Another year, another challenge! The past few days, @jayjds2, @KevinVar and I were discussing 2019’s European and American challenges, and all of us decided that while fun, doing a taxonomical group every year might mean we’ll soon be running out of groups to base challenges around. For this reason, we’ve decided to mix it up a little!
This year’s theme will be “Island Endemics.” We’ve been toying with the idea of doing geographical instead of taxonomical challenges for a while now, but most geographic entities could raise discussions about how vagrants would factor in, or about where specifically the borders of a certain region are. By focusing on endemics we factor out most vagrants, and by focusing on islands the borders of each location will hopefully be as clear as they need to be. Because this theme is of course very broad, we hope to reach out to as many people as possible: we’ll be listing all birds, mammals and reptiles that are endemic to islands.
To further clarify the theme: any mammal, bird, or reptile that only lives on islands, and is thus not present on the “mainland” of its continent (so not on the Afro-Eurasian landmass, not on the American landmass, not in Australia, and not on Antarctica), counts towards this challenge. A few examples:
1.The Ring-tailed lemur occurs only on Madagascar, thus is endemic to an island, and counts for this challenge.
2.The Javan myna occurs naturally only on Java, Bali, and surrounding islands, but has been introduced to Southern Malaysia. However, its native range is still limited to islands, so it counts for this challenge.
3.The Island thrush has a very wide range, but does not occur on the mainland anywhere, so it counts for this challenge.
4.The Trumpet Manucode has a mostly island-restricted range as well, but does occur on the mainland of Australia in one location, so does not count for this challenge.
To prevent discussions about taxonomies and certain lists accepting certain splits while others don’t, we will be using IUCN for mammals, IOC for birds and the Reptile Database list for reptiles; we won’t be listing amphibians as those will be covered by @ThylacineAlive in the worldwide challenge, and while we certainly encourage people to look out for fish and invertebrates as well, we won’t be keeping track of those as taxonomy, identification and public information about their ranges is often still quite limited.
We’ll be splitting up our lists this time around: one list for mammals, one for birds and one for reptiles. This means that you don’t have to participate in all three categories if you don’t want to, and that there is place for potentially 4 different winners; one in each of the categories, and one overall.
This challenge of course also has rules, with credits to Shorts:
1. You have to actually see the animal, even if just for a second. You don't score if you visit a collection but don't see the animal (harsh, but fair);
2. Proof via photographs is not required, your word is your bond;
3. You have to see the animal via normal public access (i.e. not including zookeeper for the day or photography days behind the scenes) during normal public opening hours (i.e. no scoring because you know the keeper and can get access before/after hours). Basically the species has to be seen as Joe Public would;
4. Only collections located in what is geographically Europe will count in this challenge (including Iceland, the UK, Ireland, the Mediterranean islands, but excluding Georgia, Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkey to avoid conflicts about what is and isn't 'Europe.')
5. Report/update your progress on this thread as you go along;
6. The winner will be deemed to be the person(s) who's seen the most at 31st December 2019;
7. @KevinVar and my decision on any questions is final, but we're open to discussion and debate on any specific points.
This challenge is solely for fun, sadly I won't be able to offer the winner an actual prize. Most of all, we hope everyone has a great time!
This year’s theme will be “Island Endemics.” We’ve been toying with the idea of doing geographical instead of taxonomical challenges for a while now, but most geographic entities could raise discussions about how vagrants would factor in, or about where specifically the borders of a certain region are. By focusing on endemics we factor out most vagrants, and by focusing on islands the borders of each location will hopefully be as clear as they need to be. Because this theme is of course very broad, we hope to reach out to as many people as possible: we’ll be listing all birds, mammals and reptiles that are endemic to islands.
To further clarify the theme: any mammal, bird, or reptile that only lives on islands, and is thus not present on the “mainland” of its continent (so not on the Afro-Eurasian landmass, not on the American landmass, not in Australia, and not on Antarctica), counts towards this challenge. A few examples:
1.The Ring-tailed lemur occurs only on Madagascar, thus is endemic to an island, and counts for this challenge.
2.The Javan myna occurs naturally only on Java, Bali, and surrounding islands, but has been introduced to Southern Malaysia. However, its native range is still limited to islands, so it counts for this challenge.
3.The Island thrush has a very wide range, but does not occur on the mainland anywhere, so it counts for this challenge.
4.The Trumpet Manucode has a mostly island-restricted range as well, but does occur on the mainland of Australia in one location, so does not count for this challenge.
To prevent discussions about taxonomies and certain lists accepting certain splits while others don’t, we will be using IUCN for mammals, IOC for birds and the Reptile Database list for reptiles; we won’t be listing amphibians as those will be covered by @ThylacineAlive in the worldwide challenge, and while we certainly encourage people to look out for fish and invertebrates as well, we won’t be keeping track of those as taxonomy, identification and public information about their ranges is often still quite limited.
We’ll be splitting up our lists this time around: one list for mammals, one for birds and one for reptiles. This means that you don’t have to participate in all three categories if you don’t want to, and that there is place for potentially 4 different winners; one in each of the categories, and one overall.
This challenge of course also has rules, with credits to Shorts:
1. You have to actually see the animal, even if just for a second. You don't score if you visit a collection but don't see the animal (harsh, but fair);
2. Proof via photographs is not required, your word is your bond;
3. You have to see the animal via normal public access (i.e. not including zookeeper for the day or photography days behind the scenes) during normal public opening hours (i.e. no scoring because you know the keeper and can get access before/after hours). Basically the species has to be seen as Joe Public would;
4. Only collections located in what is geographically Europe will count in this challenge (including Iceland, the UK, Ireland, the Mediterranean islands, but excluding Georgia, Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkey to avoid conflicts about what is and isn't 'Europe.')
5. Report/update your progress on this thread as you go along;
6. The winner will be deemed to be the person(s) who's seen the most at 31st December 2019;
7. @KevinVar and my decision on any questions is final, but we're open to discussion and debate on any specific points.
This challenge is solely for fun, sadly I won't be able to offer the winner an actual prize. Most of all, we hope everyone has a great time!
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Also gives me the opportunity for the correct total, seeing as I had two 14 and 15's 
