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Crocodile Used For Home Security

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What would you do if coming home you saw a 10 1/2 feet (3.2 meter) Crocodile in the local swimming hole.  Take it to your Uncles, leave it in his front yard, put on a hose and then no-one, guaranteed will break into his house!
That’s exactly what happened in the small town of Gunbalunya, 300 south east of Darwin in Australia.
On Wednesday night two young men in their 20’s were coming home when they noticed the salt-water crocodile lazying around.  Concerned that the animal posed a danger to the people of the town they lifted the animal into the back of their car and dropped it off at their uncles.
There was no alternative they believed as emergency services could not be aroused at that time of night.
It wasn’t until the police the next morning were driving by on patrol that an alternative home was sought for the giant animal.  Why they asked the young men had they brought the croc to their uncles?  “Security,” police were told.

“We were doing a patrol and as we went by, they let us know it was there,” Police Constable David Melhuish told the Northern Territory News. “We were pretty surprised when we saw how big it was.”

It took five hefty Police Officers lift the crocodile into the Police wagon to be taken off to it’s new home.

Iowa Reptile Rescue hopes it will be rescued

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It needs $2,500 to cover rent and food (rats and vegetables) for 80 homeless reptiles and amphibians.

Hello, my name is Jose. I’m a green iguana.

Adopt me!

Jose’s plea will soon need a few more exclamation points – unless his caretakers raise $2,500 by the end of the month.

The rough economy has taken its toll on Iowa Reptile Rescue, which is home to about 80 reptiles and amphibians that, for many reasons, are homeless.

Jason and Robin Argo started the rescue 2feet,” Jason Argo said.

The Argos need $2,500 by Nov. 27 to catch up on money owed for their lease and rats and vegetables that their homeless critters eat. They’ve raised more than $600 so far.

The rescue has between 60 and 100 animals at any given time, depending on demand and other factors. The Animal Rescue League, which does animal control work for the city of Des Moines, has an agreement with the Argos to place all wayward reptiles and amphibians with them.

The Argos use a two-week waiting period on all adoptions to be sure the creatures find the right home.

“Everybody wants to adopt, but we’re real picky,” Jason Argo said.

Zac Sadler, who manages another store in the mall, said he would hate to see the group leave the mall or close.

“They try really hard to do the right thing,” Sadler said. “It’s truly a good cause.”

Argo said they’ve found a lawyer who is willing to do free work to help the rescue become a not-for-profit organization. That would make it eligible for grants to make the rescue solvent, even in tough times, he said.

Boys steal reptiles from nature center, fulfill your childhood dream

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Two brothers in Baltimore broke into a nature center and made off with an iguana, geckos, chameleons, turtles and a Madagascar hissing cockroach, the AP reports.

The boys are 11 and 14 and apparently not afraid of creepy creatures.

But do they fear the police?

They face juvenile charges including theft and breaking and entering. Right now they’re with their parents, and the reptiles are back at the Baltimore’s Carrie Murray Nature Center.

Aussie pair pack croc into car to save swimmers

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SYDNEY — Two Australian men didn’t just run when they spotted a large crocodile at a popular swimming hole, they packed it into their car and took it away so it would not pose a danger to other bathers.

The men found the 3.2-metre (11-foot) saltwater predator about 10 kilometres (six miles) from their remote Aboriginal community of Gunbalanya in the tropical northern region known as Arnhem Land on Wednesday, police said.

“They took it back in the back of a Troopcarrier (four-wheel drive),” a Northern Territory police spokeswoman said on Friday.

The men left the animal at a relative’s home, where it sat lazily in a pool of water in the front yard overnight — with its jaws and legs securely bound — as they prepared to release it back into the wild.

“It appears that they knew what they were doing,” the spokeswoman said, adding that the animal was not harmed in any way.

The reptile was later released into the East Alligator River with the assistance of wildlife officials.

Australian authorities trap crocodiles in the country’s far north each year to reduce the likelihood of the deadly saltwater species finding their way to popular swimming locations.

“It’s a timely reminder that crocodiles do move around and can be found in most Top End waterways,” Parks and Wildlife Service acting chief district ranger Lincoln Wilson said in a statement.

Air Force Base ‘Gator Mascot’ Gets New Home

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The Charleston Air Force Base was on lock down this week, not for a training exercise, but to relocate the base’s 12-foot mascot of the reptilian kind.

In retention pond on the Charleston Air Force lies the joint base’s alligator, named ‘Charlie.’

“He’s a very large alligator, he’s a over mature bull alligator,” says Terrance Leraber, the resources manager for the base. Charlie has called the pond home on the base for over 50 years, but he had to be moved–temporarily.

“Charlie will stay here while his pond is being enlarged probably for a couple of months and then we will move him back to his original home place,” says Leraber.

The base is doing some construction work near Charlie’s pond and wanted to protect the workers and their mascot from any unfortunate accidents.

“This was a first time experience for everybody involved including Charlie,” said Leraber.

The move went as expected, leaving Charlie with a new place to call home. “Untied him, release him. He swam off and appears to be perfectly alright,” Leraber says.

Researchers link an African lizard fossil in Africa with the Komodo dragon in Indonesia

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University of Alberta researchers have unearthed a mysterious link between bones of an ancient lizard found in Africa and the biggest, baddest modern-day lizard of them all, the Komodo dragon, half a world away in Indonesia.

Biologists Alison Murray and Rob Holmes say the unique shape of the vertebrae links the 33-million-year-old African lizard fossil with its cousin the Komodo, which has only been around for some 700,000 years.

“The African fossil was found on the surface of a windswept desert,” said Holmes. “It’s definitely from the lizard genus Varanus and there are more than 50 species alive today, including Komodos and other large lizards.”

Holmes says the telltale African vertebrae fossils belonged to a lizard that was about a metre- and-a-half long whose ability to swim may be key to figuring out how more than 30 million years later its ancestors turned up on the other side of the world.

Holmes says the ancient African Varanus specimen was found on land that was once the bottom of a river or small lake. “Whether the animals lived in the water or surrounding land, we don’t know, but we do know that some modern day species of Varanus are comfortable swimming in fresh water.”

The researchers agree that fresh-water swimming wouldn’t get the African lizard all the way to Indonesia. Murray says the mystery of how the animals spread deepens when you consider ancient world geography. “From about 100 million years ago until 12 million years ago, Africa was completely isolated, surrounded by ocean, but somehow they got out of Africa during that period,” said Murray. “That’s why this paper is important because there was no known land connection.”

Murray says one unproven theory of how Varanus moved out of Africa is that over millions of years, small land masses or micro-plates may have moved from one place to another, carrying their fauna with them.

The work of the U of A researchers and various co-authors runs counter to some prevailing theories about the origins of some ancient fossil types found in Africa including Varanus lizards and some fresh-water fish. “The assumption for several types of ancient African fossils is that the animals didn’t originate in Africa but came there from Asia,” says Holmes. “But the fossil record of Varanus shows exactly the opposite path of migration.”

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The work of Murray and Holmes and various co-authors was published in the journal Palaeontology.