The goal of this web site is to promote public awareness, appreciation, and understanding of California's indigenous reptiles and amphibians and their natural habitats. It is also intended as a source of entertainment for reptile and amphibian enthusiasts.
When this site was started in 2000, the intention was to try to document all of California's reptiles and amphibians, including the various subspecies or pattern classes and other regional variations and phases, which could not be found easily in print or elsewhere online. Though it has grown to include many animals from outside of California, this is still the primary and continuing goal.
This site is not affiliated with any institution, organization, or agency. It has been privately funded and developed, and improved with ideas and pictures from its audience. The site is intended for my own education and entertainment, and to help me to connect with others with similar interests. It is not for profit. (I got the .com domain before I realized that .org would be more appropriate, so cut me some slack - I'm a herp geek, not a computer geek.)
Basically, this is just another internet fan site and photo gallery illustrating the great variety of the many forms of indigenous herps found in California. It will probably be continually updated. The New Additons page will help you keep up with some of the recent changes.
The web site is aimed at anyone who knows the common name or scientific name of a reptile or amphibian found in California who wants to see pictures and a little information about an animal. It is also for anyone who needs help identifying wild California reptiles and amphibians and learning their common or scientific name.
I have made every effort to be as accurate as possible, but I'm only a human in a world run by lawyers, so I should emphasize that I do not make any guarantees about the accuracy of any of the information found on this website. Any error or omissions in the checklists or any other information provided by this web site are solely my responsibility and do not reflect on any other source. Errors inevitably occur, but when they have been pointed out, I have gladly corrected them. This has been my only system of outside review and editing, so please feel free to email me if you see something that you think is inaccurate. I appreciate your interest in guaranteeing the accuracy of the site and I really won't get upset when you tell I'm wrong.
Please honor the copyright of the sounds and photographs found on this site. Here are the usage guidelines for this site .
I have not specifically footnoted everything, but most of the species account information is adapted from other published sources which are noted under "references."
This site seems to look best at the 1024 x 768 screen resolution with medium text size. All browsers deal with the same html code in different ways. I am not an html expert, but the site is checked on Firefox, Netscape, Safari, and an old version of Internet Explorer (since Microsoft no longer updates this browser for Macintosh users.) If the text appears too small, try increasing the text size on your browser. The site has been created with Macromedia Dreamweaver on Macintosh computers. Occasionally I look it over on Windows, and it seems OK to me.
This is a Cookie-free site, with no paid Ads or annoying Pop-up windows. You're welcome. There's enough bad web-design here to bother you without adding anything worse. Anything here that looks like an advertisement is not paid for by anyone - not that we couldn't use the money - it's just a free plug for something we like.
Our APOLOGIES to dial-up users. You must really hate us because most of our pages take a long time to load due to the large number of thumbnail pictures. This is unfortunate, but worth the wait since the site is mainly a huge photo gallery. A few pages have been split into two or more pages to shorten the load time for you.
This site is not intended to be a comprehensive field guide. For the current standard field guide covering California see Western Reptiles and Amphibians 3rd Edition, by Robert C. Stebbins, © 2003 Houghton Mifflin Company, which was published in the Spring of 2003. Some veteran herpers don't like some of the conservative taxonomic choices made in this book, but it will certainly be the most widely-used and accepted guide to the herps of our region. Previous editions of this book were the popular standard for many years. (Here is a quick-index to this book that you can stick on the cover, which will let you search for individual species much more quickly than using the index in the back of the book.)
The Scientific and Common Names used here are based on the most recent lists published by the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. You can read more about this here.
Most of the herps shown here were found living in their natural habitat in California, or in neighboring states where many of the same species native to California also occur, including Baja California. The majority of the animals were photographed and left where they were found. When a herp was handled for close-up photography, measures were taken to avoid stressing or injuring it. Even the most nervous animals will usually calm down with time, allowing a brief time to photograph them, but sometimes cooling them in an ice chest for a few minutes will avoid stressing them unnecessarily. However, few of the animals shown here were chilled to make them easier to photograph. A few of the animals depicted here are captive specimens, and many photos have been donated or borrowed from the internet with permission and credit.
Most of the habitat pictures were taken at the exact spot where we found a particular species. Some show better-looking or more-easily photographed locations with suitable habitat near where we found a species. (Many species were found at night on a road and the aproximate habitat was photographed at another time in daylight.) Some of the habitat pictures illustrate typical habitat at a location where a species has been reported.
Range Maps
Tim Burkhardt has made many excellent dot-locality distribution maps. Jeremiah Easter has also provided us with a few dot-locality maps. The other range maps are a less-precise illustration of the general historical distribution of an animal in California. They are only meant to give a general idea of an animal's range, so do not take them too literally, especially the ranges of subspecies, which never end as abruptly as illustrated here. These maps have been created by adapting maps and using range information from field guides, scientific papers, museum records, web sites, and personal observations and communications.
The animals shown here are not for sale. I do not have any other animals for sale, either. There are lots of places to buy herps online. Check the Kingsnake.com list for starters. My understanding is that it is not legal to buy, sell or trade most species of California native reptiles and amphibians in California. There are some exceptions, and the laws are always changing. I am not qualified to give out legal advice here, so check with the California Fish and Game Commission for the exact laws. The special permits section may have some useful information about captive propagation of native herps.
I do not provide information here about caring for captive herps. I do not oppose keeping herps as pets, but I do not have enough experience to provide care information for most species. For a few places to start looking for info., check our list of pet care information sources. Keep in mind before you buy or collect a new pet herp that it may not be legal to release a captive animal, even a native animal, back into the wild in California. Check with the California Fish and Game Commission for the specific laws on this subject.
Many species of herps are undergoing serious declines in population and distribution due to loss of habitat. Some authorities also attribute these losses to collecting since it is apparently easier for them to blame individuals than to tackle the complicated problem of our land-use needs vs. land conservation. We do not want to encourage the collection of wild herps unless there is long-term plan to care for them, but we understand that collecting native herps and caring for them as pets can help develop an appreciation, an understanding, and a respect for them that is not often gained through reading or observing alone. And without this appreciation there certainly would be no popular interest in intelligent conservation and protection of our native herps.
The internet is constantly changing. Unfortunately, some of our links may have expired when you try to use them. Please let me know if you find any and I will try to fix them or remove them.
Important Legal Disclaimers
|
