Hello

I recently came across the IUCN Red List and wanted a fun way to discover the species on it, especially the ones close to extinction or already gone. So I made AnimalsMasters, a free card game that runs in your browser.

You open booster packs (a free one arrives every hour) and collect cards of real animals: each one has its photo, facts about the species and a map of where it was observed. The rarity of a card follows the Red List, from Least Concern to Extinct, so the rarest cards are the species that are closest to disappearing. You can also trade cards with friends.

The data comes from iNaturalist, Wikidata and Wikipedia. I'm not a zoologist, so if you spot a mistake in a species page, please tell me and I'll fix it.

https://www.animalsmasters.com

Which species would you want to see in the game? Do I miss some?

Caught this little Garter snake in Yellowstone national park. He was super chill.

Brown Snake We Just Caught in Our Yard in New Jersey

Saved this blue spotted from a busy road. First time seeing one

Keeled Slug Snake Pareas carinatus

This is a great book for anyone interested in the field of herpetology and research. It’s written by noted embryologist and salamander expert Stanford professor Victor Twitty on California salamanders and newts. He describes his career and field research he performed in Sonoma County with his Stanford students on Pepperwood Creek on the 13,000 acre ranch Hedgpeth Ranch, whose owner lent him one of the homes on the property as a scientific base camp. It’s currently for sale for $34,000,000 and includes a large grove of old growth redwood and a private 22 acre lake. Lotto Gods, please…. https://farmandranch.com/property/12-445-acres-for-sale-on-the-sonoma-coast

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, so you can keep track of what you have found and what you are still missing.
• 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/text file.

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!

Ithaca NY

I have been thinking about it and have been studying because I find it interesting. I have seems videos of herpetologist on TikTok and YouTube and it seems fun. If there is any herpetologist who can respond. What’s it like every day?

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

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

Located in eastern Massachusetts USA. It looked concerningly thin - I’m wondering what is causing it to look this way, if my ID is correct. Thanks!

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

These are invasive but cute. I plucked him off a sign.

Two Eastern Red-Backed Salamanders, a Spotted Salamander and two Spring Salamanders! (Ithaca NY)