November 2011
volume 26, issue 11
Pacific Northwest Herpetological Society Next Meeting: November 13, 2011
Inside this issue:
Annual Auction & Potluck
Upcoming Events…… 2 General information
3
Letter from the President……………….. 4 Python Study Could Benefit human heart disease….
7
Classifieds…………….. 10 Contacts…………………... 11
Meeting Location: Highline Community College
Board Meeting 4 p.m.
2400 S. 240th St., Des Moines, WA
Potluck/Auction: 5 p.m.
Special Speaker Presentation: Nick Mutton, of Inland Reptile, will be speaking about his newly released book with Dr. Justin Julander: “Complete Carpet Python, A Comprehensive Guide to the Natural History, Care, and Breeding of the ‘Morelia spilota’ Complex.”
Suggested Vets…………….. 11
Membership Application………………..
12
Come for food and fun while supporting PNHS! There is no “Herp of the Month”
November PNHS Newsletter Deadline: Nov. 30, 2011
for November due to the Potluck.
Page 2
Upcoming PNHS Events Pa g e 2
November 13, 2011:
PNHS ’ Annual Auction & Potluck ( in place of a regular meeting ) Come enjoy food and fun with a special presentation by guest speaker Nick Mutton on the release of his new book, along with Dr. Justin Ju lander: “ Complete Carpet Python, A Comprehensive Guide to the Natu
ral History, Care and Breeding of the “ Morelia spilota ” Complex. ” December 2011:
PNHS Elections: Current members receive ballots and cast votes via Snail Mail.
December 11, 2011:
PNHS Regular Meeting Herp-of-the-Month: Herps of North America Speaker: Doug Taylor, topic TBA
January 15, 2012:
PNHS Regular Meeting Herp-of-the-Month: “ L arge Lizards ” Speaker: Dr. Robert Sprackland, topic TBA
February 13, 2012:
PNHS Regular Meeting Herp-of-the-Month: Calling all Chelonians! ( T urtles, Tortoises & Terrapins ) Speaker: Jerry Novak of Pacific Northwest Turtleworks, topic TBA
Plan Ahead:
June 2nd—3rd, 2012: Emerald City Reptile Expo Seattle Center Exhibition Hall
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General information & guidelines re
PNHS’ Monthly Meetings are a great place to learn something new, purchase feeders at a discount, and meet new people
General Information The Pacific Northwest Herpetological Society (PNHS) is a non-profit organization registered with the State of Washington. PNHS is dedicated to the education of its members and the public, as well as the conservation, ecology, and captive care and breeding of reptiles and amphibians. The society also takes an active role in legislative and environmental issues affecting these animals and their habitats. Meeting Information PNHS holds its general meeting on the third Sunday of every month (with exceptions for holidays) at 6:00pm at Highline Community College in Des Moines, Building 12 Room 101. The Board meeting begins at 4:00pm. Doors open at 5:30. Other business and socialization occurs between 5:30 and 6; then the General Meeting starts. Meetings are open to the public, and the society encourages anyone with an interest in herpetology to attend. Please purchase a membership to show your support for the society. Animal Donations Looking to adopt, release an animal or donate cages and equipment? Please contact the Adoptions Committee by email at adoptions@pnwhs.org, or by voicemail at 206- 583-0686. We will contact you and make arrangements. Other Donations The Adoption Committee receives minimal financial support from the Society, so donations of money, food, cages, and equipment are always needed and appreciated. Please contact the Adoption Chair to make a donation. Adoptions To adopt an animal that is in the care of the Committee, you must be present at the meeting, be a current member (of at least one month), and be over 18 years of age or have parental consent. For more details see the web site or contact the Adoption Chair. Newsletter Information A monthly newsletter absorbs the lion’s share of the price of a PNHS membership. In order to keep it interesting, we encourage contribution of original articles, book reviews, letters, ads, and cartoons for publication. Items for incorporation into articles are also welcome, though with no guarantee of their use. Submissions may be sent to the Newsletter Committee or to the Society through the contacts listed on the following page.
Above: Both Green Tree Python Photos courtesy of the Adams’ Family.
Editorial Policy The views expressed in this publication are solely the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of the Society, its members, or the Newsletter Committee. The Newsletter Committee reserves the right to edit all submissions including advertisements.
Page 4
Letter from the President By Aimee Kenoyer
So let’s talk about the dirty word on everyone’s lips these days: economy (groan). It’s everywhere, on all our minds, and jammed into our faces from every possible media source all day long. While we would all like to escape this for at least as long as it takes to read one of my silly LFTPs, we as herpers have our own particular challenges when the economy is this awful. Let’s talk about our Adoptions program. We’re loaded. We have all the fosters we can squeeze in, and are still turning animals away. A few years ago, the most common reason I heard was, “little Timmy just isn’t interested anymore / is going to college / is too busy chasing girls / fiancée doesn’t like herps”. Basically, all these excuses add up to: “I bought a cute little herp and now it bores me”. Today, by far the most common reason for people to release animals to PNHS is an inability to afford vet care and basic supplies. In particular, we’ve taken several animals in the past handful of months in critical need of veterinary care. In a few cases, the reason for surrendering the pet was because they lost their home and/or had to move to a much smaller place. Is there a way to keep herps “on the cheap”? I have a varied collection, but not a terribly large one. I also have an uninsulated home built around 1920 with electric baseboard heat – believe me, I feel the burn when I get my power bills in the winter. There are a few things I have learned over the past several years that have helped me keep my herping affordable, and I’m going to share them here: First: don’t turn all your heat down low and compensate with larger / higher wattage bulbs. This doesn’t work. The primary result is a more variable range of temperature for your herps, accompanied by higher power bills. As far as heating is concerned, I’ve tried this a few ways and in my home, with my setups, I find that keeping the overall ure in the house a bit warmer and using less supplemental heat is actually more efficient. I’ve Continued...
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Letter From The President, Continued... also found that I can achieve this more efficiently with two oil-filled radiators, as opposed to turning on five baseboard heaters. This has the added benefits of not drying the air quite so much, and being more pleasant on cold mornings. Second, think about where you get your feeders. Even if your collection is very small, this can make a huge difference. For example, a small rat (45-50g) at a box-chain pet store goes for about $6 a pop. This is insane. There are few PNHS’ers who come to meetings that sell rats of the same size for less than $2 each. If your python eats one rat per week this size, that’s an exceptional cost difference - $24/month vs $8/month on a single animal. Third, consider caging. We all lust after the custom, built-in herp wall with moodlighting and matching wooden-framed glass-fronted caging, but until we are able to remodel our homes to accommodate our herps there are other options. Homemade custom caging can be quite beautiful and less expensive than some of what you can buy; it takes time and a small initial outlay. Aquarium-style caging can accommodate a small collection quite well and tanks can be found free or very cheap, if you’re willing to put a little time and effort into craigslist. Cage furniture and substrate can be as simple as newspaper with a cereal-box hide, and water dish from a piece of glassware purchased at goodwill or fake plants picked up at the dollar-store or a garage sale. Please, if you partake of used caging, thoroughly disinfect before putting into use! Fourth, DON’T stint on heat and light requirements. Your herp can be perfectly happy in an aquarium on newspaper with a few sticks and fake vines, but if you try to save money on necessities like bulbs – particularly when it comes to UV – your animals will not thrive. Time and again we’ve seen the effects of this sort of cost-cutting some limping into our Adoptions program. As far as PNHS itself is concerned we’re not rich but we are maintaining our steady rate of growth, thanks in large part to you, our Loyal Membership. Fortunately, PNHS’ ability to pay for vet care has grown along with our membership numbers and our fundraising activity (most notably the ECRE). This is one reason why it is so important for Continued...
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us all to be involved in PNHS’ fundraising efforts! Those of us who can’t donate money but would like to contribute to our rescue can foster, do Outreach, volunteer at the ECRE…there are many ways to give to the group. One way right around the corner is the PNHS Auction on November 13th. Don’t have money to spend? Fine – auction a gift certificate for your time. I’ve donated ½ day of yard work the last three years running. It has been a popular item and a way that I can personally support PNHS without spending money I need to feed all my hungry herps. As far as a grass-roots, community-based approach, I’d encourage each and every one of you to support our local, independent businesses – like the Beanfarm (http://www.beanfarm.com/) and Winters Reptiles (wintersreptiles@gmail.com), along with the local businesses advertising in our PNHS Classifieds section, when buying your supplies and feeders, and also as good places for advice, caresheets, and contacts. Support growth in our local economy as well by researching area sources for captive-bred animals when you want to add to your collection (and think Adoption!). Unless you’re looking for something very unusual – and in some cases, even then – you’ll be able to find almost anything you want close to home. If you have to spend your dollars, spend them here.
Aimee Kenoyer PNHS President
P aVol. g e 726, No. 11
Python Circulating Fatty Acids Study Could Benefit Diseased Human Heart Provided By The University of Colorado at Boulder Reprinted with permission: HerpDigest, Vol. 11, Issue 45, Dated 10/28/11; www.HerpDigest.org
Boulder professor Leslie Leinwand and her team have discovered that huge amounts of fatty acids circulating through the bloodstreams of feeding pythons promote healthy heart growth in the constricting snake, a study with implications for human heart heath. A surprising new University of Colorado Boulder study shows that huge amounts of fatty acids circulating in the bloodstreams of feeding pythons promote healthy heart growth, results that may have implications for treating human heart disease. CU-Boulder Professor Leslie Leinwand and her research team found the amount of triglycerides -- the main constituent of natural fats and oils -- in the blood of Burmese pythons one day after eating increased by more than fifty-fold. Despite the massive amount of fatty acids in the python bloodstream there was no evidence of fat deposition in the heart, and the researchers also saw an increase in the activity of a key enzyme known to protect the heart from damage. After identifying the chemical make-up of blood plasma in fed pythons, the CU-Boulder researchers injected fasting pythons with either "fed python" blood plasma or a reconstituted fatty acid mixture they developed to mimic such plasma. In both cases, the pythons showed increased heart growth and indicators of cardiac health. The team took the experiments a step further by injecting mice with either fed python plasma or the fatty acid mixture, with the same results. "We found that a combination of fatty acids can induce beneficial heart growth in living organisms," said CU-Boulder postdoctoral researcher Cecilia Riquelme, first author on the Science paper. "Now we are trying to understand the molecular mechanisms behind the process in hopes that the results might lead to new therapies to improve heart disease conditions in humans." The paper is being published in the Oct. 28 issue of the journal Science. In addition to Leinwand and Riquelme, the authors include CU postdoctoral researcher Brooke Harrison, CU graduate student Jason Magida, CU undergraduate Christopher Wall, Hiberna Corp. researcher Thomas Marr and University of Alabama Tuscaloosa Professor Stephen Secor. Continued‌..
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“Python Studyâ€? Continued... Previous studies have shown that the hearts of Burmese pythons can grow in mass by 40 percent within 24 to 72 hours after a large meal, and that metabolism immediately after swallowing prey can shoot up by forty-fold. As big around as telephone poles, adult Burmese pythons can swallow prey as large as deer, have been known to reach a length of 27 feet and are able to fast for up to a year with few ill effects. There are good and bad types of heart growth, said Leinwand, who is an expert in genetic heart diseases including hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the leading cause of sudden death in young athletes. While cardiac diseases can cause human heart muscle to thicken and decrease the size of heart chambers and heart function because the organ is working harder to pump blood, heart enlargement from exercise is beneficial. "Well-conditioned athletes like Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps and cyclist Lance Armstrong have huge hearts," said Leinwand, a professor in the molecular, cellular and developmental biology department and chief scientific officer of CU's Biofrontiers Institute. "But there are many people who are unable to exercise because of existing heart disease, so it would be nice to develop some kind of a treatment to promote the beneficial growth of heart cells." Riquelme said once the CU team confirmed that something in the blood plasma of pythons was inducing positive cardiac growth, they began looking for the right "signal" by analyzing proteins, lipids, nucleic acids and peptides present in the fed plasma. The team used a technique known as gas chromatography to analyze both fasted and fed python plasma blood, eventually identifying a highly complex composition of circulating fatty acids with distinct patterns of abundance over the course of the digestive process. In the mouse experiments led by Harrison, the animals were hooked up to "mini-pumps" that delivered low doses of the fatty acid mixture over a period of a week. Not only did the mouse hearts show significant growth in the major part of the heart that pumps blood, the heart muscle cell size increased, there was no increase in heart fibrosis -- which makes the heart muscle more stiff and can be a sign of disease -- and there were no alterations in the liver or in the skeletal muscles, he said. "It was remarkable that the fatty acids identified in the plasma-fed pythons could actually stimulate healthy heart growth in mice," said Harrison. The team also tested the fed python plasma and the fatty acid mixture on cultured rat heart cells, with the same positive results, Harrison said. Continued‌.
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“Python Study� Continued... The CU-led team also identified the activation of signaling pathways in the cells of fed python plasma, which serve as traffic lights of sorts, said Leinwand. "We are trying to understand how to make those signals tell individual heart cells whether they are going down a road that has pathological consequences, like disease, or beneficial consequences, like exercise," she said. The prey of Burmese pythons can be up to 100 percent of the constricting snake's body mass, said Leinwand, who holds a Marsico Endowed Chair of Excellence at CU-Boulder. "When a python eats, something extraordinary happens. Its metabolism increases by more than forty-fold and the size of its organs increase significantly in mass by building new tissue, which is broken back down during the digestion process." The three key fatty acids in the fed python plasma turned out to be myristic acid, palmitic acid and palmitoleic acid. The enzyme that showed increased activity in the python hearts during feeding episodes, known as superoxide dismutase, is a well-known "cardio-protective" enzyme in many organisms, including humans, said Leinwand. The new Science study grew out of a project Leinwand began in 2006 when she was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor and awarded a four-year, $1 million undergraduate education grant from the Chevy Chase, Md.-based institute. As part of the award Leinwand initiated the Python Project, an undergraduate laboratory research program designed to focus on the heart biology of constricting snakes like pythons thought to have relevance to human disease. Undergraduates contributed substantially to the underpinnings of the new python study both by their genetic studies and by caring for the lab pythons, said Leinwand. While scientists know a great deal about the genomes of standard lab animal models like fruit flies, worms and mice, relatively little was known about pythons. "We have had to do a lot of difficult groundwork using molecular genetics tools in order to undertake this research," said Leinwand. CU-Boulder already had a laboratory snake facility in place, which contributed to the success of the project, she said. "The fact that the python study involved faculty, postdoctoral researchers, a graduate student and an undergraduate, Christopher Wall, shows the project was a team effort," said Leinwand. "Chris is a good example of how the University of Colorado provides an incredible educational research environment for undergraduates." Wall is now a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego.
Classifieds
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PNHS would like to thank “Animal Talk Pet Shop” & “Animal Talk Rescue” for their generous donations of feeders for our foster animals!
Are you a Fluffy Foster? Kitten season is upon us & Animal Talk Rescue is urgently looking for foster homes for kitten(s). A full-line pet
Animal Talk Pet Shop 6514 Roosevelt Way NE Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-1558
store...and so much more! Find us on Facebook!
Join the Global Gecko Association Today! The GGA is a six year old international organization dedicated to the needs of all people interested in geckos. Members receive the twice-yearly, full-color journal, “Gekko”, plus “Chit-Chat”, our quarterly newsletter. Annual Membership is $32 US, $34 Canada/Mexico, $36 Overseas. Email: ElizabethFreer@aol.com (503)-436-1064 or www.gekkota.com
Feeder Insects & Rodents
Bean Farm’s Creative Habitats Slide-Top Aquariums
I have superworms, giant mealworms, and lots more! Plus, I now carry frozen rodents.
Various sizes available.
Order in advance: special pricing for PNHS members,,as well as quantity discounts!
We can deliver the cages to the meetings, as well as any other item from the Bean Farm catalogue.
For pick up and PNHS meeting delivery.
Please contact us by the Friday before the meeting in order for items to be delivered. Thank you!
Jennifer Sronce (425) 750-0477
Paula & Giovani Fagioli (877) 708-5882
www.seattlefeeders@gmail.com
Email: beanfarm@beanfarm.com www.beanfarm.com
Advertise in the PNHS Newsletter! Business Card .............................$5 Quarter Page................................$10 Half Page ....................................$15 Full Page .....................................$25 If you would like to place an ad in the PNHS newsletter, please contact: newsletter.editor@pnwhs.org GET PUBLICITY FOR YOUR BUSINESS & SUPPORTING PNHS!
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Contact Information PNHS P.O. Box 66147
adoptions:206-583-0686
Burien, WA 98166
email: contactus@pnwhs.org
www.pnwhs.org
general information: 206-628-4740
Area Representatives Greater Seattle
Aimee Kenoyer 206-200-1240
aimee.kenoyer@pnwhs.org
N King & Snohomish
Brenda Huber 206-334-7168
brenda.huber@pnwhs.org
S King & Pierce
Dale Drexler
dale.drexler@yahoo.com
Oregon
Elizabeth Freer 503-436-1064
253-606-4328
elizabethfreer@aol.com
Peninsula, Skagit, Whatcom & Island, Thurston, Lewis, Spokane—need volunteers! Officers for 2011 President
Aimee Kenoyer
aimee.kenoyer@pnwhs.org
Vice President
Dave Alverson
dave.alverson@pnwhs.org
President-Elect
Brenda Huber
brenda.huber@pnwhs.org
Treasurer
Dale Drexler
dale.drexler@pnwhs.org
Secretary
Mel Kreachbaum
secretary@pnwhs.org
Membership Secretary Vivian Eleven
members@pnwhs.org
Members-At-Large
Rachel Shirk
rachel.shirk@pnwhs.org
Julie Sharkey
julie.sharkey@pnwhs.org
Geoff Sweet
geoff.sweet@pnwhs.org
Heather Shipway
heather.shipway@pnwhs.org
Amanda Perez
amanda.perez@pnwhs.org
Adoptions Coordinator Rachel Shirk
adoptions@pnwhs.org
Newsletter Editor
Marian Huber
newsletter@pnwhs.org
Webmaster
Geoff Sweet
webmaster@pnwhs.org
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To join PNHS, please print & complete the following application, enclose your yearly or multi-yearly membership fee and return to: PNHS Membership Secretary P.O. Box 66147 Burien, WA 98166 Membership applications and fees may also be received at the monthly meetings by the Membership Secretary. With your yearly or multi-year membership fee you will receive the monthly PNHS E-Newsletter, access to membership pricing for adoption animals, and the opportunity to participate in the many outreaches and special “Members Only� events held throughout the year.
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Above: Kids are intent on everything Board Member Geoff Sweet has to say at an outreach in Duvall, 2005.
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