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Herpetology is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and the gymnophiona) and reptiles (including snakes, lizards, amphisbaenids, turtles, terrapins, tortoises, crocodilians and the tuataras). Long, long before my endeavors in amateur Paleontology, though I did not know what to call it at the time, my childhood passion was amateur Herpetology. Anywhere I went, that's what I was looking for. If you were to ask what I wanted to do, that would be it. There were empty lots near my house (which are now Petco and Target) that I called "The Mesa" that were chock full of lizards of all shapes...my parents tell stories of having to drag me away. As I grew older, other things began to consume my time and I figured I out grew that phase... ...nope, not the case! My BFF is quite fond of reptiles and amphibians and has reignited that flame. This year alone we encountered 12 genus of herp in the wild, managing to document 10 of those with photos. Trachemys... ...Terrapene... ...Cnemidophorus... ...Crotophytus... ...Uta... ...Holbrookia... ...Scaphiopus and Spea... ...Bufo... ...Sceloporus... ...and Pituophis... ...that's one heckuva list! There was a insanely fast Coachwhip (Coluber) and a large bullfrog (Lithobates) that we could not catch. As Autumn blows through we are saying goodbye, for now, to our slimy and scaly friends...we will miss you! See you in the Spring! I make this post in memory of our beloved Merlin (Pagona)... ...we will always love you! To my Chickaroo...thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for the realignment! And to my Forum Family, post 'em if you got 'em...or you've seen 'em...or if your just a fan! Got Herps?

In the summer of 2020 jpc and I had planned to get together in Eastern Wyoming to collect. That trip was unfortunately aborted by the coronavirus outbreak that year. This year, that conversation resumed and a new plan for a three day excursion in June emerged. I decided to make it a two week long car trip, driving all the way from New York, a longer car trip than any I've made in the past 25 years. That would afford me the opportunity to stop at some other sites on the way there and back, plus see some family. Another big reason for driving was an opportunity to visit and collect at the Big Cedar Ridge Cretaceous plant site. Having the car would afford me the opportunity to bring the necessary tools and be able to transport the fragile specimens safely. The rising price of gasoline certainly had an impact, and my plan was to cut costs as much as possible wherever I could. Part of that plan was camping 10 nights I departed the suburbs of New York City on Saturday, June 11th. That evening I arrived at Sturgis, MI, just off interstate 80. Spent the night in a motel and headed off the next day, driving through the heart of Chicago enshrouded in mist. It was my very first time driving through that city. I headed north and in the middle of the day arrived at my cousin's place in Madison, WI. He had moved there from Manhattan five years ago to teach music at the University of Wisconsin. This was my first time visiting him there, my first time in Wisconsin, actually. He took me on a lovely tour of the school and the town. I spent the night and was on my way again just before noon the next day. It rained off and on as I drove through Western Wisconsin and crossed the Mississippi into Dubuque, Iowa. From there it was a short drive to my first fossil stop- at Graf. This Upper Ordovician site in Maquoketa Formation is famous for its nautiloid death assemblage. I have found quite a few nautiloids over the course of my collecting career, but I've never encountered a site where they are thoroughly dominant. There was a layer of limestone, a few feet thick that was in many places just packed with their shells.

Hello everyone! know I've been slacking on updates on my three week trip to Wyoming with PaleoProspectors, but I promise I will post some more of my finds and do a full recap of last week's adventure as soon as I can. As for tonight, I'll share my experience hunting in the white river formation today, A view of where I began my day hunting. My first find: A section of Paleolagus (rabbit) jaw. Next I found a native american artifact After entering a larger area of exposures I came across this Mesohippus (horse) jaw.

I am a complete and total novice, and I realize this question may be common knowledge to experts, but I figured it would still be a good place to ask. I am also a member of a tortoise forum, which is where I met Tidgy's Dad, who eventually enticed me to check out this forum too! Among the general population, it seems there is the idea that turtles (and tortoises) lived at the same time as dinosaurs and outlived them. I already know that MODERN turtles and tortoise did not coexist with dinosaurs. My question is "What animals DID coexist with the first MODERN turtles and tortoises?" Thanks! Bea/ Moozillion

TURTLES: The most often seen fossil in the Nebraska and Wyoming Badlands are TURTLES. They can be several inches from hatching to three feet and weigh several hundred pounds. Turtles are so common, yet as a complete specimen... they are scarce. Some exposures I have hunted "Badland Fossils" had so many turtles weathered into pieces, I refer to those areas as "Turtle Gulch" and "Turtle Valley". Not that they were on top of one another, but one great death bed... One level of outcrop where multiple specimens were entombed and eventually eroded out today. Virtually no other fossils are found with these mass death levels. No Oreodonts... which any Badland Fossil Collector would be very surprised. The one I recall most vividly was on the exposures of Shalimar Ranch. These were all two to three foot specimens... no smaller turtles were weathered or weathering out. The reason I even bring up "Turtles and Eggs" are they are both have immediate eye appeal to the finder and to the curious. Skulls and teeth have their novelty, but turtles and eggs... they have an instant recognition of current live specimens and these ancient ancestors. It was during the Oligocene that the entire fossil fauna and some invertebrates like the Helix sp. snails, have modern relatives, or most had others not gone extinct. We had mice, rabbits, deer, camel, horse, rhino, birds (at least as various sized eggs), lizards, snakes, etc.. This is WHY the Oligocene Badlands relates to fossil collector and the public. Turtles. I myself have encountered what I would describe as three kinds. Stylemys, Testudo and Graptemys. By far, the Stylemys is the most frequently found turtle. Although at times I refer to them as tortoise, I will leave that to Forum Members who might have spent more time studying them. It is shaped like your box turtle and I have found them 3 inches to 3 feet across. Some times you will find loose plates where rodents had gnawed. Since these turtle could not retract their heads or legs, you almost never find one with a head nor appendages intact. Skeletal parts, bone can be found in the interior, if you wanted to remove the matrix to find out or not. When one is found with a skull intact, the skull will be partially exposed from the carapace and orientated such that the skull actually stayed intact when buried. My last Stylemys with skull attached with a carapace that was "heads up" and tail down position when found. The carapace had a "lump" of extra matrix which enclosed the skull. My first and last with a skull intact! This is probably only of interest to some of you who have actively hunted Badland Fossils. Exposures extent as far North as western North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska and South Dakota with the best exposures. There are in Paleontology... splitters and lumpers. I guess I would be a liberal lumper. The splitters find any excuse to describe a "new species" and the "lumper" would explain them as male, female, juveniles, etc. I would imagine a Stylemys of South Dakota might be different from one in Central Wyoming. But for now, I recognized three distinct shapes in Nebraska. One that caught my attention, late in my collecting days, was a turtle found in Niobrara County, Wyoming at a ranch that would be considered Chadron Member of the White River Formation. Not far from this turtle was a weathered skull of a Hoplophoneus saber tooth. The badlands had a light green tint... which to an experienced White River Formation fossil hunter... pond water or river channel. It was not a river channel as is was not gritty and full of Titanothere parts. A pond. And weathered upside down was a turtle... which ended up being the first "pond turtle" or aquatic turtle I had ever found. I add several photographs with this post. A pond turtle find was unusual, but it was bottom... up. It was upside down. I took the entire block of light green matrix that it was within and prepped it so I could pick the turtle up and replace it into the matrix. When I flipped it over... the top carapace had Hoplophoneus upper canine punctures! This is why I felt this story was necessary. Obviously cats liked pond turtles, too. Not far from this pond turtle I found a weathered Hoplophoneus skull... skull and no skeletal parts. Other than the turtle and cat... there were no other fossils in the general area. Just odd, This finishes the story of my Graptemys inornata pond turtle. EGGS: Mostly referred to as Duck Eggs because of the similar sizes. But there are also smaller bird eggs found. Most eggs are the hollowed shell that has filled with clay (Badlands). The eggs show the exact detail of the porous nature... much like our common chicken egg. The brown Chalcedony eggs I have seen were entirely north of Crawford, Nebraska. These eggs had been XRayed to see if any bones existed... and at that time none were found. Even the "badland" filled white shelled specimens also have never given up any secrets... yet. The majority of egg finds are associated with the Chadron Member and mostly in the green tinted sediments... ponds. The eggs were laid, the pond had excessive runoff into it, flooded the nests and... presto... buried to be found 38,000,000 years later. Where one egg is found... others are sure to be weathering out in the future. I have found most of mine as sporadic in white fine grained badlands. North of Crawford and north of Harrison, Nebraska, Often they are "crushed" with cracks along the compressed edges. I have found a few weathering out of the badlands and some weathered out in the Chadron "flats". My theory on Eggs is that those found are infertile. This explains why no near hatchlings are to be found from XRays of perfectly preserved eggs... as delicate an egg is to fossilized... there is no reason why one or more would not give up an unhatched chick. Had there been a unhatched chick... when buried the decomposition of the chick, would expand the egg and prevent it from being preserved as a fossil egg. Breaking into parts and little chance of preservation. I have never found loose egg shell. I have never found any bird skull and leave a possibility of bone... if complete enough to distinguish it from a large rodent bone. Just have not been that lucky. In a way, this is intended to enhance your knowledge of two well known fossils of the Badlands. This does not include possible turtle eggs and the beetle pupae that I suspect... but nobody has found any among a large turtle, as far as I know. So my not knowing exactly what the turtle egg looks like, leaves a big vacuum in knowledge. I have one "possible turtle egg" that is round with unusual cracking about the diameter of a nickel, 3/4 inch. I found it digging around some odds and ends this morning in storage. Reference for Turtle Collectors: I recommend one book concerning Fossil Turtles. Strange enough there is a similar title... but Fossil Lizards, which also occur in a good variety in the Badlands. Fossil Turtles of North America by O. P. Hay- 1908- Carnegie Institution of Washington Fossil Lizards of North America by Charles W. Gilmore- 1928- National Academy of Sciences Why, you ask does Ray go on about some subjects? When I was first collecting, it was very difficult to get any information on my fossils. Common, unusual and very rare. It was a challenge. Now I have the majority of references and no place to hunt in the near future. So for those of you who are so fortunate to be still active, please make use of these references.