r/herpetology

A neighbor called and said she needed help getting a lizard out of her apartment. I figured it would be a green anole or baby gecko. I got there and she said it was under a box and very large. We slid cardboard under it and brought it outside. I was shocked to see a probably 10” tail to snoot Texas Spiny Lizard. At least I think that’s what it is. I’ve never seen one with such beautiful color on the back. Also maybe the chillest lizard I’ve ever captured to release outside.

About the tuataras (sphenodon punctatus) third eye, how has the parietal eye not developed even more to be basically a fully functioning eye? The way I could see this happening is some mutation causing the tuataras scales to not grow over the eye after a couple months which may be beneficial for detecting light into adulthood. Then, over time the trait is passed down and through mutations the eye becomes more and more developed until it has three, fully functioning equal eyes. Maybe this could also happen due to neoteny and then follow a similar process? First of all, could this possibly happen? Second , why hasn’t this happened yet. Could it be because it’s more energy efficient or the fact that invasive species like cats in New Zealand have cut the population of the tuataras very low. For context, I’m creating a speculative evolution seed world based on tuataras and I’m just curious about this

Hi all! I have been herping quite actively for the last three years. Like many of you, I was keeping my records in a mix of spreadsheets and iNat, but I wanted one dedicated herping app. So for the last six months I have been building one. It’s called Agama: Herping Companion, and it’s now available on iOS and Android.

What it does:

• Life list covering every reptile and amphibian species known to date. It follows taxonomy changes, so when a species gets split or renamed, your records move with it. Lifers are marked.
• Country checklists, plus US states and continents, so you can see what you have found and what is still out there.
• Explore: see which species have been recorded around you, or anywhere else you choose. It uses GBIF occurrence data.
• Trips: log a herping trip day by day. Friends travelling with you can contribute to the same trip too.
• Import your old records from iNaturalist using just your username, or from a spreadsheet.

I have also tried to be quite careful with locations. Adding a specific location is optional, and even if you do, the location is snapped to a grid of roughly 2 km before being saved. GPS metadata is also stripped from photos on your phone before they are uploaded.

It’s a one-person project, so there will definitely still be some rough edges. Feedback and ideas are very welcome.

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6787650717

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.herp.mobile

Finally broke the 3 month dry spell here in southeastern Texas and she showed up in our flower bed. Seems to have an ulcer or something on her right side at the orange band but otherwise looks healthy and happy!

found it outside my apartment and it let me get so close!

Ithaca NY

[removed]

I work at a car dealership and theres alot of snakes in the patch of woods surrouded by parking lot they dont have much space to move around and i dont think theres a reliable water sorce this summer i found a bunch of nests of multiple species and i figured if they put there babys there it was an ok spot but then they expanded the lot and burried half of the nests and now theres been snakes coming out into the parking lots and getting smashed... i know if you take a turtle and relocate it to far youll have a dead turtle but if i relocate the snakes i find while flipping rocks around the patch, can i take them to my normal herping spots or will it dissorient them too much i just wanna save them

The nsfw tag is for the first slide the rest are living snakes ive found too close to the road