Odatria_14_NOV13 - Victorian Herpetological Society

mouths to expel the waste and, as these transporters can bedeactivated by phloretin, the team decided to test the effectof phloretin on the turtle’s ability to excrete urea. When theturtles were supplied with phloretin in their puddle of water,they were unable to excrete urea from their mouths whenthey submerged their head. And when the team analysedthe turtles’ cDNA, they found that the animals carried agene that was very similar to urea transporters found inother animals. Finally, they checked to see if the turtlesexpress this gene in their mouths and found evidence ofthe mRNA that is necessary to produce the essential ureatransporter, allowing the reptiles to excrete urea wastethrough the mouth.So, why do Chinese soft-shelled turtles go to such greatlengths to excrete urea through their mouths when mostother creatures do it through their kidneys? Ip and hiscolleagues suspect that it has something to do with theirsalty environment. Explaining that animals that excreteurea have to drink a lot, they point out that this is a problemwhen the only water available is salty - especially for reptilesthat cannot excrete the salts. The team says, ‘Since thebuccopharyngeal [mouth and throat] urea excretion routeinvolves only rinsing the mouth with ambient water, theproblems associated with drinking brackish water… canbe avoided’Science DailyOctober 2012Postie’s Sideline As Snakes’ SaviourWhen Meet Kylee Gray, the pint-sized postie who loves herdaughter, her dog, and catching snakes others run from.Postie-turned-snake whisperer Kylee Gray has regularencounters with snakes big enough to eat a family pet.“I knew they’d be out,” she says. “It was the first warmnight we’ve had for ages.”Gray is only 157 centimetres tall and is as fresh-facedas she is petite and tanned. But behind the pert swingof her ponytail, the bright warm eyes and her laughing,gentle smile lies an inner toughness and an unwaveringpassion.As a member of the Fauna Rescue Whitsundays team,Gray is, both in her day job and volunteer work, the littlewoman who can shift big things.And she appears unperturbed by the report of a metrelongsnake in the yard.“That’s nothing,” she says, and proceeds to recount arecent rescue call-out.“When they rang me they told me he’d been stabbed andhit with a hammer,” she says, getting out her mobile phoneto show a photo.“And I thought, ‘Oh, the poor thing, so he’s injured and he’smissed his meal’.”The “poor thing” was a five-metre-long amethystine pythonthat had found its way on to the balcony of a second-storeyapartment in Airlie Beach.And the “meal” the python had missed was the apartmentowners’ pet blue heeler, which it was constricting sothoroughly that they could see only the dog’s tail whenthey came upon the horrifying scene.“There was blood everywhere,” Gray recalls. “Blood wascoming out of the dog’s eyes and her mouth from the tightstrangulation, and the python was bleeding in multipleplaces from the wounds the dog’s owners had inflicted onit.”North Queensland animal control worker Kylee GrayIt’s a typically perfect day in the Whitsundays. Palm frondsshimmer in the dazzling sun, pink hibiscus and frangipanishade the wooden deck, and green velvet geckos hide inthe gaps between the slats of the ceiling.Dwarfed by the trumpet creeper that’s coiling over theeaves, Australia Post mail deliverer Kylee Gray is standingin her denim shorts and orange safety vest, having justcarted a box of books up two flights of stairs.Pausing to catch her breath, she laughs off concerns abouta snake spotted last night.While the gutsy young single mother, who holds a permitfrom the Department of Environment and ResourceManagement for the removal and relocation of snakes,33