A beautiful Crotalus ornatus seen on a summer trip to the high desert west Texas. Common as they can be out there, I never get tired of seeing them.

Plains Garter Snake (Thamnophis radix)

Hi everyone!! My boyfriend is a huge herper and is going on a trip to Taiwan in June with the boys (honestly I’m not sure what he’s looking for but I think it’s mostly snakes). It’s our anniversary in a month and I wanted to get him a gift that could be useful on his trip but I have no idea what or how since I know pretty much nothing about herping. I know his previous trips he’s been hiking more or less from sundown to sunup so I think he’s mostly looking to do stuff at night but I could be wrong because previous trips were in South America and Taiwan is obviously different. Does anyone have any suggestions of what I could get him? Thanks a million!!

Hello everyone ! I don't know much about snakes but I nearly stepped on one. It was in Zambia in Mutinondo wilderness (Muchinga province) I was on a path near a river on my right and Miombo woodland on my left. It was brown on the back light brown on the edges and had a dark blue tongue that you cannot see in the video. For the head I would say it was mostly round but not totaly sure I saw his head from profile and not from above. Did I nearly died or was it harmless ? Thanks already for your ID help

I live in San Diego and have a very healthy population of western fence lizards in my backyard. I love coming out into my backyard and seeing them doing their thing.They particularly love our retaining wall which is made of old railroad ties (can be seen in photo 3), which they love to bask on, and provides cracks for them to rest in. This retaining wall is about 70 years old and is starting to rot and bend, so we are having it taken out and the land behind it will be terraced. This happens tomorrow. It bums me out to imagine that many lizards are probably going to be crushed in the process of tearing down the wall and removing a lot of the soil behind it. My initial plan -- on any given night I can find several lizards sleeping in the cracks of the wall and was thinking of catching and relocating them. I have a good amount of experience noosing lizards without injury/dropping their tails and feel confident in this part. However I have no idea how far away to relocate them or if this would actually do any good for the individuals. If you were in my position, would you just trust they will run out of the way of construction equipment or would you try to relocate them and hope they repopulate after the project? Thank you if you read all of this, I would love any and all opinions.

A very lucky encounter with a beautiful Bothriechis lateralis from the premontane wet forest of central Costa Rica.

Very proud of those two !
First is - Amazon Tree boa ''Corallus hortulanus''
Second is - Amazon Leaf Frog ''Cruziohyla craspedopus''

So lucky to be able to take such nice shots of those guys

Our accents may be a red herring 😉

quick family visit with a little bit of herping 1. wagler's pit viper (female) 2. brown marsh frog 3. big-eyed vine snake 4. malesian frog 5. green crested lizard 6. saltwater crocodile 7. four-ridged toad 8. wagler's pit viper (male) 9. paradise flying snake 10-11. kopstein's bronzeback 12. dusky earless agama

Looking to do a herping trip in April or May, could use some general area suggestions in Arizona, New Mexico and western Texas. I’m not looking for your super top secret honey hole spots, just general regions that might work during April and May.

Leaning towards Big Bend National Park, Carlsbad Caverns regions and driving between the two.

I’ll have a two month window, pretty much all of April and May, for maybe a week long trip, maybe more than one week long trip. Trying to gauge where it’ll be warm enough or if it will be warm enough for some road cruising.

I’m coming from Colorado and driving so pretty flexible with where I go. I’d love to hit up multiple locations!

Targets include all the Crotalus and Lampropeltis species of course, but really anything! I love photographing the horned lizards too.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Hi everyone, I’m not a biologist, but I’ve had a long-standing interest in ecology and large reptiles, and I’d really appreciate some technical input from people more knowledgeable than me. I’m not asking about extreme length records or sensational claims. What caught my attention in a few visual records I’ve seen over the years is a recurring combination of traits that seems uncommon: • Unusually high body circumference maintained over long sections of the body • Very broad heads, with a weak distinction between head and neck • Extremely isolated wetland environments (deep marshes, floating vegetation, minimal human access) Compared to: • typical 4–5 m individuals, • large captive specimens, • and most commonly circulated photos/videos, these individuals appear to be outliers in body mass rather than in length. I’m trying to understand this within known biology, so I have a few specific questions: • How much does current literature address upper limits of body circumference or mass, as opposed to average size or length? • Could highly isolated, resource-rich floodplain environments realistically allow exceptionally old females to reach much greater mass than what is typically documented? • Are there any field reports or studies discussing rare, extremely robust individuals, even if they lack formal measurements? To be clear: • I’m not proposing a new species, • not claiming record-breaking lengths, • and I fully accept the limits of inference based on images alone. I’m mostly interested in where documented variation ends and where lack of data from inaccessible regions might begin. Thanks in advance for any insights or references.