House of Herps

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Hi there everyone,

Our scheduled Host, Arati, had to cancel her hosting gig this month, so we have a slot available for anyone who would like to host House of Herps #8. Submissions are due by July 15th, and we would like to have the carnival up on or before July 18th.

Anyone interesssssssted?

submissions [at] houseofherps [dot] com

hosting [at] houseofherps [dot] com

After an extended and record-breaking winter, spring quickly gave way to an early summer in the Lone Star State.  We’ve already hit the century mark on the ol’ thermometer, and heat and humidity have driven sensible people into the comfort of air conditioning.  But now is the time to get out and about if you want to see herps.  You see, here in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex we’re experiencing a snake and alligator explosion.  Yes, I said alligators.

The weather over the past year has given rise to perfect conditions for snakes, but the changing climate in this part of the world has also made DFW a perfect place for alligators.

Since last summer more than eight alligators have been captured and relocated due to their nearness to schools and residential areas.  And it’s suspected that this, the largest extant alligator species, now inhabits nearly all waterways in and around the metroplex, including the lakes where people swim.  Which, as you can suspect, has made this territorial expansion fascinating for some and worrisome for others.  But seeing these crocodilians in places like Plano, Arlington, Dallas, Ft. Worth and Kaufman has made for many a smile amongst those of us who can’t get enough of these large critters.

In addition to the growing alligator presence, the number of animals (mainly pets) bitten by snakes has more than doubled in the last three months.  The weather has been perfect for our scaled, legless friends.  That means they’re out in force, roaming about in yards and parks—and even on roads and driveways.  Our many venomous species are making a grand appearance, but so are the large number of nonvenomous species.  The slithering around North Texas is nearly audible.

Why does all this matter?

The deadline for submitting to House of Herps #7 is fast approaching.  June 15 will be here before you know it, and that’s the last day for getting your entry into the next celebration of all things herpetological.  Given the sudden overflow of herps right here in the middle of the big city and the rapid approach of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, finding reptiles and amphibians should increasingly present no problems for anyone who goes outside.

So get out there and find some herps.  Then blog about your experience.  And then remember to send your submission to submissions [at] houseofherps [dot] com no later than June 15.  The carnival will then be posted around June 18.

Oh, one more thing.  Though we have hosts lined up for most of the year, we’re still looking for someone to host this edition and the October edition of the carnival dedicated to these ectothermic tetrapods.  If you’re interested in hosting, send an e-mail to submissions [at] houseofherps [dot] com and let us know.  Please remember to include a link to your blog.

Now, get off the internet and go outside!

Hello there herp-fans!

As Spring starts to bear promises of summer, most of us have encountered our first herps of 2010. This is a great time to share your  herping adventures, and the next House of Herps blog carnival is almost here. HoH#6 will be hosted by Bernard “Billy” Brown at Philly Herping. Submissions are due by midnight tonight, but something tells me that a late submission would be able to slither into the carnival which goes up around the 18th.

I would also like to draw your attention to the new Contributors page here at the home site, where I have listed and linked to every blog that has participated in HoH so far, indicated the host blog with an “H,” and linked to the HoH Carnival post itself.

Finally, I thought it might be fun to challenge our bloggers to help us get to enough submissions for every spot on this frog. Or at least most of them…

Please send your submissions to:

• billysbrown[at]gmail[dot]com  OR
• submissions@houseofherps.com

Thanks!

Quick update

We now have a host for HoH#5 – TGIQ of Fall to Climb has swooped in to save the day! TGIQ is also hosting AIF on the 18th, so we’ll give her an extra day or two to post HoH. I have no doubt that TGIQ is up to the task, and I can vouch for how supremely generous it is to host two carnivals simultaneously. And TGIQ is doing this on purpose! (my recent double-hosting gig was an accident…and I had help).

You can now send your submissions to:

• TGIQ at hotmail dot com
• submissions [at] houseofherps [dot] com

Please send your submissions by April 15…after you file your tax return, of course!

If you would like to host an edition of HoH, just let us know!

• hosting [at] houseofherps [dot] com

Spring is heating up and so are those cold-blooded friends of ours! Our hosting schedule is wide open through the best part of herp “season” (for most in North America). If the herps can venture out this month – so can you!

If you would like to host HoH in April or any other month, please let us know by sending us an email at hosting [at] houseofherps [dot] com.

Send your submissions to submissions [at] houseofherps [dot] com.

Thanks!

In case you haven’t heard, we have a host for House of Herps #4. We also have another weekend before submissions are due, so if Spring has bee slow to arrive to your town, you may be in luck. I’ll be out this weekend, looking around those sunny spots that might offer a tempting perch for our cold-blooded friends.

John, from Kind of Curious has volunteered to host HoH#4, so be sure to send your submissions to John: KindOfCurious2000 [AT] gmail [DOT] com, or to submissions [AT] houseofherps [DOT] com.

Submissions are due by March 15! Have a great weekend!

The next ectothermic extravaganza, House of Herps #3, is fast approaching. Though it may still be winter for those of us north of the equator, this is no time to hibernate. There are frogs to be kissed and snakes to be charmed even in the coldest of months.

I’ll be hosting this edition at my blog, xenogere. You can submit your entries in three ways: send an e-mail to submissions [AT] houseofherps [DOT] com, send an e-mail to jason [AT] xenogere [DOT] com, or use the neat little contact form on my site. Your message will land in my lap no matter which method you choose.

The deadline for this edition is February 15. The carnival will be posted on February 18.

Remember, House of Herps is a celebration of amphibians and reptiles, from conservation to science and research to education to discovery. If you’ve blogged about herps in that context, we want to hear from you. So get hoppin’ and get your submissions in no later than February 15.

Also, we’re looking for volunteers to host the carnival in the coming months. If you’re interested, please send an e-mail to submissions [AT] houseofherps [DOT] com and let us know! Please include a link to your blog and which month you’d like to host. (The hosting schedule is visible in the sidebar to the right.)

The deadline for submitting to the second edition of House of Herps is fast approaching. You should have your entries to Ted MacRae of Beetles in the Bush no later than January 15 if you want to be included. He’ll kick off the festivities a few days later.

Please either send your entries to submissions [AT] houseofherps [DOT] com or send them directly to Ted using his handy-dandy contact form.

I have friends who want to participate. Here’s one of them, a male green anole (Anolis carolinensis) who’s been grabbing as much sun as he can before bitter temperatures set in later this week.

He’s hoping you have some friends who also want to join in. Send along your entries before the 15th, and we’ll plan to see you at Ted’s place for the next cold-blooded convention!

Reptiles and amphibians. Collectively and separately they represent life much older than us, each group having taken its turn ruling the planet long before mammals were a twinkle in the cosmos’ eye. First came amphibians, giants by modern standards, larger than the largest dogs and enjoying mastery of the land as top predators. Then reptiles displaced them as kings of Earth, behemoths we would eventually call dinosaurs who often represent a child’s first true interest in science.

But all things change, and mammals slowly climbed the evolutionary ladder until they brushed aside reptiles and amphibians to become the dominant form of life. From little critters scampering about and trying to avoid being stepped on or eaten by our very large reptilian forefathers, over time mammals gave rise to primates and primates gave rise to humans. And as we humans grew and developed and somehow stumbled upon the stage of intelligence, we created the internet! Then we created nature blogging.

We nature bloggers love to celebrate. We hold carnivals for the trees that shelter life around the globe and the plants that grow alongside them, the birds flitting and flying and filling every ecological niche, the invertebrates whose near limitless presence outnumbers and outweighs all other life on the planet, the oceans that offer incomprehensible diversity, and the moths fluttering in and out of our lives on a regular basis. We even celebrate the best science writing in the blogosphere and the very mechanism of biology that gave rise to all the life we see around us.

Yet our cold-blooded ancestors didn’t vanish into the ether. They evolved right along with everything else, and today their children share the world with us as toads, frogs, lizards, turtles and terrapins and tortoises, salamanders and newts, crocodiles and alligators, snakes, and a veritable horde of creatures. We see the gecko walk across the ceiling whilst miraculously defying gravity.  We see the crocodile hunt and kill something as large as a wildebeest. We see the snake whose venom not only subdues but saves lives by treating stroke victims. We see turtle traffic jams with each individual climbing atop the next as everyone vies for a bit of sunshine. We see the poisonous frog with colors so bright that we scarcely can imagine something that beautiful. We see the skink who grows back a tail just as easily as we might grow a fingernail after it’s been trimmed. And with all that beauty and all that magic, we don’t see a blog carnival to celebrate them.

So we decided to change that. Amber of Birder’s Lounge and I (Jason of xenogere) have conspired together to kick off a celebration of all things herpetological. With not too small a portion of co-conspiracy prodding by Ted of Beetles in the Bush, along with the expert guidance of Mike from 10,000 Birds and Nature Blog Network, the time has come for House of Herps, a monthly blog carnival centered on all things amphibian and reptilian.

House of Herps will be a monthly carnival. The first edition will be hosted at the carnival site, House of Herps, after which it will begin traveling to host blogs. The general deadline for submissions is the 15th of each month with the carnival appearing a few days after that. And much to our joyful excitement, we already have submissions for the first carnival from people who knew of our plot to launch this extravaganza.

So if you love herps—if you photograph them, write about them, sketch or paint artwork based on them, study them, or just happen to see one that you mention on your blog—we want to hear from you for House of Herps #1 coming in mid-December. We also want to hear from you if you’re interested in hosting the carnival. Please visit the House of Herps site for contact information, or send your submission links to us at submissions [at] houseofherps.com

This is the new website for House of Herps (HoH), the brand-new blog carnival celebrating Amphibian and Reptile wildlife. We are busy working behind-the-scenes for our first edition to be hosted right here, before heading off to a different host blogger each month.

To keep it simple, blog post submissions are due by the 15th of the month. The HoH carnival will be posted within 3 days – so, on or before the 18th of each month.

Look for an announcement on the Nature Blog Network’s blog next week. If you have a post that you would like to submit, please send it to us at: submissions [at] houseofherps.com