Scioly.org

axolotl wrote:https://amp.wsmv.com/story/38176469/man ... -kingsnake

#herpsaveslives

I legit have to tell my coach the red and yellow kill a fellow thing anytime he asks how I know its a coral snake or king/milk snakes

ScottMaurer19 wrote:

windu34 wrote:

Almandine wrote:That seems to be the trend that I've seen. I've taken two herpetology tests that were station based, but that seems highly improbable at nationals.

Not quite sure what would make you think stations is improbably for an ID event. ID events at nationals (and any good competition) are almost always physical stations (sometimes powerpoint, but usually not if it can be helped).

Might be a combination depending on how/if they incorporate sounds into it.

I would be surprised if they didn't include sound into the test. I didn't expect it from regionals or state but I don't think that they would have just added it into the rules without having any tests on it.

Opinions on the nats test?
...lol

axolotl wrote:Opinions on the nats test?
...lol

Almost universally negative I'm sure.

I wonder what people thought of the Div B test.

Unome wrote:

axolotl wrote:Opinions on the nats test?
...lol

Almost universally negative I'm sure.

I wonder what people thought of the Div B test.

My partner and I were pretty dissappointed with the test. We could have not studied since regionals and done just as well. The difference between 1st and 20th was probably the matter of a few points.

What did people think of the question that asked the distribution of newts/salamandridae? They live on both the eastern US and the NW US but the options were SW US, NW US, Central US, SE US, NE US. I thought it looked like a rough skinned newt so I went with NW

In other news I got to meet both of you right after the test so that was interesting (I said I had to run to mission but I actually had helicopters)

ScottMaurer19 wrote:

Unome wrote:

axolotl wrote:Opinions on the nats test?
...lol

Almost universally negative I'm sure.

I wonder what people thought of the Div B test.

My partner and I were pretty disappointed with the test. We could have not studied since regionals and done just as well. The difference between 1st and 20th was probably the matter of a few points.

What did people think of the question that asked the distribution of newts/salamandridae? They live on both the eastern US and the NW US but the options were SW US, NW US, Central US, SE US, NE US. I thought it looked like a rough skinned newt so I went with NW

In other news I got to meet both of you right after the test so that was interesting (I said I had to run to mission but I actually had helicopters)

Most definitely negative. The test quality was one of the worst (if not the worst) tests which I have ever taken at a competition and I was disappointed to find out that they hadn't paid attention to herp ES's as most were state science olympiad directors or microbiologists. No offense to microbiologists, but I was expecting a test written by alumni (similar to MIT) or professionals who had some degree of higher learning in herpetology. In reflection, my partner and I were disappointed to find that the studying from before nationals had been done in vain if not for next year. Also tiebreakers weren't clearly marked...we assumed they were the stations with asterisks.

What was the rattlesnake? We definitely hated that station the most as the picture didn't really show important patterns and was extremely over-saturated. All you could distinguish from it was the pits and we couldn't tell if it was crotalus or sistrurus.

It was definitely the rough-skinned newt but again, wasn't there a specification that stated there would be no species needed aside from easily distinguished sounds? In addition, a lot of the multiple choice answers showed lack of knowledge and deeper research. Specifically, the question about what type of reproduction, which happened to be a family (or genus, I don't remember) which encompassed multiple types of reproduction.

Overall, did not enjoy and test quality from highest to lowest (personally): mit, regionals, states, nats :/

axolotl wrote:

ScottMaurer19 wrote:

Unome wrote: Almost universally negative I'm sure.

I wonder what people thought of the Div B test.

My partner and I were pretty disappointed with the test. We could have not studied since regionals and done just as well. The difference between 1st and 20th was probably the matter of a few points.

What did people think of the question that asked the distribution of newts/salamandridae? They live on both the eastern US and the NW US but the options were SW US, NW US, Central US, SE US, NE US. I thought it looked like a rough skinned newt so I went with NW

In other news I got to meet both of you right after the test so that was interesting (I said I had to run to mission but I actually had helicopters)

Most definitely negative. The test quality was one of the worst (if not the worst) tests which I have ever taken at a competition and I was disappointed to find out that they hadn't paid attention to herp ES's as most were state science olympiad directors or microbiologists. No offense to microbiologists, but I was expecting a test written by alumni (similar to MIT) or professionals who had some degree of higher learning in herpetology. In reflection, my partner and I were disappointed to find that the studying from before nationals had been done in vain if not for next year. Also tiebreakers weren't clearly marked...we assumed they were the stations with asterisks.

What was the rattlesnake? We definitely hated that station the most as the picture didn't really show important patterns and was extremely over-saturated. All you could distinguish from it was the pits and we couldn't tell if it was crotalus or sistrurus.

It was definitely the rough-skinned newt but again, wasn't there a specification that stated there would be no species needed aside from easily distinguished sounds? In addition, a lot of the multiple choice answers showed lack of knowledge and deeper research. Specifically, the question about what type of reproduction, which happened to be a family (or genus, I don't remember) which encompassed multiple types of reproduction.

Overall, did not enjoy and test quality from highest to lowest (personally): mit, regionals, states, nats :/

I believe the ES was Dr. David Nelson who has published many papers in the field of herpetology (this could be a different Dr. David Nelson but) so they did find a professional just one who I'm not sure was knowledgable about SO or what tests should be like. IMO there should have been sounds, vocab, anatomy, and other general concepts tested and not only ID with one question about the specimen.

The rattle snake question was pretty impossible to tell. I think we ended up saying sistrurus due to what looked like a broken up pattern on the back which matched the page of pictures we had printed out just in case.

We weren't supposed to have species specific knowledge according to the FAQ but I was lucky enough to just have happened to know that it was a rough skinned newt and where it lived.

I believe the reproduction question you are referring to was the cnemidophorus. A few species have hybridized allowing for parthenogenic reproduction, but they again generalized it to the whole genus when asking "What type of [special?] reproduction does this specimen commonly use?" That's not word for word but only teams that took the time (out of fear of the ES doing this) to research multiple species within genuses may have been able to correctly answer the question.

Also, for the longest snake in NA, I'm not sure what answer he wanted because I looked it up after the test and it is a rat snake that is in a genus under modern classifications and not elaphe.

ScottMaurer19 wrote:I thought it looked like a rough skinned newt so I went with NW

We did the same, hopefully that was correct...

axolotl wrote: What was the rattlesnake? We definitely hated that station the most as the picture didn't really show important patterns and was extremely over-saturated. All you could distinguish from it was the pits and we couldn't tell if it was crotalus or sistrurus.

We picked Crotalus by guessing the head scales, although we really had no idea.

Anybody remember the UGA Herptile Regional? 14 stations, 11 were from outside North America in genera we didn't study, two were introduced species and only one native to North America.

Written by an expert from UGA who obviously didn't read the information supplied by SO.

After all SO's recommended reading for the event is "Reptiles and Amphibians of North America".

There should be peer review of proposed exam by two experienced State Event Supervisors.

This is Nationals, for Pete's sake!

Anyone else get confused on the station about Opheodrys? They asked whether it was arboreal or terrestrial and the rough skinned species is highly arboreal while the smooth skinned is terrestrial, this question threw me for a loop as the photo made it hard to tell between the two.