Not disputing the fact that dbd is an excellent herper... i jus think he was being a dbdbag
I'm switchin to PAINTED TURTLE PETE

OK, I got dibs on MUDPUPPY MARK!

Around these parts, I am actually known as "The Big Snake Guy"

Can I be Lampropeltis Lisa?

And I do have my light saber and am ready for battle! Just ask Ritchie King, hahaha!

Welcome to the fhf snakeman123...live and learn...or get swallowed up by the really big snake!

I wanna be JUNK SNAKE JOHN.

When I do educational talks for kids I go by Snake Man Dan. So, that's taken. You guys can't have that one.


Dan

SnakeMan123, The Real Snake Man, Diamondback Dave... they're all kind of on par.

I don't really have a specialty so I'm gonna keep it real and claim "Redback Robert."

I like "REDBACK BOB" better.

Ok, I wasn't sure if I should go with alliteration or not. Nobody calls me Robert anyway. Redback Bob it is!

Well, since we're comin' up with nicknames, I'll be Krotalus Kris....and to get it all hip-hop/ebonicized, I have to figure out a way to flip one or both ks the wrong way...

-Kris

I dub thee Kroshizzle.

The Pingle

How about Kris Krote? Kinda has a ring to it!

Garters and browns are basically bait... so an expert in them would have to be called 'the Master-Baiter'...
Can I be Hellihoo... oh wait...nevermind...
That would be a fun thread... everyone tells how/why they got/use their username...
J. Teel, as razz-ment, started calling me Helleri Hands, on another forum, (cause I got tagged in both hands, when young and dumb) which eventually evolved to hellihands, and since my right hand is basically a claw... it eventually became 'hellihooks'.

My other nickname is 'Biggibuzzworm'....Laaaaydeeeesss jim

HI!!! JACK!

Hense forth, I shall hereby be known as The Dicamptodon Douchecanoe.

I agree, that would be a fun thread (and thanks for the explanation on how you got yours).

Me? Well, my parents always wanted a girl, and... oh, wait, I just realised you meant our online usernames.

Mine is simple...

Az=Arizona

Atrox=self explanatory (I'd hope).

-Kris

Start up a new thread for it. I would be interested in reading that and with all these hijacked or long debate posts, I'm forgetting what conversation is going on where.

I herp in the DB national forest a lot snake-man, what county are you from? Maybe I could give you a few pointers and help you out sometime, the people on this forum mean well, they are all just very very protective of the animals we all love, even ole' Diamondback Dave's a good guy I had the pleasure of spending some time with him in Fl, he even got to see me puke up some seafood and he never once called me gay.

I'm out here in Clark County and some pointers would be awesome man I apreciate it

I'm guessing you're in California? Californians are the only ones who post counties as if everyone knows what they're talking about. I'm sure the Scandinavians do, or maybe Hans, or some of the Aussies? Hilarious, it really is.

lol I'm in Kentucky, seeing as how the other guy is from Hazard I just assumed he'd know what I was talking about

Kentucky, Justin and I know where hes talking about, my locations listed under my profile both city and state. I'm in Hazard, Perry county. I dont know why we typically use counties here instead of cities, must be a cultural thing.

I usually ignore county names and just look at the state, anyway, but while we're on the topic... as an Australian the parochialisms that get me are when people use acronyms for reptiles on the assumption that everyone reading the forum is from the US ("found a really cool EMS, right next to a FMT and an RFZ!"), or species name without the generic name ("finally found a lateralis, even bigger than the striatus I found last week!"). If there's an accompanying photo I can quickly figure out what the acronym stands for, or what generic name goes with the epithet, but when used out of context I just shrug and think 'hmm...okay'.

Man, you're cranky. . . Like an EDB. I'll never invite you simus hunting with that attitude!

JK.

To explain your acronyms -

EMS: Eastern Mountain Sports. Best Sporting goods dealer in New England.

FMT: Frozen then Microwave Thawed. A method of preparing feeder mice.

RFZ: Watch your mouth you sick man!

What's Rob Zombie's middle name, anyway?

Frankenstein. He had it legally changed because he's a horror aficionado.

you guys are killing me I'm rolling on the floor like an upside-down EBT.

i have to agree with crocdoc on this one. sometimes it is just too much. i do not care much for taxonomy, so when common name is not used for some even in the US, i've been stumped.

part of language is being able to communicate to your audience. we've established that much of the audience here will most likely not be fluent in taxonomy. i'm one of them. hell, the names change on a daily basis anyways.

-ben

Actually, I think crocdoc was saying the opposite. At least that's the way I read it. I think that just naming a latin species without genus is the problem to someone who is unfamiiar. ...or using RES instead of Red-eared Slider.

Taxonomy IS the way to unite all of us from around the globe here on the forum. When doing posts for the main forum, I try to include the common name and the taxonomical name. At least on BIG posts. Racer, black racer, blacksnake, black demon... Someone from Australia might get confused. Call it a Coluber constrictor constrictor and that same person has a foundation to stand on if they want to learn more.

This is familiar ground that's been covered on FHF on many occasions, and the consensus has always been that scientific names are more than appropriate here. Asking people not to use them is like asking them not to use long multisyllabic words because it's too much trouble to look them up. If you don't know a latin word that's been used, ask or look it up - I can guarantee you that nobody will think lesser of you and you will gain herpetological knowledge in the process.

oops

24 year old snake girl---much more interesting than self proclaimed "snake men".

Agreed lol

i do agree with you guys that latin is the way to go. there will be no confusion. i just don't really care all that much to keep up with it. its just annoying when names continually change. fox snakes were elaphe but now pantherophis. species is(from what i hear) changing to mintonius or something like that. then you throw in vulpina and gloydi somewhere in there. it's just too much for me at times. in this study from what i understand, there were dna found that really didn't fit, so they just lumped them in a category that seemed right. too much. a fox snake is a fox snake regardless of whether i found it in minnesota or ohio. that's my 2 cents. i do understand the need for taxonomy, but science is supposed to make things clearer, not cloudier.

-ben

I sure can't argue with that. To some degree, I just refuse to go along....I know Elaphe has been changed to Pantherophis, but I haven't used it yet. Like I told a herper friend last week, I'm still trying to come to grips with "Nerodia"!

Just to make it clear - I'm all in favour of scientific names being used. Even better, a combination of common and scientific names. My point was that scientific names have the potential of causing confusion if only part of the name is used, particularly the species name without the genus. Josh joked about 'simus' in his post, which for most people here equates to a hognose snake, but for me the first simus that popped into my head was Arctodus simus, an extinct long-legged bear, because I did an illustration of one a number of years back and I'm more familiar with Heterodon platyrhinos (or is it H. platirhinos?) than H. simus because that was the species native to the province in which I grew up. I actually had to look up 'simus' to find out what it was, because I figured he didn't mean the bear. That's a poor example, for clearly this is a reptile forum and not a bear forum, but a lot of scientific epithets carry across several species around the world, so using niger, striatus, undulatus, varius will mean different things for different people. Using the genus on its own is okay, for there's usually less overlap there (although Dracaena and Pandanus refer to two types of plants, as well as a lizard and a scorpion).

Common names on their own are not much better, as they vary too much from locality to locality and there's too much overlap with common names used elsewhere in the world. When someone says "I caught a brown snake yesterday" on here, people from the US may imagine a tiny harmless snake (genus Storeria) but what immediately pops into my mind is a large, highly venomous elapid (genus Pseudonaja). Blacksnake, treesnake, whipsnake.... all different here than there.

I'm not really as naive as this makes me sound - I know that when someone uses the name 'brown snake' and their profile says they're in the US, they don't mean the elapids of that name we have here in Australia and I'm pretty familiar with most North American reptiles, but if I were to post a photo of reptile from here I'd usually use both common and scientific names so that there was no confusion.

....Nerdicus dorki d..

-Dell

Except you're on a herp forum. That's like the pot calling the kettle...