Amphibians and Reptiles

[gneissisnice]

Thats how it was for Rocks and Minerals for me, but herpetology isnt my strong suit. I can ID most of my half (the first half, up to snakes), but the turtles look too similar. I mean, Blanding's turtle has nothing distinct about it. Neither does the chicken turtle.

[rocketman1555]

turtles are pretty easy to identify, where do you live?

[dickyjones]

Most Blanding's turtles have plain yellow necks. Chicken turtles have one or more yellow stripes down their legs.

Yeah, I've always been weak on snakes too (killed me at nats when I called a Brahminy blind snake a regular blind snake (Leptotyphlopidae, pretty sure that was the only thing I mis-IDed, ergh)). I need to learn the scale patterns better next year. My way of identifying racers last year was that they looked mean.

[Pleiades]

Wow you put a lot of stuff in your field guide!!! How long did that take you and how many species did you include?

[dickyjones]

I only did that for the families/genera. Though sometimes I went to species when there were only a few in the genera (blandings, wood turtles, etc.). Probably spent about 50 hours over 3 months to get it presentable for invites. And then had a ton of revision for regionals and states. Didn't do as much for nats, though (and I guess it showed a little..).

[Pleiades]

I put description along with a photo, Subspecies [if any], Breeding Info, Habitat, Range, Additional Info for all 400 species that I did. It took FOREVER.

[gneissisnice]

For my half, I did that basically, but I think I left out too much random information that i needed. And my partner just copied and pasted everything, and that was bad. She really didnt study at all, and she had the hard part (snakes and amphibians). And i definitely spent less time than you did, pleiades. Your dedication to scio makes me proud

[Pleiades]

My partner didnt really do anything besides write a few pages about amphibian and reptile fossils which never ended up getting printed out and put in my field guide. My partner was the same person who did BLG that i mentioned in the other thread.

[rocketman1555]

i learned that i was competing in it 2 days before state, and i could still identify more of the animals than he could, he relied to much on the binder that he made

[gneissisnice]

Haha at regionals, we found out the day before that my partner couldnt make it to the competition so we assigned someone the event 6th period on friday before the competition. We got 5th, cause our binder was good and he studied for a LONG time the night before.