The Animal Behavior Society 2010 Film Festival is seeking non-commercial and commercial submissions.

ABS is pleased to announce the 26th Annual Animal Behavior Film Festival. The festival will be held during the 47th Annual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society at The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA,USA; July 25 - 31 2010.

Films submissions must be postmarked by May 31, 2010. For more information see http://www.animalbehaviorsociety.org/web/committee-film.php.

New Zealand's largest gecko had been thought extinct on the mainland until a dead specimen was discovered in a mouse trap at Maungatautari in Waikato last month.

A Duvaucel's gecko has been found in Maungatautari Trust predator proof area. Unfortunately it was dead in a mouse trap; the first to be seen on the mainland in almost 100 years.

BioBlitz 2010 was held in Auckland Domain on 17th - 18th April. 1521 species were found

BioBlitz is a scientific race against time. It is educational. And it is heaps of fun!

The goal is to count as many species as possible in a 24-hour survey of a large urban area. The emphasis is on recording the total number of species, not naming every creature that has been found.

1521 species were found in Auckland Domain.

See the results on the BioBlitz 2010 website.

If you have an opinion on the smugglers who take NZ wildlife, please add your vote on this website.

Vote here http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch/3525076/Smugglers-of-wildlife-face-prison.

Thomas Benjamin Price, 31, a Swiss man with United States citizenship, had pleaded guilty to possession of the protected wildlife, and Mexican Gustavo Eduardo Toledo-Albarran, 28, had admitted hunting the lizards.

A German reptile collector has been jailed for 14 weeks and must pay a $5000 fine for plundering New Zealand's wild gecko and skink populations.

Update of news:

A German reptile collector has been jailed for 14 weeks and must pay a $5000 fine for plundering New Zealand's wild gecko and skink populations.

Hans Kurt Kubus, 58, will be deported as soon as he is released from prison.

Lizard-finding friends Tony Jewell and Rod Morris are enthusiastic about skinks and geckos. Wanaka reporter Marjorie Cook speaks to the pair whose endeavours won them the 2009 Inland Otago Conservation Award at a ceremony in Cromwell 17 Sep 2009.

See the full report in the Otago Daily News.

A film by a visiting researcher from Germany, and a University of Otago communications student, both keen to preserve New Zealand geckos in the wild.

Rosi is a visiting research student from Germany with many links to DoC and the local communities involved with Jewelled Gecko protection. Amanda Rogers is a Science Communication student at University of Otago. Click here to see a video about the Jewelled Geckos of Otago http://www.vimeo.com/5073023.

Taranaki Educational Resource: Research, Analysis and Information Network aims to provide open source software solutions to community groups who want to use Geographic Information Systems to analyse their data and display the maps on the www.

This project was made possible through the Digital Strategy Fund "Community Partnership Fund 112" during the year 2008 - 2009.

As the smallest known frog species in the world's second largest mountain range, this new amphibian is easy to miss.

Scientists searching the Andes mountains in southern Peru spotted the coin-size creature -- a member of the Noblella genus -- in the leaf litter of a cloud forest between 3,025 and 3,190 metres.

Click here to see more about this frog on National Geographic news.

The Department of Conservation is seeking submissions on the "New listing of threatened status of New Zealand reptiles and amphibians" Consultation closes: 28 February 2009

Call for submissions about any changes in status of NZ reptile and amphibian species. This will inform a revision of the reptile and amphibian lists in the NZ Threat Classification System.

Click here to visit the DOC pages on this issue.