Amphibians and Reptiles

[dickyjones]

The list is up on soinc and is the same as said. Rules are also similar.

So they added (from my incredibly quick count) 5 specimens (12 if you count additons to make dual IDs like 'Gekkonidae & Eublepharidae') and took away 23. In my opinion, that is not something you can do in the second year of an ID event and still expect much spread in test scores among top teams (especially at the national level if there's another test like last years). Hopefully, the tests I take will be difficult enough in time limits or questions to make up for it.

It'll be fun editing field guides this year...

[adam124218]

I think you do have to count those duals, so they really added 9, but I agree with you, it seems bad that they made the list so much smaller. Maybe they'll add more things you need to know about them.

They took away a lot of the hard ones, which seems silly to me. Why not take away something easy like soft-shelled turtles. Anyone can identify a soft-shelled turtle. Not anyone can identify a lungless salamander. Those lungless salamanders were some of the most interesting of the specimens on the list and I don't know why they took them away. Now the only really hard ones left are all of those dumb snakes. I don't have anything against snakes, I just think there the most boring of the reptiles and amphibians.

[gneissisnice]

Too bad, I liked wall lizards and fringe-toed lizards . Still, I cant complain about the removal of uta and urosaurus, and the other pair (holbrookia and collophorous, i think).

[Pleiades]

I wonder what the reason was behind removing all of those. I dont see how that alone will spread out the test scores too. I'll lug out my binder later and count how many species I lost. For most genera I had several species.

[gneissisnice]

oh, it was cophosaurus...my bad.

[Deeisenberg]

These changes won't spread out test scores at all. The lack of the binder will cause the gap between the good teams and the not so good teams larger. The easier list will just make everyones scores closer together. I am really hoping that they will increase the difficulty on the tests, at least for us. I can't wait until they start taking clarifications, because that will be the thing that will help determine how binders will be reincarnated so to speak.

[Sheogorath]

I think you do have to count those duals, so they really added 9, but I agree with you, it seems bad that they made the list so much smaller. Maybe they'll add more things you need to know about them.

They took away a lot of the hard ones, which seems silly to me. Why not take away something easy like soft-shelled turtles. Anyone can identify a soft-shelled turtle. Not anyone can identify a lungless salamander. Those lungless salamanders were some of the most interesting of the specimens on the list and I don't know why they took them away. Now the only really hard ones left are all of those dumb snakes. I don't have anything against snakes, I just think there the most boring of the reptiles and amphibians.

I agree snakes were the worst, they just aren't that interesting

And I wish they kept sea turtles, Loggerheads were cool

[Pleiades]

I loved sea turtles!! i'm sad that they're gone!

I wasnt a huge fan of frogs.. those were probably my worst. My best was by far turtles though.. i had no problem identifying those. That and crocodilians

[gneissisnice]

Lizards are my best...turtles all look the same to me . And I know nothing about snakes, thats my partners domain. And frogs are really hard.

[Deeisenberg]

I love them all, the turtles are very easy, and the lizards were not especially difficult, though harder than turtles. Snakes were probably the second most difficult taxon, though by far my favorite. I hated salamanders but my partner was very good at them. As for frogs, my partner was signifigantly better at them, but I don't think that they were that hard if you could keep the few little tricks for hylidae straight.