#British reptiles

[calochortus]

Viviparous Lizard (Zootoca vivipara) by Will Atkins Via Flickr: female

[sitting-on-me-bum]

A smooth helmeted iguana clings to a mossy tree trunk, well camouflaged.

Photograph: Javier Lobon-Rovira

The British Ecological Society Annual Capturing Ecology Competition

[aisphotostuff]

Terrapins in Peckham rye park.. by Adam Swaine Via Flickr: The most common terrapin in the UK is the red-eared terrapin,Terrapins lie somewhere between turtles and tortoises. They happily live in water but also like to bask in the sun. Like turtles, they are omnivores.

[pandaakatsuki]

That post about the husbands as ANCH Blathers and Flick? Yeah Well my headcanon is that Aziraphale has a private book collection on the island and whenever Crowley is there to survey the local flora and maintain the community blooms, he usually makes a trip to Aegolius' Boobookery House to 'save' the 'entomophobic' bookkeeper from household pests and then stays for a grateful nightcap

[weirdlookindog]

Rasputin, the Mad Monk (1966) & The Reptile (1966)

[halloweenhundreds]

The Reptile is the Hammer movie I always mix up in my memory with The Gorgon. The wife in this isn’t completely useless and there’s a lot of unique touches but it just ends up feeling deflated and racist. Good hustle from everyone but it doesn’t show on the scoreboard.

[arthistoryanimalia]

For #TurtleTuesday:

Ki-ki myo-myo 亀喜妙々(Strange and Marvellous Turtles of Happiness) by Utagawa Kuniyoshi 歌川国芳 (1797-1861), Japan, Edo period, 1847-1852. Triptych woodblock print (nishiki-e), ink and color on paper, H 3.58 cm x W 7.40 cm. British Museum.

More info about the context of this image via The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: "Working at the end of the Edo period, the ingenious and prolific print artist Kuniyoshi brings the story of actors’ likenesses to a comic culmination in his depiction of twenty-three turtles, each with the face of a famous Kabuki actor of the day, scurrying around a red lacquer sake cup. Newly enforced publishing censorship rules from the Tenpō Reforms (1841–43) prohibited printmakers from making identifiable pictures of actors or courtesans."

[moviesandmania]

THE REPTILE (1966) Reviews of Hammer snake woman horror

‘What strange power made her half woman – half snake?’ The Reptile is a 1966 British horror film about villagers dying from mysterious snake bites which the coroner deems to be heart attacks until a family of newcomers starts an investigation. Directed by John Gilling (back-to-back with The Plague of the Zombies) from a screenplay by John Elder [Anthony Hinds]. The  Hammer Film production stars…

[schlock-luster-video]

On January 5, 1967, The Reptile debuted in Mexico.

[panicinthestudio]

Gold bracelet in the form of a coiled snake, 1st century CE

Pompeii, Roman, Naples

Gold

Dimensions: 8 x 8.80 x 3 cm

Collection of the British Museum

A Roman gold bracelet in the form of a coiled snake, it’s from Pompeii, circa 1st AD. 

Source 

[arrghigiveup]

[...] there was a unique sight in the final practice session on Saturday ahead of Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix when an adventurous lizard put a halt to proceedings. The curious reptile ventured onto the Marina Bay Street Circuit, running around without a care in the world while cars sped past at frightening speeds. To protect the drivers – and the lizard – the session was red flagged, meaning all drivers had to return to the pitlane while the reptile was removed. The official Formula One X account called it the “weirdest red flag ever,” while some of the drivers were clearly perplexed by the lizard. Mercedes driver George Russell could be heard asking: “What on earth is that thing?!” After his engineers informed him it was a lizard, the British driver replied: “A what?! It looks like a dragon!” As the drivers returned to the pitlane, it was left to the marshals to remove the lizard from the track so racing could continue. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/21/sport/f1-lizard-practice-singapore-spt-intl/index.html

Bonus:

[sitting-on-me-bum]

A 2017 photo of Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise thought to be the oldest reptile living on Earth. Jonathan lives on Saint Helena, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic Ocean.

(Image credit: Gianluigi Guercia / AFP via Getty Images)

[aisphotostuff]

Terrapin in the Wild London Pond.. by Adam Swaine Via Flickr: The most common terrapin in the UK is the red-eared terrapin, which was brought to the country from the USA as a pet in the 1980s. Other terrapins that have been spotted in the UK include European pond terrapins and snapping turtles..Terrapins lie somewhere between turtles and tortoises. They happily live in water but also like to bask in the sun. Like turtles, they are omnivores. Unlike them, they don’t have flippers. Instead, they have webbed feet—unlike their land cousins that have feet.

[mikerickson]

Gigantic marine reptile's fossils found by British girl and father April 17 (Reuters) - A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 72 and 85 feet (22-26 meters) long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would rival some of the largest baleen whales alive today. The blue whale, considered the largest animal ever on the planet, can reach about 100 feet (30 meters) long.

Don't mind me, just thinking about how fossils for marine life are rarer than for land-based life and there could have been all kinds of shit living in there that we haven't even discovered yet.

[bonefall]

Do you know what the other animals that were trapped in cages are? I think there's a zebra, gray wolf and honey badger but I'm not sure

I caught five unique animals in the passage, lemmie share all of my guesses;

Easy; giraffe! Though I wouldn't really describe them as "yellow," WC has a habit of "cartoonifying" certain popular animals so this is definitely a giraffe (such as the tongue-slinging frogs in ShadowClan, real frogs do not have chameleon tongues)

The next one, the zebra, is also pretty apparent;

For those who didn't know, zebras are smaller than domestic horses! That's correct!

The one that stumps me the most is definitely this "weaselbadger" animal, but I'm fairly certain it's a honey badger yeah.

As opposed to a European badger like the cats are used to, a honey badger would look a lot thinner and more "weasel-like." They also have a solid white stripe that separates their black bottoms from their ticked top-fur, and I can't think of any other animal that has a separated fur color in that way.

There's also a very large snake of some kind, "coiled" around a branch. So, something arboreal.

While it's definitely a constricting snake, there isn't enough description about its color or behavior to tell if it's a boa or a python, nor what species it is. Since the largest reptile Ivypool naturally encounters would be adders, I also can't say if the "snake bigger than she could ever imagine" is actually that big.

If I'm making a shot in the dark though, the "small eyes" would make me guess it's a particularly old reticulated python. They're also common pet snakes, so it wouldn't be out of place at a skeevy ""Animal Sanctuary"" like this book is portraying.

(SIDE NOTE; I am satisfied with the portrayal of this particular zoo, which is clearly in someone's backyard and made from ramshackle planks and chainlink. I stand firmly against broad, untargeted "zoo slander" but I think the team did a good job in portraying this place as some crank's private collection.)

This next one, the "furry dog," is described with shaggy fur around its neck and shoulders, and then explicitly called gray when it attacks the human. Simple; that is a gray wolf.

While it's definitely a wolf, I'd need to see them describe the howl to tell you if it's Eurasian or American. American wolves lean harder on the first syllable and the call is more "shouty", while Eurasian wolves have a longer, more "melodious" songlike howl.

As for the "mane," that's a trait wolves can have. Some have larger neck ruffs than others-- usually influenced by climate. I don't know enough about wolves to tell you if that's purely genetic, or if it's influenced by the fact this individual lives in a place where it needs to develop a particularly thick winter coat.

(Also, funfact; the extinct British wolf was actually one of the largest gray wolf subspecies ever known. RIP British wolves)

And, lastly, of course, is the Scottish Wildcat.

Exactly as the book goes on to describe, they have blunt, bushy tails, green eyes, and tabby coats. They look like very large domestic cats!