Even males of most horned species of antelope and deer use their horns for male-male combat rather than predator defense. Estes maintains that when both sexes have horns, it reduces "male despotic competition toward developing males." The behavioral concepts involved are complex, but the essence is that adult males tend to attack young males and drive them away. But dominant males are less likely to be provoked into attacking a young male if it looks and acts similar to young females, including both having horns. If juvenile males are not driven away, they can stay for a longer period with their mothers and have the benefits of herd protection. Once young males leave a herd, their horns continue growing and they assume distinctively male behavior patterns; the same is not true of females.

Estes explained how his hypothesis could be tested in the wild by studies among species to determine when young males leave female herds and what the survival rate is of offspring of horned and hornless females. His rationale for not conducting the field studies himself was sensible--"both on account of my advanced age (83) and on the labor of writing a book on the behavioral ecology of the Serengeti wildebeest population." He invites "any antelope specialist or other biologist" who wants to pursue such a study to contact him via email.

I am looking forward to reading a book on the Serengeti wildebeest, aka gnu, for which Richard Estes has provided insights and suggestions. He clearly knows more about antelopes than anyone else in the world.

Send environmental questions to ecoviews@gmail.com.

Whit Gibbons is an ecologist and environmental educator with the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory.

The secret to saving sea turtles

I recently read this statement in a book: "We no longer have the luxury of eating sea turtles and their eggs, of making jewelry out of their shells and leather out of their skin." According to the author, too many humans populate the earth for sea turtles to ever again be harvested in a sustainable fashion.

The plight of the seven species of sea turtles alive in the world today is set forth by James R. Spotila in a 216-page book, "Saving Sea Turtles" (2011, Johns Hopkins University Press). The book's subtitle is "Extraordinary Stories from the Battle against Extinction." Spotila provides accounts of various environmental threats sea turtles have faced. Myriad problems that threaten the very survival of individual turtles and some species can be attributed to humans, including poachers, developers and politicians. Many of Spotila's stories relate how other humans, including conservation biologists, sea turtle ecologists and politicians, have intervened to save these magnificent creatures of the sea from destruction.

Spotila writes in an easy, highly readable style, without the flowery emotional flourishes that some sea turtle enthusiasts resort to. He lets the facts tell the story. The book is well organized, with the first chapter addressing the status of sea turtles in the modern world and pointing out the contemporary problems they face. He identifies the challenge that every sea turtle faces from the outset--to successfully hatch from an egg laid on a beach. In one part of the first chapter he focuses on turtle egg poachers. He refers to the poachers as people with "an undersized heart." Poachers will steal eggs right out of a nest on the beach where a turtle biologist is doing a study. This practice is no longer an "I need food for my family" operation; it is commerce. For example, the author caught a poacher one night in Costa Rica with almost 500 sea turtle eggs. "Guess he had a big family," Spotila says.


The second chapter, "Life in the Egg: Buried Alive under Two Feet of Sand," goes through the vital steps of how an embryo develops within the egg until it hatches. The book explains the importance of temperature in determining the sex of a baby turtle and what besides small-hearted poachers are threats to nests. The remaining chapters are in life cycle order, from hatchlings racing to the sea, to life as a juvenile turtle, to the adult female returning to a beach to nest.

Much of the book uses examples of leatherback sea turtles, the largest turtles in the world and the species Jim Spotila has fought tirelessly to save from annihilation. These giants are so large that if one were stood on end in a normal-size room, the turtle's head would poke through the ceiling. These enormous turtles have been known to travel into the ice-cold waters of polar seas, indicating that they can survive at least short periods of freezing weather. They may then travel to the equator and nest on a tropical beach. The hazards they face - from an egg on a beach where people and predators roam, to a hatchling swimming past sharks in an ocean, to a nesting female trying to find a safe beach to crawl onto - are many. But the primary threat to all sea turtles are not natural conditions around the world that the species have successfully navigated through for millions of years. The principal threat comes from people, as detailed many times in this book.

The stories capture the essence of how dedicated people must be involved to carry out a sustainable effort to conserve this identifiable group of species. By writing a book about what is involved in saving sea turtles, Jim Spotila has augmented his own already substantial efforts by helping keep the conservation process alive. Sea turtles may never be a sustainable resource that can be harvested, but the author shows that with the right attitudes we can at least ensure they will be around for us to enjoy for decades to come.

What do we know about Pirate Perches?

Jack Sparrow is certainly the most unusual pirate on the scene these days, but I recently encountered a different sort of pirate with its own intrigue. I caught two little fish in a flooded area of some nearby woods and recognized them as pirate perch. Knowing the name of a plant or animal is the first step in identifying it; knowing someone who can tell you about its lifestyle, its behavior and other interesting facts is the next step.

I caught the fish in a minnow trap, a small wire mesh cylinder with inward-pointing funnels at both ends. My grandson and I had placed some in a shallow woodland pool alongside a swampy area. We also caught other captivating creatures, including leopard frog tadpoles and some seldom-seen aquatic salamanders called sirens. We brought the fish home in a plastic sandwich bag filled with swamp water and I took them to a colleague who is an ichthyologist to confirm their identity and to find out more about their biology. Dean Fletcher, a research scientist at the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, probably knows more about pirate perches than any other living person, whether angler or fisheries biologist. The coauthor of a book on freshwater fishes, he has written one of the few modern scientific papers on pirate perches.

The pirate perch, a freshwater fish but not a true perch, is the only living species in its family. It is common and widely distributed along the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains and up the Mississippi River Valley to the Great Lakes. But most people, even seasoned anglers, are not likely to see one. Adults are usually less than 4 inches long and are primarily nocturnal. In addition, not many people fish in small tributary streams, in weedy waters thick with root masses or in the floodplain swamps of larger rivers.


A bizarre biological trait of pirate perches involves the adult anatomy. As with other fishes, reproductive products (eggs and sperm) and body wastes are released through the vent, which is usually situated under the body near the tail. The vent is in this location in juvenile pirate perches. But as a pirate perch approaches adulthood, something strange happens. The opening gradually migrates along the underside of the fish until it is positioned under the throat, just behind the gills.

Fish biologists have speculated on the function of this odd placement of the vent since it was first described in 1824. As the scientific paper by Dean Fletcher and his colleagues says, "We solve[d] the conundrum through a combination of intensive field investigations, underwater filming, and molecular parentage analysis." In other words they studied the fish extensively in its murky habitat, filmed its behavior and used DNA analyses to see who the parents were of various offspring. Their discoveries were made in the cool waters of late winter and early spring when pirate perch begin spawning.

Through the use of modern technology, laboratory genetics and plain old-fashioned behavioral observations in the field, the scientists revealed why a fish would have a vent located in the front of the body instead of toward the back. They documented for the first time that the female actually thrusts her head into a tangled root mass and lays her eggs, a behavior unconfirmed for any other North American fish. The male quickly follows suit, putting his head into the same opening in the roots and depositing sperm to fertilize the eggs. The DNA analyses confirmed that particular offspring indeed had the parents predicted based on the mating observations.

My grandson and I released the two fish we had caught, still in good condition, back into their wetland home. Let's hope they find the right root masses to produce their young, leading to future generations of this unusual little fish. And why are they called "pirate" perch? If you put one in your home aquarium, it will apparently have no qualms about attacking smaller fish--to eat them, of course, not to take their money and jewels.

Looking at walls can be environmentally interesting

Aside from the mountains, any place within 300 miles of where I live reached temperatures approaching 100 degrees last week. During such hot weather, nature-watching can be disappointing at midday. Birds are less active. Turtles stop basking on logs. Lizards retreat to shady out-of-sight spots. Amphibians have gone underground. While contemplating that truth, I remembered a long-ago column about a habitat that will always yield some life to observe.

The habitat is in my backyard and everyone's neighborhood. It is a habitat we see daily but seldom think of in ecological terms. I am referring to walls. Yes, walls. Like the sides of houses and sheds or a fence around a garden. Walls make up a significant portion of the world's terrestrial habitats. Arnold Darlington, in his 1981 book titled "Ecology of Walls," claims that walls comprise more than 10 percent of the area habitable by plants and animals in a city.

Many factors affect the extent and composition of species inhabiting walls, including the degree of inclination. Horizontal walls have shelf space and are more likely to collect dirt and debris where seeds can root. Compass direction could matter for some species. Moss is more likely to grow on the shadiest side of a wall. The material, porosity, and composition of the wall, the climate of the region, and the history of human alteration are also major influences on what is found living on a particular wall.


One influential factor determining the vegetative character is the age of the wall itself. Algae and lichens are usually the first pioneers to become established. According to Darlington, vines rooted at the base produce the best "mural" vegetation on walls that are more than 150 years old, such as at the Ivy League schools. When walls get several centuries old and are left unattended, as with 2000 year old walls built by the Romans in many parts of Europe, they become badly decomposed. Then shrubs and trees are more likely to grow from the wall ruins. Once a wall has structure in the form of vines or other plants, or as a result of crevices, animals begin to take up residence.

The ecological perspective of walls offers some new and intriguing prospects. School projects come to mind. I once suggested that wall ecology would make ideal science fair projects. The hypothesis would relate to biodiversity and be stated something like: plants and animals will live on any available space if given enough time, even on a vertical wall. Included would be fences, concrete incinerators, and even the sides of trees, which are natural walls. Questions can be posed and answered. Do wood, brick and concrete walls in an area differ in the number and kinds of plant and animal inhabitants? Does a shaded wall have more organisms than a sunny wall? How important are the wall's age, height or position relative to ground vegetation in determining what grows on the wall?

One feature of a science fair project involving the ecology of walls that will appeal to some students is that there will be plenty of time to procrastinate. A wall ecology project could be completed one or two weeks before it is due, maybe in a day under desperate conditions. But imagine the data set a student who starts now could accumulate through summer and into fall to make the point that walls are important to the biodiversity of an area.

Examining walls around your home can even be a way to entertain yourself or children by observing the world from a different perspective. See how many different kinds of plants and animals you can find on walls in your neighborhood. It was too hot during my wall search last week to expect to find animals, but upon reflection, I realized some of my previous observations of lizards and snakes crawling, bats and treefrogs sleeping, and birds building nests had been activities that occurred on some sort of wall. Walls are much more interesting ecologically than most people would think.

Do Giant Salamanders Really Exist?

By my calculation, if all the salamanders Tom Luhring caught during his research project for his master's degree from the University of Georgia were laid end to end, they would be longer than three football fields. That has to be a world record. 

Tom, who is now a doctoral student at the University of Missouri, conducted his research at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory in South Carolina on a group of amphibians known as the giant salamanders. These secretive creatures inhabit swamps and lowlands, spending their entire lives in the mud and waters of places where few people ever go. His studies of one species, the greater siren, have revealed more about their population ecology, movement patterns and behavior than had ever been known before. The species, which has been known to science for more than two centuries, is one of the heaviest salamanders in the Western Hemisphere. Yet little was known of certain aspects of its biology before Tom's research.

The largest salamanders in North America are aquatic species that live in the East. The greater siren reaches lengths of more than three feet. Another giant salamander of the Southeast, the amphiuma, has a record length of almost four feet. Like sirens, amphiumas are seldom seen by people despite their large size. That their scientific name (Amphiuma) is used as their common name in most places is indicative of their rarity, although they are called lamper eels or Congo eels in some regions.

Two other salamanders, the hellbender and the mudpuppy, or waterdog, also qualify as giants, although neither gets as long as the biggest amphiumas and sirens. The mudpuppy, reaching a length of a foot and a half, is primarily a northern species, found in lakes, ponds and rivers. Hellbenders are bulky creatures that can reach two and half feet long. They live in cold mountain streams and rivers from Alabama to New York. The world's largest salamander, from Japan, is closely related to the hellbender; it can be more than five feet long.

Sirens and amphiumas, despite their enormous size relative to other amphibians, have minuscule legs with toes. An amphiuma more than a yard in length will have legs less than an inch long and no thicker than a toothpick. Amphiumas and sirens are short-legged, dark-colored, slippery creatures, but distinguishing one from the other is easy: sirens have only two of the seemingly useless legs, whereas amphiumas have four. In addition, sirens have external, visible gills; amphiumas have an opening alongside the head that leads to internal gills.

Sirens and amphiumas are slimy animals that seldom leave the water; they would soon dehydrate if left on dry ground. But both live in aquatic habitats that can dry up completely during long-term droughts. What do great big water-dwelling salamanders do then? First, as their lake home dries up, they burrow into the remaining mud. Then they secrete a slimy body covering, which hardens into a cocoon that can keep them moist for a few months to more than a year. When the rains return and the cocoon is exposed to water, the siren or amphiuma emerges to begin feeding on aquatic insects and other invertebrates that have also survived the drought.

Sirens and amphiumas kept in aquariums as pets have been known to live for decades, but no one knows how long they can live in the wild. Their courtship and mating behavior are also still a mystery, even for specimens kept in captivity. Amphibian biologists are not sure how closely related sirens are to other salamanders, and some even argue that sirens are not salamanders at all, but some other type of amphibian. 

America's giant salamanders bring to the fore two ecological insights. One, scientists know relatively little about the biology of some of the largest animals in our midst, which means we still have much to learn about the world around us. Second is the realization that some of our local creatures are as fascinating in their own way as any exotic species with a starring role in a nature show. 

Invaders make life interesting

Two disturbing types of invasions have occurred along the Mississippi River in recent times. Unstoppable, ever-rising floodwaters that are invading a region and know no master will always catch our attention. Residents over thousands of square miles of floodplain have been at the water's mercy. Once a flood is recognized as becoming a problem it is often too late to take effective action.

Let's hope that being too late does not apply to another type of invader to the region, one of an entirely different nature. I saw a disquieting photo awhile back of a man in Mississippi holding an ugly-faced, meat-eating piranha, a native of the Amazon Basin. The fish is known from tales about "man-eating" attack behavior on cattle, horses and humans in the water. Although some of the stories are overstated, this fish and most others are not something we want to become established as invasive species in any rivers or lakes outside their native range.

An invasive species is one brought to a region, usually from another continent, that successfully establishes itself. A piranha in a river in North America means somebody inappropriately released an aquarium pet into a waterway. As far as I know, piranhas have not become established in any U.S. aquatic system. But should they do so, a potential man-eating fish in our midst would quickly get our attention.

Pleas are made daily to federal and state governments to set controls on one invasive threat or another. But like a rising river, it may be too late to stop the flood. New introduced species enter our country and others every day. Transportation on a global scale is universal by land, air and sea. Regulations have been set for importing some plants and animals, but considering the traffic overload, the controls and enforcement are minimal.

One fact about invasive species is that few generalizations can be made about what will determine the success or failure of any particular species. The findings of scientists can be contradictory. For example, three separate research studies of invasive plants in Great Britain identified certain seed characteristics that were in common to successful invaders. However, one study revealed that having large seeds made a plant more likely to be successful. Another study found that small seeds were the key to success. The third study concluded that seed size did not matter. So much for making predictions about which exotic plants will be most likely to populate England.

Another confusing example from scientific study of invasive species is that of the Brazilian pepper tree, a plant in the same family as poison ivy and poison sumac. The tree has become a major pest in southern Florida because it outcompetes native trees and supplants most varieties. According to one authority, Floridians had kept Brazilian pepper trees as ornamental plants for decades with no problems. Then suddenly in the 1980s they began to grow wild and create environmental havoc. No one had any idea in advance that they might become a problem. The ecological paradox is that scientists remain uncertain about whether any guiding ecological principles can be applied to predicting whether an introduced species will become a dominant and invasive part of the landscape or simply disappear.

Major laws and regulations have been proposed about how we should deal with the present-day pervasiveness of introduced species. The solutions make politicians uneasy and biologists do not always agree on what they are. But if we do not do something, many environments will be changed in ways that are unquestionably negative from most perspectives.

Anyone living alongside a flooding river is unhappy about the situation. Even before floodwaters subside, people vow to become more vigilant about future flood control measures and about rebuilding. Being invaded by river floodwaters is a process with an ending; the water will eventually go away. The problem with many invasive species is that they never will. We need to be alert for the first signs that a new one is about to invade; we certainly don't want to find that flooded waters are transporting something like piranhas into new neighborhoods.

Whit Gibbons is an ecologist and environmental educator with the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory
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