Get ready to gobble up this calendar: The February Year of the Lizard online calendar is now available!  Congratulations to Tim Torell, who photographed a Great Basin Lizard (Crotaphytus bicinctores) in mid-meal!  Tim’s photo was selected as the winning entry for the Year of the Lizard monthly online calendar photo contest.  You, too, can submit photographs for the Year of the Lizard Calendar Photo Contest!  All submitted photos will be considered for future calendar months, as well as for use (with photo credit) in other Year of the Lizard products and related documents.   More information about our ongoing photo contest is available at www.yearofthelizard.org.  Give us your best shot! 

Don’t forget that the next issue of The Year of the Lizard News, the online newsletter of the Year of the Lizard, will be available in March along with the March online calendar.  Did you know?  We are continuing to call for lizard art, stories, and poems throughout the year.  Submit photos of your lizard art (jpg, tiff, or pdf files) and copies of your stories and poems via email to yearofthelizard@gmail.com.  Please include your name, location, and any comments about the submission in your email message.  We will select several submissions to include in upcoming newsletters. Be sure to check out January’s issue of the The Year of the Lizard News, available at www.yearofthelizard.org, for more ways to get involved with the Year of the Lizard efforts and to contribute to our newsletter.   

Visit www.yearofthelizard.org to find the State of the Lizard informational report as well as information on how you can purchase Year of the Lizard annual calendars, mugs, and more.  Be sure to bookmark this address and check back often.  Throughout the year, we will be raising awareness of the issues surrounding lizards through the newsletter, as well as our calendar photo contest, press releases, educational talks and information, and other related events.  Contact us at yearofthelizard@gmail.com with any questions, or to partner with us in these important efforts.

Spread the word--2012 is Year of the Lizard!

http://www.oriannesociety.org/news/snake-survey

Also had about 20 spotted salamander egg masses in the slate mine pool.  Seems too warm for them, but January - February is typical breeding for them here.
Jo-Ann

Sturdy, drop down thick plexiglass 1pc door, easy to clean and good visibility for your reptile.  EXCELLENT CONDITION $100

I don't really need it right now, but I do need space!

Can throw in a HydroFarm thermostat for the flexwatt for $20 more.

48"L X 24"D X 12"H

Please call or text: 479-301-6730 (leave message)
Located near Bentonville. Can meet in Springdale/Fayetteville.

For sale are two adult females, 100% heterozygous for Kahl strain albino, born in 2004.  They were purchased directly from the breeder, L.A. Snakes, Inc.  I have the original paper work along with photos and info about their parents.  These females are 7'+ and over 30lbs each.  The eat frozen/thawed rats or rabbits.

I also have a 2007 male Kahl sunglow boa, purchased from Boa Pro in 2007.

None have had any health issues.  They have been grown slowly and are ready to breed, I introduced the male briefly with one of the females and he was eager to do the job.

This trio if bred will produce normals, salmons, albinos, and sunglows.

Their 12"x24"x48" PVC caging is included, 3 units, made by Herpenclosures.

I will not ship this group or ship the caging.  I live in Fayetteville and will be happy to set up a viewing  appointment for serious buyers.

$2000.00

Thanks,

Justin Mitchell
(479) 601-5878

I will be posting racks and more snakes in the near future.

Who:

AHS field trips are open to members and nonmembers alike.  If you are interested in finding herps in the wild and meeting with others who like to do the same, you are invited and encouraged to join us.

What:

It's a field trip!  AHS field trips are a fun experience if you have never attended one.  Our ranks include newbies, hobbyists, graduate students, science professionals, and even youngsters (our "herpetologists in training").  We share a family-like camaraderie and welcome newcomers with open arms.

When:

April 27-29, 2012.  What most people will do is arrive Friday evening and leave Sunday mid-morning.  Most of the field herping will happen on Saturday, and as long as there is not a burn ban, we usually have a large campfire Saturday night. We also try and "road cruise" for herps on Friday and Saturday evening.

Where: 

Cane Creek State Park, Star City, Arkansas. This park has over 2000 acres of forests and swamps, plus the 1,675 acre Cane Creeek lake. There is also public land available at Seven Devil's swamp WMA, Cut-off Creek WMA, Hall Creek Barrens Natural Area and Kingsland Prairie NA.

Web links:

http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/canecreek/
http://www.agfc.com/hunting/Pages/wmaDe … x?show=570
http://www.agfc.com/hunting/Pages/wmaDe … x?show=138
http://www.naturalheritage.com/natural- … k-barrens/
http://www.naturalheritage.com/natural- … d-prairie/

Directions:

From the north, take Interstate 530 and exit onto US Highway 425 at Pine Bluff, and travel south to Star City. Go south of Star City, and turn left on state highway 293. Travel five miles east on Ark. 293 to the park. From the south, take US 425 north to state highway 293 and turn right.

Cost:

The AHS does not require dues for membership. A primitive group camp area has been provided for us, free of charge. The fee was waived in exchange for us performing a herpetological survey of the park.

Food:

Whatever you choose to bring. You will be responsable for bringing your own provisions. There are a few restaraunts in Star City as well.

Suggested Provisions and Supplies:

* Blaze orange hunting vest
* Camera
* Camping gear
* Camp chairs
* Cold gear
* Food and drink
* GPS
* Herp collecting equipmen
* Rain gear
* Waders

Contacts:

Tobin: frogman1975@yahoo.com.
Josh: okieherper@yahoo.com
This field trip will NOT be canceled due to weather.

What is the most sampled AR herp species according to museum records?

As a hint, it comes in at more than double the second place finisher...AND it may be somewhat of a surprise for some.  I'll post the answer in 3-4 days.  Good luck!   

http://home.arkansasmasternaturalists.o … ;Itemid=74

Site Software Updates
The two major pieces of software I use to run the site (for the forum and wiki pages) have recently been updated.  The forum update was more significant and I had to redo most of the color scheme.  If you see anything bluish or otherwise not a color consistent with the site, please let me know.

More generally, if you ever come across anything that looks broken or out of place on the site, please let me know.

Site Pictures Moved to Flickr
After waiting over 2 years for someone else to write a decent script for using Flickr with the wiki, I finally gave up and wrote one myself.  The script ended up being of only moderate difficulty, but moving all of the pictures from the current host to Flickr was like moving an ELEPHANT.  Over 7000 pictures!!!

Among other things, it should make it more inviting for people--hey, like YOU!  --to contribute pictures to the site by simply adding them to the Herps of Arkansas Flickr Group.  Instructions are posted to the group.  I really need some guinea pigs to try it out and give me feedback on the process.

Navigating/scrolling through pictures on the site should be improved, too.

There are still some issues to work out.  In particular, I'm still sitting on lots of other people's pictures that were previously submitted to me or to the site and are currently offline.  I'll be resolving how to bring those back onto the site in the next little bit.

Making Contributions to the Site
Consider this my annual plea...  While many of you more knowledgeable people like to stick to the forum for 99% of your visits--and that's fine--the rest of the site does get a lot of traffic by other people and, in short, it continues to need some help in development and improvement from you.

One of the big helps would be for user contributions in writing the species accounts.  I got the snake and lizard accounts written a couple of years back, but now I just seem to get myself too tied up in technical development to work on the rest.  The rest being most of the turtle accounts and all of the frog, salamander, and alligator accounts.  They don't have to be full write ups, just add a snippet of information here and there from what you know...and they will build and improve over time.  That's basically the wiki way.  Even proofreading what's already done is a help!  (I found and corrected three old misspellings myself just this week!)  Log in using your forum username and password to edit the pages.  And yes, I WANT you to add, edit, and improve the site.  I still can't get why people are so afraid to touch it...so, don't be; just get in and do it.

Another help would be to contribute photographs to the site.  Just add them to the Flickr group, as mentioned above, or send them on to me and I'll get them in.  Don't worry if they aren't National Geographic quality, I think at this point more is better.

I'm also looking for some help in keeping the site calendar updated.  (And honestly, I'm giving some serious thought to just abandoning it altogether...but we'll see.)  If you have a gmail account, let me know and I can add you as an administrator.  Just having a person from AHS and CAHS adding their own dates would be helpful; even better if someone from the State Parks is out there.

Making the Most out of the Site
There are a lot of new and not-so-new features of the site I don't think people either know about or take full advantage of, so here ya' go...

Have you downloaded and printed your tri-fold herp checklists for 2012?  These are really handy to keep track of your herp species finds.  You might come up with some clever ideas, too, but I check off and jot down the county for each first species find of the year and add some notations as to which herp species I need better pictures of and the like.

A "share" widget has been added to the homepage (top-right column).  I tried to come up with an assortment and order of buttons that would best match our visitors, but if you have suggestions for something else, please let me know.

I also recently put together a Herps of Arkansas Facebook Page.  I've disabled the interactive features, since the intention was to give people another way to find the site and direct them here.  If the page helps you share and promote the site, then good for it!

There are a lot of subscription (RSS) feeds available on the site.  If you don't use--or even know about--RSS feeds, you might want to look into it.  I use a Firefox add-on called Brief for my RSS reading, but Google Reader is another popular choice.  Each forum has its own individual RSS feed, if you want something more selective.  On the homepage right-hand column, I've offered several feeds (such as all forum posts, photos, calendar events, and page updates).  At the bottom, I've put together an aggregate feed that will give you EVERYTHING in one.  If you have any of these feeds in your reader from way back, you might check that they are still functional since I've modified a few of these recently.

Site Trimming
For a number of reasons, I've severely trimmed the site.  The following pages and groups of pages are no longer accessible from the homepage and are essentially due for termination:

http://herpsofarkansas.com/Herp/EquipmentAndTechniques
http://herpsofarkansas.com/Herp/Paraphernalia
http://herpsofarkansas.com/Profiles/HomePage
http://herpsofarkansas.com/TripsAway/HomePage
http://herpsofarkansas.com/Nature/HomePage

If you have any information and/or personal pictures you would like to salvage from these pages, you need to take care of it.  I haven't scheduled for permanent deletions until the end of 2012, but these will eventually go bye-bye forever.

AHS Link
The AHS link on the homepage now directs straight to the AHS forum rather than to the AHS wiki pages (which are no longer accurate or timely).  If needed, the following link can be used to direct people to the AHS page archives:

http://herpsofarkansas.com/AHS/HomePage

If any AHS representatives need further clarification, please feel free to contact me.

Still Coming
After all of that, I still have all of these on the burner...

* Odds-n-ends herp pics from the waning part of 2011
* A Perkins report
* A St. Louis Zoo Hellbender report
* A 2011 year in review report
* A 2012 goals and targets report
* A skeleton draft of the AR Herp Atlas
* A generic AR herp Powerpoint presentation

Ugh!!!  I may not see sunlight this year, let alone getting out in the field a bit.   

.........................

I invite your feedback should you have any.