From the website: “There are over 9,000 recognized species of reptile in the world. Many are extremely poorly known and many more are threatened with extinction. The Global Reptile BioBlitz is the sister effort to the Global Amphibian BioBlitz and aims to collect amateur observations of every species of reptile. Together, we can map where these incredible creatures persist and insure their conservation into the future.”

Both the Global Reptile and the Global Amphibian BioBlitz are powered by a website called iNaturlist.org, developed by UC Berkeley students teamed together with Stanford researchers and many other conservation organizations.

What they want YOU to do is to go lizard / snake / turtle hunting, capture pictures of what you find, and upload these pictures to the website along with the GPS position of where you took the photo (most modern smart phones with cameras will do this, as can regular digital cameras augmented with a Eye-Fi SD memory card.

Every observation helps! And what a great excuse to go catch some lizards.

I happened upon this over at National Geographic.  This previously undescribed lizard was “discovered” in a Vietnamese restaurant … on the menu.

The first thing I thought was, if this lizard’s temperament would make it a candidate for a pet, it would be easy to breed them — especially considering they’re all female and don’t need to mate in order to have offspring.

The second thing I thought was, despite all the information in this excellent National Geographic article, nowhere does it mention what they taste like.

(Probably chicken.)

Read the full article here:  New Self-Cloning Lizard Found in Vietnam Restaurant

UPDATE:  Even more in-depth article and video on Discovery.com here: http://bit.ly/bHM7ew

Chameleons, dragons and geckos, oh my!

I wish I could have taken them all home with me. 

This was in Wheaton, IL on November 6, 2010, at the DuPage County Fairgrounds.  The “Scott Smith’s All Animal Expo.”

Read full story at BBC Online.

Anolis carolinus

(Read Article on PawNation)

This somewhat misleading title on PawNation links to a rather interesting article on problems caused by letting exotic pets go into the wild.

This is actually old news.  But it’s a really good picture.

Personally, if I were a kid right now, I’d be excited about the prospect of going out to catch these babies in the wild.  What an awesome snake!

Looks to me like a plain old Galapagos iguana with a skin condition.

 Read the full story on TreeHugger.com

I have always loved the Firesign Theater.

Easy.  Go down to Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on Key Biscayne when the weather gets cold.  They rain from the trees, and lay dormant on the ground until the sun comes out and warms them up.

According to the Miami Herald, the locals aren’t too fond of the iguanas, complaining they munch the local hedges and gardens.  One commenter says, "If they are a pest why not cull them while they are laying around comatose?"

Dude, they’re lizards, not rats.  I’d fill a sack with them, take ‘em home, and start my own iguana ranch.