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Even the animal kingdom has been a bit testy lately. The moment a seemingly unprovoked horse attacked an alligator near Gainesville, Florida was captured in footage originally shared by Krystal Berry on Wednesday and posted to Storyful. The video, which included a small crowd of horrified onlookers, quickly caught social media's attention.

A copperhead snake bit a man Friday inside an Arkansas Walmart store, according to KTHV. However, surveillance video later showed the man himself bringing the venomous snake into the store, a Walmart spokesperson told the station. No one else was injured, but the snake sighting caused pandemonium, according to customer Linda Moore Mathews, who snapped a photo of the reptile as it lay coiled in the middle of a produce aisle and posted it on Facebook. “Everyone was freaking out,” Mathews said. Another woman recorded video of a man finally catching the copperhead and placing it in a Walmart bag....

JAKARTA - A man missing since Sunday (March 26) in Indonesia has been found dead inside the belly of a 7m-long python, according to reports. Akbar Salubiro, 25, had not been seen since setting off to harvest palm oil in a remote village on the island of Sulawesi. A search found the giant python sprawled out next to his garden with the 25-year-old’s boots clearly visible in its stomach, according to a report in the Tribun Timur. Villagers then used a large knife to cut open the snake’s belly slowly revealing the father-of-two’s body. Tribun Timur posted a video of...

A giant goanna has terrified an Australian family as they attempted to feed the reptile after it emerged from their garden. The incident, captured on video, shows the beast to rethink its choice of prey and run up the porch straight toward the frightened householders. The family were throwing food at the over-sized lizard when the reptile headed for them forcing the onlookers to scramble indoors to hide.

The Burmese python continues to be found in and around Biscayne National Park. A kayaker, who was paddling around a small platform in Biscayne Bay just east of Mowry Canal, saw a 9-foot-long python curled up on a platform. Soon after, South Florida Water Management District technicians located the snake and quickly removed it. The python has been relocated and will serve as a training snake to for classes to teach the public about the Burmese python invasion and how to safely capture and remove these nasty invaders. Biscayne National Park officials ask for everyone to please keep their eyes...

Good morning, Valerie:The word “congratulations” is much too banal. The thrill hasn’t remotely begun to wear off. I’ve never felt more hopeful about our political future. I want to dedicate all my talents and energies to helping Barack seize the arc of history. Nothing matters to me more. After this message, I’ve pasted in a short piece I published in Forbes.com (which appeared yesterday as the first item on www.realclearpolitics.com) that puts in personal terms how I felt yesterday. When I saw Barack and Michelle briefly in the “surrogates” tent after Barack delivered his remarkable speech, he told me he...

North Korea accuses Seoul of 'cunning plot' to release snakes over border Soldiers sceptical after unseasonably high numbers of reptiles lead Pyongyang to suspect South Korean infiltration Kang Mi-jin for DK News, part of the North Korea network Wednesday 27 July 2016 06.00 BST North Korean border patrol guards have been ordered to capture snakes apparently released by South Korea to wreak havoc in its northern neighbour, sources have claimed. Pyongyang is said to have told the military that Seoul’s spy agency is behind the unseasonably high number of snakes in Ryanggang province, which borders China. “Earlier this month, border...

Reptiles rapidly invaded the seas soon after a global extinction wiped out most life on Earth, according to a new study led by University of California, Davis, researchers. Global climate change -- likely triggered by massive volcanic eruptions -- killed off more than 95 percent of all species about 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period. Land reptiles colonized the ocean in just 3.35 million years at the beginning of the Triassic, a speedy recovery in geologic time, the researchers report in the journal Scientific Reports. "Our results fit with the emerging view that the recovery...

JAMES ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — Firefighters came across a new danger while battling a South Carolina house fire — about a dozen venomous snakes. Local media outlets report the James Island homeowner, who workers in nuisance wildlife removal, told fire crews Tuesday to be aware of up to 80 reptiles in the home's garage. Officials say about a dozen of the reptiles were poisonous snakes. Firefighters had the blaze under control within an hour, but they couldn't enter the home while deadly snakes were potentially on the loose.

The Texas rat snake was just as much of a speed demon as deadly vipers, challenging long-held notions about snake adaptations. When a snake strikes, it literally moves faster than the blink of an eye, whipping its head forward so quickly that it can experience accelerations of more than 20 Gs. Such stats come from studies of how a snake lunges, bites and kills, which have focused mostly on vipers, in part because these snakes rely so heavily on their venomous chomps. "It's the lynchpin of their strategy as predators," says Rulon Clark at San Diego State University. "Natural selection...

Paleontologists believe they may have discovered a new species of dinosaur after digging up the remains of a 165 million year old sea creature. The five-and-a-half metre plesiosaur skeleton was found in a quarry in Peterborough and experts believe it could be a new species of the flippered marine reptile.

Two huge Burmese pythons were caught and killed recently, one by a homeowner in Missouri’s rural Warren County, and the other by a researcher in Florida’s Shark Valley. Burmese pythons are considered to be a highly invasive species across the American Southeast, especially in Everglades National Park, where the slithery creatures have started to colonize. Experts say the snakes threaten native wildlife species like ground-nesting birds, but it seems that the reptiles also have an appetite for domestic animals as well. For days, a massive 14-foot python had stalked a community near Jonesburg, until residents took matters into their own...

Lorri Cramer’s Upper West Side bathroom is “shell” on earth. “I have no idea what I’m going to do with them,” Cramer said Saturday as 620 red-eared slider turtle hatchlings bobbed around in five big blue basins of water. Every one of the golf-ball-sized baby turtles is a skittering speck of contraband — members of a non-native species that’s illegal to sell or release in New York state.

A giant fossil sea monster found in the Arctic had a bite that would have been able to crush a 4x4 car, according to its discoverers. Researchers say the marine reptile, which measured an impressive 15m (50ft) long, had a bite force of about 45 tonnes (33,000lbs) per square inch. The creature's partial skull was dug up last summer in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard by a Norwegian-led team. Dubbed "Predator X", it patrolled the oceans some 147 million years ago. Its jaws may have been more powerful than those of a Tyrannosaurus rex, though estimates of the dinosaur's bite...

In an incident recalling the film "Snakes on a Plane," hundreds of reptiles took to the skies after being smuggled onto a passenger flight — only this time the route was not Honolulu-Los Angeles but Düsseldorf-St. Petersburg. The press service for the regional branch of the animal health watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor reported Tuesday that it had stopped a passenger, who was attempting to bring 180 exotic reptiles into Russia via St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Airport. The man, who had flown in from Germany's Düsseldorf, was carrying 180 live snakes, lizards, frogs and turtles in his rucksack and cabin baggage, Interfax reported, citing...

Crocodile might be responsible for plane crash in the Congo: UK investigators • Only one person survived the crash — as did the toothy reptile, though it was killed with machetes by rescuers sifting through the plane's wreckage. A plane crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo that left 18 people dead may have been caused by a crocodile. The animal is thought to have climbed out of a hold midflight and spooked the crew and passengers. They all panicked and ran towards the cockpit, and the forward shift in weight may have caused the plane to plummet to the...

A group of Saudi men on a desert safari hunted scores of lizards during one trip then they slaughtered the little animals and skinned them before having them for a big feast. An 85-second YouTube film showed the men were skinning the slaughtered reptiles while scores of those animals were scattered on the sand in the Gulf Kingdom’s desert. “It is a real desert lizard massacre. The film shows scores of them were strewn on the sand while the hunter were happily skinning some hunted lizards,” Arar daily said. Lizards are eaten in many parts of Saudi Arabia, where there...

His species is renowned for its ability to blend in, but this tiny critter is even better than most as the world's smallest chameleon. Balanced on the tip of a scientist's fingernail in Madagascar, the-three centimetre reptile is no bigger than the flies that form his average-sized cousin's lunch. Scientists discovered four new species - called Brookesia micra - on a small islet just off the main island.

CANTON, Ga. -- State wildlife officials are investigating after 10 snakes and three lizards were found in a car during a traffic stop on Interstate 75 north of Atlanta. Authorities say Cherokee County sheriff's deputies pulled the car over on Interstate 75 Monday. Georgia Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Melissa Cummings told WSB-TV that an Indiana driver had 10 snakes and three different lizard species in the car. Cummings said the snakes were not venomous. She said species included corn, coachwhip, pine, king and Southern hognose snakes - all native to Georgia - plus a rosy boa, a non-native snake....

FOSTER -- But some parents in Boone County are outraged after finding out there have been three real snakes found loose in Brookview Elementary in just two weeks time. Boone County Schools Assistant Superintendent Jeff Huffman says the snakes appear to be garden snakes, also known as garter snakes. Grandmother Nancy Dickens says the whole situation is a little shocking. "I would go find someone to help me get it out of there," Dickens said. "I would try to keep the kids away from it." Huffman says an exterminator has been called to the school on two different occasions this...