Amphibians and Reptiles

[Pleiades]

Do they even answer all of the clarifications? I submitted around 5 last year and my friend submitted one but none of them ever got answered.

[dickyjones]

They answered all 3 of the ones I sent at the beginning of the season. They never answered my questions on whether you'd have to identify between "Cophosauras and Holbrookia" or "Urosauras and Uta" though...

[gneissisnice]

Yeah thats been bugging me. I brought up that some names on the list seem to have been updated (like cooters were moved to their own genus) but i never got a response on that either.

[rocketman1555]

I'm in the mindset that resources should be more safety blankets than your primary means of answering questions so this isn't a huge problem, but I still would like my blanket to be as good as possible.

i've found that that mindset works a lot better than relying on resources, i've placed higher in events where i've taken resources to be a safety, than when i use my resources a lot

[gneissisnice]

Who knows when the new list is coming out? I wanna get started!

[dickyjones]

They're usually posted on soinc in September. They'll be up shortly after the rules come out most likely.

[Pleiades]

Who knows when the new list is coming out? I wanna get started!

May i ask what exactly you are going to do? I mean i'd be one thing if you had to make a binder but you cant do that anymore. I suppose you could start looking for a published guide and putting sticky notes inside it or review what each species looks like but i would think you'd remember that from last year . The first thing i'm going to do in september is sit down with my guide on the left and the published guide on the right and compare the species pages in each guide and add stuff from my guide into the published guide.
Anyway, I have the DRAFT list, along with last years list, right infront of me. If you want i could list all the changes. From a quick glance there seems to be around 20 changes to the list with the majority of those being in the Caudata order. I can post all the DRAFT changes or you could wait until september to see the official changes. you choose

[dickyjones]

I'm interested in the draft list.

The most important part of this event is still being able to ID the specimens as quickly as possible, and you need the list to start working on that. And working on the field guide is still needed.

[Pleiades]

Here are the DRAFT changes:

Order - Testudines
*Addition of the genus Trachemys - Sliders
*Removal of the Family Cheloniidae - Sea Turtles

Suborder - Lacertila
*Removal of the genus Cophosaurus and Holbrookia - Earless lizards
*Removal of the genus Uma - Fringe toed lizards
*Removal of the genus Urosaurus and Uta - Tree and side blotched lizards
*Removal of the Family Lacertidae - wall lizards

Suborder Serpentes
*Removal of the family Leptotyphlopidae - blind snakes
*Addition of the genus Drymarchon - Indigo snakes
*Removal of the family Hydrophiidae - Sea Snakes

Order - Caudata
*Removal of the Family Dicamptodontidae - giant salamanders
*Removal of the Family Rhyacotritonidae - Torrent or seep salamanders
*Removal of EVERY GENUS in the family Plethodontidae EXCEPT - Plethodon and Eurycea <-- hmm i wonder why?
*Addition of the genus Typhlotriton - grotto salamander

Order Anura - no change


Ok so there you go. All the draft changes on the list. Theres probably a bunch of spelling mistakes on there since i was typing this while watching the olympics and spell check obviously doesnt work. Wow anyone see that 4x100m mens freestyle?

[eathousemd]

This stinks, no sea snakes...I loved sea snakes. They're sooo cool with their little gliding motion swimming and stuff. I have two sliders though, they're really cute. I have a decent reason to bring them to school!