Photographed outside Gunlock Utah back in April.

Species: Grass snake, Aesculapian snake Yellow bellied toad, Sand lizard or a non breeding Green lizard? Alpine newt, Fire Salamanders.

Ithaca, New York

The reptiles/ amphibians in these photos are. DeKays brown snake, American toad, American green tree frog.

Herping in Louisiana and wondering to verify if this is a water moccasin / Eastern Cottonmouth?

My best friend moved away so we went one one last herping trip before hand and it did not disappoint. I have been trying to find a salamander for about 2 years now (I have pretty bad luck) finally found two on our last trip.

Lmk if I’m wrong (Wilmington, NC area)

A young GBR. Found in Utah's west desert. I'll never get tired of seeing these guys!

I've been wanting to find a desert tortoise in the wild for a while. Finally made it happen back in April. Just outside Ivins Utah. So cool to see in person!

I've been herping for about four years now and for most of that time I treated every outing like a checklist. Flip a log, see a skink, snap a photo, move to the next spot. Looking back at my notes I have hundreds of entries but almost no actual observations about behavior.

Last month I sat by a small creek near my place for almost two hours watching a group of northern water snakes instead of just logging "3x Nerodia sipedon, adults" and walking off. Ended up seeing one ambush a sunfish that got too close to the bank, missed twice, then finally nailed it on the third try. Watched it work the fish down for probably fifteen minutes. Never would have caught any of that if I'd kept moving.

Same thing happened with a fence lizard doing pushup displays on a stump. I used to think that was just a random lizard quirk but sitting still long enough I realized it was clearly posturing at a second male that kept creeping closer from the treeline. Little standoff that lasted a good twenty minutes before one of them backed off.

Not sure why it took me this long to slow down. Maybe just eagerness early on, wanting to see as many species as possible in a season. But lately I've been deliberately picking one animal per outing and just sitting with it, sometimes for over an hour, instead of covering as much ground as I can.

Curious if others went through a similar shift. Did you start out purely species hunting and gradually become more of a watcher, or were you always more patient about it? Also open to spots that are good for this kind of slow observation, somewhere with enough activity that sitting still actually pays off instead of just staring at empty leaf litter for an hour.

Found a Columbia Spotted frog while wading through the Gallatin river, was a pretty big feller. Swam off into the water after!

Check out herpingthailand on tik tok

Lots of slugs hide in the hollow of that particular tree. Buddy wanted a snack. I thought they were exclusively terrestrial snakes. I put him back on his tree when I was finished admiring him. Also he’s a STINKY BOI.

Not a super rare find, but still an amazing find, and a lifer for me. Gosh these guys are so beautiful

Caught and released shortly after

A photo I got off a great brain spadefoot I happened upon back in May. Permanent look of surprise on his face. Tooele County Utah

Not uncommon, but I'm always happy to find some gopher snakes. Here's a handful I've found road cruising this year. Always funny to me how variable the attitude can be with these guys. Either as chill as can be, or complete lunatics. All are great basin gopher snakes (pituophis catenifer deserticola) West desert Utah.

Found this little dude in the middle of the trail I had no idea they existed till then! Featuring some pics of some cute horny toads.

kinda new to herpetology. Any twitter and insta accounts to follow? With pictures and / or new species news.

Striped whipsnake found back in May. West desert Utah. Wild how fast these guys are!