northeast-flora-and-fauna

The American Bullfrogs were out in force on this spring day. I met 6, and here are the 2 most photogenic. To you and me, these guys are handsome herptiles , but for many of the arthropods flying, crawling, and swimming around here, they are voracious predators. Of the herptiles of New Jersey, I probably see turtles the most, followed by frogs [1], then by snakes, and with salamanders far behind. Herptiles are an interesting classification of animals, comprising amphibians and reptiles . What's interesting about that? Well, mostly it's that reptiles aren't especially closely related to amphibians. Birds, which we think about as a rival group to reptiles, are taxonomically a type of reptile. And even mammals are more closely related to reptiles than amphibians are. But because historically people think about reptiles and amphibians together, the 2 land-based ectotherms are studied together, despite what we now know about relatedness. May 10, 2023 at Delaware Raritan Canal P...

Being able to identify the types of turtles we have is something I don't consider myself to be especially good at. My primary reference is something I think I bought at a NJ Audubon branch: Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of New Jersey . (Since this only documents herptiles of NJ, it theoretically prevents me from seeing a picture of a turtle, thinking it's a very good match for my turtle, only to read that the turtle only lives in Madagascar.) The other resource that I use kicks in when I'm submitting my sightings to iNaturalist . They let you type the name of the species, but clicking in the field prompts iNaturalist to give suggestions, frequently of various species though sometimes the best they can do is suggest a genus, family, order, etc. I'm not sure what percentage of the time iNaturalist is correct, though clearly distinctive plants/animals with no similar ones living in the area greatly improves their success. Poor photo quality can also hurt its effe...