First record for the genus Antaresia (Squamata: Pythonidae) from Papua New Guinea

On 11 August 2000, during the filming of a documentary in Western Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG), the authors flew from Darn Island to the disused airstrip at Weam (141°07'E, 08°37'S), ca. 33 km E of the Indonesian border (Fig. 1). While searching among discarded metal sheeting on the edge of the Weam runway, we found a small Antaresia and two skin sloughs, likely to have come from the same snake, between two upright layers of corrugated sheeting (Fig. 2). The specimen is the first representative of the genus to be found in New Guinea and the first recorded outside Australia.Published versio

Courtship entanglements: a first report of mating behavior and sexual dichromatism in the Southeast Asian keel-bellied whipsnake, Dryophiops rubescens

We describe the first observations of courtship behavior and sexual dichromatism in the keel-bellied whipsnake, Dryophiops rubescens, from an encounter near Sandakan, eastern Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia. During this behavior, two males and a female were longitudinally intertwined, with the males jockeying for position along the body of the female. This “mating braid” lasted for well over 1 h, with the entwined snakes moving a distance of over 10 m together. While polygynous mating is known from other snake species, direct observations of mating behaviors in Southeast Asian colubrids are extremely rare. These observations also revealed the presence of sexual dichromatism in D. rubescens, with darker head coloration present in the males

„Ich zeig dir meine Briefmarkensammlung‟ : Ein personliches Abenteuer in der herpetologischen Philatelie

Article published in Sekretär in October 2022. Translated into German by Sven Mecke.Motivphilatelie ist das Sammeln von Briefmarken zu einem bestimmten Thema, in diesem Fall Briefmarken mit Amphibien und Reptilen, von denen es buchstablich Tausende gibt. Dieser Artikel befasst sich mit ikonischen Briefmarkensatzen, die viele von uns in ihrer Jugend besessen haben oder an die sie sich zumindest erinnern, thematisiert aber auch jiingst erschienene Briefmarkenausgaben. Von der Wiederentdeckung der eigenen Briefmarkensammlung aus der Kindheit, iiber die Zusammenstellung von Marken zu kleinen Kunstwerken, werden wunderschon gestaltete Marken prasentiert, bei denen die abgebildeten Tiere leicht bis auf die Art bestimmt werden konnen. Diese Abbildungen waren auch in einem Bestimmungsbuch nicht fehl am Platz. Andere Abbildungen hingegen sind so schlecht, dass allein die scheu£lichen Motive den Charme der Briefmarken ausmachen. Dieser Artikel geht auf einen Vortrag zuriick, den der Autor auf der LGHTTagung in Marburg im Mai 2022 gehalten hat. Falls dieser Vortrag und / oder der vorliegende Artikel die Zuhorer"innen bzw. Leser*innen dazu veranlasst hat, auf ihren Dachboden nach verstaubten und einst aufgegebenen Briefmarkenalben aus der Jugendzeit zu suchen, kann wohl ein Erfolg verzeichnet werden. Thematic stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps relating to a specific subject, in this case stamps featuring amphibians and reptiles - there are literally thousands of them out there. The article explores iconic sets that many of us will have owned or at least remembered from their youth, through to some of the most recent issues of herp stamps. It follows the author's rediscovery of his childhood stamp collection and its transition into little artworks of herpetological thematics, presenting beautifully rendered images of animals that can be easily identified down to species and which would not look out of place in a field guide, to some that are so bad that their very awfulness is their charm. This article came out of a lecture presented by the author at the LGHT meeting in Marburg in May 2022 and if either that lecture or this article sent members scurrying into their attics to locate their dusty and long abandoned stamp albums of youth it will have been successful

First Record of the Poorly Known Skink Sphenomorphus oligolepis (Boulenger, 1914) (Reptilia: Squamata: Scincidae) from Seram Island, Maluku Province, Indonesia

Based on four specimens discovered in the collection of The Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom, we present a new distribution record for the skink Sphenomorphus oligolepis for Seram Island, Maluku Province, Indonesia. This find constitutes the westernmost record for the species and extends its range by over 800 km. The species was heretofore only known from apparently isolated mainland New Guinean populations

A 140-year-old specimen from the southern Trans-Fly region of Papua New Guinea proves that the Eastern Brownsnake, Pseudonaja textilis, was not a wartime or post-war introduction (Serpentes, Elapidae, Hydrophiinae)

Abstract: The medically important Australian elapid Pseudonaja textilis was first documented for the island of New Guinea in the 1950s, when specimens from the northern coast of the Papuan Peninsula were collected and identified. It was initially believed that these snakes were from an invasive population that established post-World War II, a concept generally accepted over following decades. More recently molecular evidence and additional specimens, from West New Guinea and the southern coast of the Papuan Peninsula, have suggested that the New Guinea populations are indigenous. However, no pre-World War II specimens have been found to dismiss the human-mediated introduction argument. We here present the earliest known Papuan voucher specimen of P. textilis, a juvenile from collections housed in Genoa made by Luigi Maria D’Albertis in 1876 that pre-dates all other vouchers and the New Guinea Campaign (1942-1945) of World War II by 77 and 66 years, respectively. We also discuss the origins of P. textilis in New Guinea, the history of its discovery, and the Pleistocene routes of its invasion from Australia.interna