Hix PMed me the email of Stephen Spawls, the author of my pocket guide and the big expensive proper field guide that I can't afford. He was able to identify all the reptiles for me and sent the amphibians to a colleague to identify. I wasn't going to post my source for this publicly as it feels a bit inappropriate to do so, but thinking about it I suppose there's no problem really.
Yeah, Steve was incredibly helpful and friendly with the identifications, as well as a bit of general discussion about East African herps.
(I've just realised that you post is ambiguous as to whether it was really nice of Steve to identify the stuff for me or of Hix to send me his email. Whichever you meant, it was really nice of both of them! )
Yeah, Steve was incredibly helpful and friendly with the identifications, as well as a bit of general discussion about East African herps.
(I've just realised that you post is ambiguous as to whether it was really nice of Steve to identify the stuff for me or of Hix to send me his email. Whichever you meant, it was really nice of both of them! )
And my original post was because for a lot of the photos you had "I think this is Species A" and then "no actually I have a field guide now and it's Species B" and then "I have got it confirmed as being Species C", so I was just wondering how the third ID was any more "confirmed" than the previous.
And my original post was because for a lot of the photos you had "I think this is Species A" and then "no actually I have a field guide now and it's Species B" and then "I have got it confirmed as being Species C", so I was just wondering how the third ID was any more "confirmed" than the previous.
I'm pleased that I've finally got all of these confirmed by an expert rather than the various IDs that have resulted from random googling, guessing by zoochatters, and looking at the pocket guide. And it only took eight months
He was very friendly and helpful to me as well which is why I passed his details along. I know how difficult it can be trying to ID things from a small field guide - and even with his big book I still had trouble - especially when they can be so variable in colour and pattern. At least now you have definitive answers.
