I think that one thing many passionate herpers realize, at some point, is how much they don't know and how much there really is to know about herps.
There's 2 species of tuatara, 23 species of crocodilians, 300ish of chelonians, 3,000ish of snakes, 3800ish of lizards, and Amphisbaenia. In amphibians, there's 5,000+ species in Anura (frogs and toads), 500+ species of Caudates, and something like 150 caecilians.

All told, that's north of 12,000 species of extant herps. There's no human way to know everything about every species. Factor in life histories, evolutionary histories, taxonomy and cladistics, physiology...there's more data to be learned than any one person ever could.

So, there's this huge mess of information; how do you go about obtaining it, processing it and using it for your captive herps (if applicable)?

There's lots of options, and most of them benefit from the inclusion of each other and none of them is perfect and entire unto itself.

You can read. There' s a plethora of herp literature out there. Some of it is very specific, some of it is very general. Lots of it is crap, but there's enough good stuff out there that you can go broke buying it all, no matter how much money you have (unless Bill Gates is reading this). Some books are very geared at keeping herps as captives, some are more geared towards dealing with natural history, others synthesize loads of research (on herps in general, or one genus or species in particular). Of these, I tend to favor the latter two types. You can, if you read and digest the information, learn how to care for an animal based on it's life history. You don't usually learn too much of it's life history from most pet-trade books though.
There's at least two good general books for snakes that are accessible to non-degree holding herpers; the older of the two is Harry Greene's "Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature." The other one is newer; it's "Secrets of the Snake Charmer" by John C Murphy. Of the two, Greene's is an easier read, but Murphy's is much more current and goes into a bit more depth. For lizards, there's "Lizards: Windows to the Evolution of Diversity" by Pianka and Vitt.
For a broader approach, you might try Zug's "Herpetology" which is frequently used as an introductory text in college classes. I'm currently unaware of a similar book for chelonians or crocodilians, which is unfortunate (if any commentators want to enlighten me please do!).

It's important to remember, while reading, that lots of things are cross applicable; hunting and predation avoidance strategies tend to be repeated across lots of different snake species for instance (how many snakes can accurately be described as foraging, how many make some sort of noise to try to warn/scare off predators?). Once you start learning, just in general about different strategies for coping with the demands of life, you may be able to interpret behavior you observe more intelligently--and you might understand why certain husbandry concerns are so common (why are hide spots important? Why are moist hides sometimes so useful?).

You can also go and look for herps in the field; find out what sort of conditions they seek out. What times are they active? What seems to increase or decrease activity? Are they usually active at certain times or certain temperatures? After or during storms? What habitat and microhabitat are they in? This can be very tough to learn to do, there's lots of trial and error and sometimes blood involved; this season alone I've wound up with prickly pear spines in my thighs, groin, and hand, I've fallen down a river crossing and gotten both half drowned and bruised, I've gotten bit several times, all in pursuit of finding herps in the wild. But it's very educational, as well as fun. One thing you can do to help get started is find a good regional field guide; check with your state herp society on which ones they like. This is an excellent example of how different methods of learning about herps can help reinforce each other. If you just went through trial and error it might be years before you found a target species, or learned how to read the weather to know if it was worth going out. Read a bit and apply what you've read to save yourself some major headaches. But just reading isn't nearly as satisfying as finding and doing--nor is it, by itself, enough to really understand herps. You won't learn to really read a snake's body language from a book for instance.

But I digress. Read a little first, and then go herping. Particularly if you keep native species this can be very enlightening. But even if you don't, you can observe wonderful behaviors; hunting, eating, mating, courting, territorial displays. I've seen coachwhips going into birds nest, a diamondback eating a small rabbit, collared lizards sparring...I've seen gravid water snakes basking in a protected section of reeds, I've seen them prowling for fish and frogs. These are all things that can both inform you knowledge and your husbandry. In a very direct sense seeing that collared lizards are very territorial helps explain why males shouldn't be more than one to a cage. Seeing gravid snakes basking the swollen, egg filled portions of their bodies helps reinforce the need to let gravid females have warm temperatures. Watching a coachwhip climb 20' into a tree and rob a nest helps you to understand what the field guide meant when it called coachwhips agile, lithe snakes. Seeing a rattlesnake strike a rabbit, withdraw, let the rabbit die and then consume the rabbit is an object lesson on the way venom works (I'm much more careful after watching that). Seeing a kingsnake grab a racerunner out from a yucca stump taught me about prey tracking, thermoregulation and it's importance, the fact that sometimes snakes will move to cover while constricting, and more. Those are experiences that no book can impart to you on such a visceral level--but then, books can teach you about things you'll never be able to observe too. I doubt I'll ever go to Thailand to field herp for reticulated pythons. I doubt I'll ever spend enough time in the Southwest herping to write a book like "Lizards of the American Southwest" (edited by Jones and Lovich, contributed to by many authors).

You can use the internet. Remember what I said about a lot of literature being crap? Well, that goes triple online. A lot of what you'll see on websites is junk. But there's also a ton of good information out there. Check out the forums here at kingsnake; there's herp luminaries that post here on a semi-regular basis. Wonder about how to work with Asian ratsnakes? Pro Exotics works with them and post here. Curious about what sort of herps you might find in Bangkok? I'm sure there's a handful of Thai people that read the forum. Questions about venom? There's some experts that post here (even if Dr. Fry is out with a broken back for now). It's certainly not perfect; there's little accountability online after all. But there's much to be learned from decent websites and forums.

All of these help to reinforce each other, and you should really do all of them if you want to learn about herps.


You may not be able to learn everything about herps; but you can learn a lot and in doing so, you can better understand captive husbandry. I know I'm a better keeper due to my field herping, and my reading of non-pet focused books. More than that, I'm better informed about the world around me.