Consumption of Bird Eggs by Invasive

WWW.IRCF.ORG/REPTILESANDAMPHIBIANSJOURNALTABLE OF CONTENTS IRCF REPTILES IRCF& AMPHIBIANS REPTILES • VOL &15, AMPHIBIANS NO 4 • DEC 2008 • 19(1):64–66189 • MARCH 2012 IRCF REPTILES & AMPHIBIANS CONSERVATION AND NATURAL HISTORY TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCED SPECIES FEATURE ARTICLES . Chasing Bullsnakes (Pituophis catenifer sayi) in Wisconsin: On the Road to Understanding the Ecology and Conservation of the Midwest’s Giant Serpent ...................... Joshua M. Kapfer 190 . The Shared HistoryConsumption of Treeboas (Corallus grenadensis) and Humans on ofGrenada: Bird Eggs A Hypothetical Excursion ............................................................................................................................Robert W. Henderson 198 byRESEARCH Invasive ARTICLES Burmese Pythons in Florida . The Texas Horned Lizard in Central and Western Texas ....................... Emily Henry, Jason Brewer, Krista Mougey, and Gad Perry 204 1 2 3 . The Knight Anole (Anolis equestrisCarla) inJ. Florida Dove , Robert N. Reed , and Ray W. Snow .............................................Brian J. Camposano, Kenneth L. Krysko, Kevin M. Enge, Ellen M. Donlan, and Michael Granatosky 212 1 SmithsonianCONSERVATION Institution, Division ALERT of Birds, NHB E-600, MRC 116, Washington, District of Columbia 20560, USA ([email protected]) 2U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center, 2150 Centre Ave, Bldg C, Fort Collins, Colorado 80526, USA ([email protected]) . World’s Mammals in Crisis ............................................................................................................................................................. 220 3 National. More Park Than Service, Mammals Everglades ...................................................................................................................................................................... National Park, 40001 State Road 9336, Homestead, Florida 33034, USA ([email protected]) 223 . The “Dow Jones Index” of Biodiversity ........................................................................................................................................... 225 HUSBANDRY urmese Pythons .(PythonCaptive Care molurus of the Central bivittatus Netted Dragon or ....................................................................................................... P. bivitta- Lynch 1993). We did not Shannon find Plummer associated 226 with this sample Btus) have been reported to consume 25 species of adult any evidence of embryos or black downy feathers typical of PROFILE birds in Everglades National Park, Florida (Dove et al. 2011), Limpkin chicks. Kraig Adler: A Lifetime Promoting Herpetology ................................................................................................ Michael L. Treglia 234 but until now no records documented this species eating bird On the morning of 21 May 2011, the Miami-Dade eggs. Here we reportCOMMENTARY three recent cases of bird-egg consump- Fire Rescue Venom Response Unit responded to a rural resi- tion by Burmese Pythons. The Turtles and Have discuss Been Watching egg-eating Me ........................................................................................................................ in basal dence in southwestern Miami-Dade Eric Gangloff 238 County (25.54646°N, snakes. BOOK REVIEW 80.54573°W; WGS84) following a report that a python was On 8 January 2011,. Threatened an adult Amphibians (2.78 of them World snout-vent edited by S.N. length Stuart, M. Hoffmann,seen near J.S. Chanson,the nest N.A. of Cox, a free-ranging Guineafowl (Numida R. Berridge, P. Ramani, and B.E. Young .............................................................................................................. Robert Powell 243 [SVL], 3.14 m total length [TL], 13.9 kg) female Burmese Python was captured CONSERVATION on a canal bank RESEARCH (L-29) REPORTS:adjacent toSummaries U.S. of Published Conservation Research Reports ................................. 245 Highway 41, near EvergladesNATURAL HISTORY National RESEARCH Park, REPORTSMiami-Dade: Summaries of Published Reports on Natural History ................................. 247 NEWBRIEFS ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 248 County, Florida (25.76200°N, EDITORIAL INFORMATION 80.78211°W; ..................................................................................................................................................... WGS84). The 251 lower GI tract included FOCUS a small ON CONSERVATION amount of decomposed: A Project You feathCan Support- ............................................................................................... 252 ers, small heavily digested bones, and the crushed, but intact, remains of two bird eggs. These egg remains were deposited (EVER 44949) in the South Florida Collections Management Center, Everglades National Park, Homestead,Front Cover. Shannon Florida. Plummer. Many Back Cover. Michael Kern Totat et velleseque audant mo Totat et velleseque audant mo small pieces of eggshell fragments wereestibus attached inveliquo velique to the rerchil white estibus inveliquo velique rerchil egg membranes (Fig. 1) making specieserspienimus, identification quos accullabo. Ilibus pos - erspienimus, quos accullabo. Ilibus aut dolor apicto invere pe dolum aut dolor apicto invere pe dolum sible. We used techniques describedfugiatis in Dove maionsequat et al. eumque (2008) to fugiatis maionsequat eumque obtain DNA sequences for cytochromemoditia ererec oxidase nonsedis masubunit sectiatur 1 moditia erere nonsedis ma sectia- ma derrovitae voluptam, as quos tur ma derrovitae voluptam, as (CO1) from the intact egg membranes.accullabo. DNA sequences were compared to the Barcode of Life Database (www.boldsystems. org/views/login.php) to obtain 100% matches to Limpkin (Aramus guarauna). The color of the eggshell fragments con- sisted of grayish white ground color with faint pinkish-brown, buff splotches on the outside, and the inner shell was white (not blue as in other bird species), which is congruent with an account for this species (Bryan 2002). Following DNA identification, the eggshell fragments were compared to reference specimens of Limpkin eggs at the Smithsonian Institution for Fig. 1. Two Limpkin (Aramus guarauna) crushed but intact eggs (top; verification. Pigmentation of the eggshells is evidence that EVER 44949) recovered from a Burmese Python digestive tract and compared to a reference Limpkin specimen (below; USNM 25786) for size and the eggs were laid and not part of a consumed adult bird. color patterns. The arrow shows fragments of eggshells from the python Pigmentation is secreted in the uterus of most birds just prior sample placed on the museum specimen for color comparison. Photograph to laying and is the final step in egg production (Proctor and by Don Hurlbert, Smithsonian Institution. 64 INTRODUCED SPECIES IRCF REPTILES & AMPHIBIANS • 19(1):64–66 • MARCH 2012 meleagris domesticus) with 10 eggs that had recently disap- prey items that are difficult to handle (such as very large eggs), peared. The Venom Unit captured an adult (2.27 m SVL, and that such prey “are correspondingly rare or absent from the 2.61 m TL, 6.73 kg) male Burmese Python at the residence at diets of more basal snakes.” Many colubroid snakes that occa- 11:00 AM the same day. During transport, the snake regur- sionally consume relatively (to the snake’s head) large bird eggs gitated a Guineafowl hen (928 g) and 10 intact eggs (five of exhibit pointed or bladelike hypapophyses (ventral processes) these are depicted in Fig. 2). The landowner claimed that this on anterior vertebrae that serve to break the eggshell in the was the second time she had noted the disappearance of a esophagus (Mullin 1996), and the presence of hypapophyses Guineafowl and its eggs, but she had not previously observed has been described as a “critical limiting factor” in consumption a snake. The python is now catalogued (USNM 558849) in of large bird eggs by snakes (Cundall and Greene 2000:320). the herpetological collections at the Smithsonian Institution. Burmese Pythons exhibit hypopophyses on cervical verte- The regurgitated Guineafowl eggs measured 45.6–49.0 x brae (Fig. 3), but these lack the sharp projections or bladelike 35.3–37.8 mm and weighed 30–36 g, such that each egg ventral surfaces (cf. ratsnakes; Mullin 1996) usually associated represented approximately 0.5% of the python’s body mass. with specialist egg-eaters. The hypapophyses are prominent in Limpkin eggs average 55–64 x 41–47 mm (Walters 1994). anterior vertebrae (to approximately vertebrum #48, at about These represent exceptionally small individual prey items for the level of the heart), after which they undergo rapid reduction snakes of this size. in size. They end as small ventral ridges on vertebral centra by In addition to the two examples described above, bird approximately vertebrum #58, well before the stomach (per- egg fragments were found in the intestine of a third Burmese sonal observation, based on vertebrae from a male TL 265 cm Python from U.S. Highway 41 near Everglades National Park, and SVL 232.5 cm [EVER 66690] captured in the Everglades). but evidence was insufficient to identify the species of bird. The Guineafowl eggs consumed by the python were entire Durophagy (consumption of hard-shelled objects) is rela- at the time of regurgitation, suggesting that either

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