voucher question

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Paul White
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voucher question

Post by Paul White »

How important is it to upload vouchers? Do I only need to worry about that for new county records ? I just signed up and will start uploading tonight, but do I need to put in photos for all the C. atrox, P. cornatum, etc that I've seen??
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dezertwerx
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Re: voucher question

Post by dezertwerx »

I was under the impression that they all should have vouchers... although I have seen many in there without photos. Good question, not sure.... but I have now made it a point to put in a voucher for any entry.

Richard
Paul White
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Re: voucher question

Post by Paul White »

Oh man. This'll take forever :lol: :crazyeyes: I don't have photos for all of them but lots of them. I don't usually photograph Nerodia (they hide too damn quick) and I've quit photographing atrox or flagellum cause I see 'em so much.
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Fundad
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Re: voucher question

Post by Fundad »

A record without a voucher (picture) is useless..

Fundad
Paul White
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Re: voucher question

Post by Paul White »

Well, I'll do what I've got pictures for then *shrug* still a fair amount.
Sorry, I'm new to this sort of thing; I've never cared about exact records before.
Also, I don't own a GPS, so I hope the lat/long isn't required.I can tell you what trail in what park I find 'em on...usually between which mile marker post on the trail.
Data load for Randall County TX incoming! You'll get mostly common species *shrug*

Oh, and when we find one herp eating another...does that count for both?? Provided enough of the entree' is visible to ID it. So far I've only found that once but I can see it happening again...like maybe I'll find a hognose eating a spadefoot...or a coachwhip eating a king snake or vice versa...
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brick911
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Re: voucher question

Post by brick911 »

Yes, include both. The voucher debate will go on forever. Personally, I have made it a choice to only include vouchers from now on.

Common stuff may not be common some day. The database is good for trending data too, so don't let your records feel any less important. Trust me, I don't feel like recording 500 redbacks a year at the local park, but what if next year its 300, the following... 100, and four years from now, I'm only finding 20? That would show some proof of a BIG change in something. Record EVERYTHING! That's my humble advice.
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spinifer
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Re: voucher question

Post by spinifer »

Every photo you take is a record of that individual and should be entered separately. The only time you should group multiple individuals of the same species into the same record is if they all have the exact same date and locality (for example, found under the same rock).

Psyon added a new GPS tool that should help those who do not carry a GPS. If you can find the spot you were at on google maps then the tool will work for entering coordinates. Make sure you click on the little wrench icon and try it out.
Paul White
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Re: voucher question

Post by Paul White »

what about the same individual seen mulitiple times? I know 2 coach whips by sight (one's got a scar and one is very differently colored for our area). There's also one particular horned lizard that I think I see frequently (same trail near the same ant line).
sorry for all the questions but I want to know exactly what I need to do :)
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kyle loucks
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Re: voucher question

Post by kyle loucks »

For the same individual, if you are so sure, I would enter it for different conditions or time of year. Especially if you capture all the details.
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Brian Hubbs
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Re: voucher question

Post by Brian Hubbs »

Fundad will disagree with this, but i think it is important (as Kyle said) to voucher each animal in a separate entry even if they are from the same place. This can give researchers an idea of what the density is if gps coordinates are entered for each separate board, rock, etc. Only multiple critters from the same rock or board should all go on one entry. Alas, I have been lax in entering the gps, but I do enter a locality, and will do the gps for all one of these days.
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Fundad
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Re: voucher question

Post by Fundad »

Fundad will disagree with this, but i think it is important (as Kyle said) to voucher each animal in a separate entry even if they are from the same place. This can give researchers an idea of what the density is if gps coordinates are entered for each separate board, rock, etc. Only multiple critters from the same rock or board should all go on one entry. Alas, I have been lax in entering the gps, but I do enter a locality, and will do the gps for all one of these days.


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Your Right, I do disagree..

This Clouds the database with needless entries... Unless something is unusual about one of the entries, I enter them under one entry if there from the same exact local. Also This gives any researcher the instant info to know that area has a visible population, instead of having to wait for each entry to show up and than they have to put it all together to see that..

Fundad
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FunkyRes
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Re: voucher question

Post by FunkyRes »

Paul White wrote:Well, I'll do what I've got pictures for then *shrug* still a fair amount.
Sorry, I'm new to this sort of thing; I've never cared about exact records before.
Also, I don't own a GPS, so I hope the lat/long isn't required.I can tell you what trail in what park I find 'em on...usually between which mile marker post on the trail.
Data load for Randall County TX incoming! You'll get mostly common species *shrug*

Oh, and when we find one herp eating another...does that count for both?? Provided enough of the entree' is visible to ID it. So far I've only found that once but I can see it happening again...like maybe I'll find a hognose eating a spadefoot...or a coachwhip eating a king snake or vice versa...
You can often geo-reference close enough via google earth.
That being said, you can pick up an older Garmin eTrex Legend off of eBay fairly cheaply. Black and white screen, but it is what I use. Connects via serial cable, if you don't have a serial port, buy the official garmin USB adapter, generic adapters seem to be problematic (at least when using Garmin software)

For batteries, use Energizer Ultimate Lithium. In my experience they last twice as long as any other brand in a legend.

Elevation from a garmin legend is often wrong. Usually within 30 feet or so, but i've had seen it jump 100 feet with my feet still and moving the unit in my hand. I use gpsbabel to get the data off of the garmin and then use http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/elevation to fix the elevations in the resulting gpx file.
Paul White
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Re: voucher question

Post by Paul White »

who the hell records the body temperature of the herp?? I usually know the rough air temp (high 70s, low 80s, etc) but body temp?

some entries in, many more to go. If someone sees a mis-ID'd supspecies please let me know. I'm fairly confident down to species level but some of the cnemmies I'm less sure on

edit: I thought body temp would refer to the internal temp, which would require inserting thermometers. And someone make the server faster. Aaaaye aye aye
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FunkyRes
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Re: voucher question

Post by FunkyRes »

Paul White wrote:who the hell records the body temperature of the herp?? I usually know the rough air temp (high 70s, low 80s, etc) but body temp?

some entries in, many more to go
I wish I had a temperature gun ... I would (sometimes) record it.
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kyle loucks
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Re: voucher question

Post by kyle loucks »

There is only one way to get body temp....


Not sure if this is why this is on there or just the skin temp, which I think can be useful, as is temps of the substrate, or hiding place et. al.
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FunkyRes
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Re: voucher question

Post by FunkyRes »

kyle loucks wrote:There is only one way to get body temp....


Not sure if this is why this is on there or just the skin temp, which I think can be useful, as is temps of the substrate, or hiding place et. al.
I always assumed it was surface temp of the herp.
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chrish
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Re: voucher question

Post by chrish »

Brian Hubbs wrote:Fundad will disagree with this, but i think it is important (as Kyle said) to voucher each animal in a separate entry even if they are from the same place. This can give researchers an idea of what the density is if gps coordinates are entered for each separate board, rock, etc. Only multiple critters from the same rock or board should all go on one entry. Alas, I have been lax in entering the gps, but I do enter a locality, and will do the gps for all one of these days.
As will I. If you see 76 Trachemys scripta basking in a small pond less that 100 feet across, what is the value of putting 76 identical records? Just make one record of 76 individuals. Any researcher too lazy to look at the quantity field is too lazy to get good data so I don't care what they find.

And when you put in the "same board" or "same rock" criterion, what constitutes the same board?

If it is a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood and you find a snake at either end, is that one record?
What you found the same two snakes under 2 neighboring boards that were 4 x 4 and occupied the same space as the 4 x 8 sheet? Is the fact that one of the boards was cut relevant?

I think we have to be left to define the boundaries by our own criteria. As long as you are consistent and you aren't just splitting up records to pad you stats, you can do what you feel is correct. There is no wrong answer. I ask myself "Does splitting these individuals up provide information that simply listing the number in the quantity field of a single record would miss?" If the answer is no, then it is one record.

I personally think this is one entry, not seventy five -
Image

As for vouchers, they are important because people make mistakes. Several of my records have been corrected by people looking at my voucher photos, and I appreciate that it was done. If I didn't have photos, those records remain incorrect.

Lastly, download google earth. Not only is it great for finding your coordinates, but you can download the kmz file of your records as a backup and see all your records on a map. You can also use the measurements tool to get accurate measurements for you locality data and vice versa. For example, if you found an animal on a road 10.5 miles from a particular intersection, it is a simple matter in google earth to find that exact spot. It is a very useful tool for NAHerp recording....and free.

Chris
Paul White
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Re: voucher question

Post by Paul White »

I think I'll go with chrish's idea on that. I don't think seperately entering the 2 leopard frogs I found right next to each other gives much, if any, more data than one entry with a quantity.
I also plan to use that to make entering the boat loads of froglets and nerodia I've found this year easier since I find them all in the same place
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Brian Hubbs
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Re: voucher question

Post by Brian Hubbs »

I meant if you find 10 kingsnakes, and they are each 20 feet apart, I think they should be separate. Of course bunches of tadpoles or turtles go on the same entry, as do closer snakes and lizards (including those found under the same board or 2 boards side by side). I think any researcher worth his DooDoo will look at the gps dots on google and see the cluster of animals 20 feet apart...which might be impressive to some moron who thinks there are only 1.5 kings per acre...or less...and i know at least 2 idiots who fall into that category. :lol:
Paul White
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Re: voucher question

Post by Paul White »

speaking of kingsnakes, got your book today. Chapter 1 is depressing as hell with all the before/after pictures of habitats getting developed. Sort of makes me queasy.
maybe it'll help and next year I'll have more lampro's to enter :)

edit: this is really taking forever :-/ Hopefully it'll get easier once I've gotten caught up for the year so far. For some reason I can't find any photos prior to late may though?? Sometimes computers are confusing.
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spinifer
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Re: voucher question

Post by spinifer »

Paul White wrote:edit: this is really taking forever
You know there is copy botton in the upper right of the completed record, which is helpful when you found more than 1 species at the same locale. All you have to do it go through and change a few things.

Be careful using the copy feature though, I have caught myself using it, and then forgetting to change GPS or county. I only use it now when everything is the same except for species.
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Fundad
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Re: voucher question

Post by Fundad »

As will I. If you see 76 Trachemys scripta basking in a small pond less that 100 feet across, what is the value of putting 76 identical records? Just make one record of 76 individuals. Any researcher too lazy to look at the quantity field is too lazy to get good data so I don't care what they find.

And when you put in the "same board" or "same rock" criterion, what constitutes the same board?

If it is a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood and you find a snake at either end, is that one record?
What you found the same two snakes under 2 neighboring boards that were 4 x 4 and occupied the same space as the 4 x 8 sheet? Is the fact that one of the boards was cut relevant?

I think we have to be left to define the boundaries by our own criteria. As long as you are consistent and you aren't just splitting up records to pad you stats, you can do what you feel is correct. There is no wrong answer. I ask myself "Does splitting these individuals up provide information that simply listing the number in the quantity field of a single record would miss?" If the answer is no, then it is one record.

I personally think this is one entry, not seventy five -
And I concur..100% (we agree on something for a change :lol: :lol: ) There is a lot of stat padding going on too.. :lol: :lol:

Fundad
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brick911
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Re: voucher question

Post by brick911 »

I haven't stat padded anything and I herped like CRAZY all year. That's probably why I'm not showing up on the lists anywhere... Cheaters! :beer:
Paul White
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Re: voucher question

Post by Paul White »

It's the uploading the vouchers that takes ages. At home I have like a 1.5/256 connection...with real upload speeds more like 50k, so uploading a 1.5 meg picture is HORRIBLE. I want to find and hurt Suddenlink's CEO until I can buy an 8/8 connection that gets close to advertised speeds for less than exhorbiant monthly charges.
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Don Becker
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Re: voucher question

Post by Don Becker »

Quick internet speed tip.... your 1.5/256 connection is 1.5 megabit, and 256 kilobits. One byte is made up of 8 bits. So when your connection is 256kbit upload, it is 32 kilobytes per second, and that download speed is just show of 200 kilobytes a second.
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Fundad
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Re: voucher question

Post by Fundad »

I want to find and hurt Suddenlink's CEO until I can buy an 8/8 connection that gets close to advertised speeds for less than exhorbiant monthly charges.
I am pretty sure hurting a CEO is bad, and I doubt very seriously it's his fault... Consumer Bandwidth prices are really low these days, but the current trend is for pricing is going up, as ISP's struggle to pay for the back end bandwidth, and loss of business due to the economy.

Fundad
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jonathan
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Re: voucher question

Post by jonathan »

My personal rule is if I can see them at the same time, it's the same entry. So if I see 5 basking lizards out on the rocks all at once, or I flip 2 snakes under the same board, then I try to voucher them all but I only make one entry for them. But if I flip them under different pieces of cover, or I hike a little more and then see more lizards when I can no longer see the previous ones, I start a new entry.
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brick911
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Re: voucher question

Post by brick911 »

One point per entry, eh? ...Time for me to get to the woods and flip for redbacks. :crazyeyes:
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Re: voucher question

Post by Paul White »

I don't give a rats hind end about "points" (unless I win stuff with them, then I care!)...but contributing to the general knowledge of our wild herpetoculture sounds like a good thing to me so I'll do what I can.
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Don Becker
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Re: voucher question

Post by Don Becker »

I will always encourage people to enter a record for each animal they see. I hope that by doing so, people will take more detailed data about the age and sex of the animals. I don't generally do these things, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't encourage people to do so.
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kyle loucks
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Re: voucher question

Post by kyle loucks »

Paul White wrote:I don't give a rats hind end about "points" (unless I win stuff with them, then I care!)...but contributing to the general knowledge of our wild herpetoculture sounds like a good thing to me so I'll do what I can.
Thanks for entering records into the database. Every entry helps.... even those without a voucher.
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brick911
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Re: voucher question

Post by brick911 »

Paul, to be clear... We have had some ongoing fun with the database contest. ...friendly ribbing. Contest or not, I've entered my data and will continue to do so. I'm glad you feel the same. :beer:
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chrish
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Re: voucher question

Post by chrish »

Yeah, winning the contest is not a big deal for anyone I believe.

The real winner from the contest is the database. Those people in the front of the pack are digging deep to add new records. That simply gives the database more credibility. My goal this year was to add 100 new species to the database. I won't make that, but I have 52 new species added so far. I might make 75?

As soon as my work load lightens a bit (next week), I'm digging out my 20+ years worth of slides and I'm taking a run at Hubbs! Of course, I didn't record good data with many of those so they are lost to the cause, but I have enough to make him have to start making stuff up! :lol:
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Brian Hubbs
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Re: voucher question

Post by Brian Hubbs »

I'm way ahead of you...I've been making stuff up for years... :lol: Just read my books...

However, to be serious...I think Fundad is pretty serious about winning this thing...the rest of us might think it's a joke, but he's on the verge of getting violent... :shock:

Oh, wow, look at the time...I need to enter 20 more animals...now where did I put that old stack of Reptiles Magazines...?

I noticed a couple of your county record totals went down...what happened...?
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Fundad
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Re: voucher question

Post by Fundad »

However, to be serious...I think Fundad is pretty serious about winning this thing...the rest of us might think it's a joke, but he's on the verge of getting violent... :shock:
What are you talking about??, This coming from the guy who hasn't left his PC in a month to enter data?? :lol: :lol: :crazyeyes:

Fundad
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chrish
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Re: voucher question

Post by chrish »

Brian Hubbs wrote:I noticed a couple of your county record totals went down...what happened...?
Damn that Psyon and his stinking issues about accuracy. I went to this link - http://www.naherp.com/search.php?error=1
and found I had a bunch of stuff entered for the wrong counties (those barrier islands are tough to place in counties). Because of that, I lost a few county records.

That's OK though, I still have 2 overstuffed 3 ring binders with herp slides and about 200 boxes of slides beyond that. I'll come back!

BTW Brian, if you are looking for more records, try searching the photo galleries at "not allowed" and the reptile groups on Flickr. That's a lot quicker than scanning old Reptiles magazines.

I wonder if anyone would notice if I used one of the pictures in Ditmars as a voucher? I particularly like the ones of the preserved kingsnake with the preserved ringneck in its mouth. Let's see....where can I get a double county record with that shot?? :lol:
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Brian Hubbs
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Re: voucher question

Post by Brian Hubbs »

Wait a minute...I went to that link and didn't see any errors...just ALL my records...was that a joke...or does it list everything there is no gps for?

so you have a ton of untouched slides, eh...well I have 480 boxes of slides labeled "What the Hell is This?" Just wait till I enter those. I can call them whatever I want... :lol:
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Re: voucher question

Post by Paul White »

so when we see a V. alibigularis listed for Arizona, it's you we can blame. Otherwise I'd think Retes was having escapes. :lol:
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Don Becker
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Re: voucher question

Post by Don Becker »

Brian Hubbs wrote:Wait a minute...I went to that link and didn't see any errors...just ALL my records...was that a joke...or does it list everything there is no gps for?
Nope, it should only show records that have coordinates entered.
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Don Becker
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Re: voucher question

Post by Don Becker »

chrish wrote:Damn that Psyon and his stinking issues about accuracy. I went to this link - http://www.naherp.com/search.php?error=1
and found I had a bunch of stuff entered for the wrong counties (those barrier islands are tough to place in counties). Because of that, I lost a few county records.
Were you records obviously wrong, or are they records that were close to a county border? I have 3 records I have listed for Benton County, IA, that my thing shows as wrong. According to google earth they are in the right county though. I have a fox snake record that is probably 50 yards west of these 3 frog records and it shows its in the proper county. I wish my shape files for counties matched googles... I wonder if I can find the source of their dataset.
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Brian Hubbs
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Re: voucher question

Post by Brian Hubbs »

Well, the 2nd time it showed 2 errors...one in wrong county but right gps, and the other in the ocean...obviously the wrong gps... :lol: No totals were changed when i corrected them, because I have the ONLY Yosemite toad listed...nyah, nyah...
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jonathan
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Re: voucher question

Post by jonathan »

Brian Hubbs wrote: No totals were changed when i corrected them, because I have the ONLY Yosemite toad listed...nyah, nyah...

I stuck in 6 yosemite toad entries for Will from a variety of locations over a range of counties, showing lots of vouchers and quite a bit of variation. They're just all publicly restricted so you didn't see them. :thumb:

http://www.naherp.com/viewrecord.php?r_id=27773




p.s. - got your message and it makes me happy. I'll get that to you as soon as I can.
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Brian Hubbs
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Re: voucher question

Post by Brian Hubbs »

Uuuuhhhhhhhhhhh.....moan..... :lol: Well...I posted the first Lampropeltis catalinensis...so there...so...
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