Wednesday, January 21st
Our January meeting will feature the club's annual Photo Contest, and Board Elections.
If you'd like to enter the contest, simply come to the meeting with a photo of a reptile or amphibian that YOU have taken. You can enter as many as you'd like. Winners will receive a year's membership.
Meetings start promptly at 8pm in the Alumni Room of Medaille College.
Favorite Amphibian and Reptile Information Sites
Last time we learned how to search for information of the web with search engines. This time we'll talk about some of the better web sites out there for reptile and amphibian information.
A good place to look for care sheets and links to other web sites is our own web site. The home of the Western New York Herpetological Society can be found on-line at http://www.wnyherp.org! The site has recently had a bit of a facelift and if you have not visited in the past couple months you may want to check it out. In addition to information about our club and meetings you can find information our Reptile Show coming up this September. There are many different care sheets available as well as new and updated information about our club and what we are doing. If you are still looking for more information there are links to other great resources on the web.
If you're looking for the good herpetology web site with plenty of content, then you need not look too much further then Melissa Kaplan's web site (http://www.anapsid.org). This site offers plenty of information about reptiles and amphibians in general but has an excellent green iguana section. Melissa Kaplan also offers a section for finding reptile and amphibian veterinarians across the county. There is an excellent kids section with all kinds of links to kid friendly herp sites as well.
Finding a veterinarian who takes reptiles and amphibians can be tough. First the Association or Reptile and Amphibian Veterinarians (http://www.arav.org) offers its membership listing on-line. While this doesn't guarantee an excellent vet, you have a better chance of finding an experienced herp vet than the Yellow Pages. The second site is Herp Vet Connection (http://www.herpvetconnection.com). The nice thing about this site is that all the listings here have come from actual clients that have had good results with a particular vet. This is a great way to find a vet in your area that has a fairly good reputation and experience with herps.
Another site that may be of interest for people interested in reptile rehab is R.A.R.E's official web site (http://www.rarerehab.org). R.A.R.E stands for Reptile Adoption, Rehabilitation, and Education and is based here in Western New York! This site offers a basic introduction to R.A.R.E and the services it offers the community and is definitely worth checking out on your next surfing adventure.
Another excellent starting place for reptile information is Kingsnake.com (http://www.kingstake.com). Kingsnake offers plenty of information including Resources to breeders, dealers and stores. They also offer care sheets on a variety of species. The best feature that Kingsnake offers is its HerpSearch feature. HerpSearch is a search engine of herp-only web sites. It can be an excellent resource for finding information on a particular species or even if you are just trying to find a breeder or dealer. Kingsnake also has an excellent listing of reptile and amphibian shows across the country.
The National Reptile and Amphibian Advisory Council (http://www.nraac.org) has excellent information about late breaking news about reptile and amphibians laws and regulations as well as a listing of reptile veterinarians. They also have a list of pet stores that sell reptile and amphibians.
The Northern Ohio Association of Herpetologists offers great resources (http://www.noahonline.net). In addition to care sheets you can also find a copy of their featured article from their newsletter each month. They also offer the ability to search through some of their past articles.
If you are looking for a great resource for general interest herp information try checking out Herp Digest (http://www.herpdigest.org). This weekly newsletter is delivered via e-mail and contains many good general interest articles on reptiles and amphibians. The subscription is free and once you subscribe you can search through the archives of past articles for any topic. This is by far one of the best on-line resources I have found for information on what's happening in the news about reptiles and amphibians.
Hopefully these web sites will help you the next time you are out surfing in cyberspace. Remember to check any information you find on-line. A good general rule to follow when doing research is if you find the same information in three independent locations then you can be fairly certain that it is correct.
You can find all the sites mentioned in this article at our own web site http://www.wnyherp.org.
Help reptiles in need by donating to our Adoption Fund! Your donations will help feed and house reptiles waiting for adoption.