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Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Twenty Nine! I hope you all remain safe and healthy as we make our way into 2021. I took a few weeks off over the holidays to rest and recharge, but I also recorded some interviews, including this episode.
PATREONERS! Here’s a shout-out to new Patreon contributors to the show since the last episode: Josh Emms, Matt Cage, Patrick Connally, Chris McMartin, and Justin Elden. Thank you all so much for supporting the show! I really appreciate it. To others in the listening audience, if you like the show, please consider supporting it via the So Much Pingle Patreon page. And thanks in advance!
Our guest for this week’s episode is Jeff Lemm, a zoo-based herpetologist/researcher based in southern California. Jeff has been involved with many research and conservation projects in various places around the planet, and I enjoyed talking with him about some of that. Jeff has also been the author of several excellent book projects – he is the author of the Field Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles of the San Diego Region (part of the California Natural History Guides series) in 2008. Living in the San Diego region, Jeff was a natural for putting this guide together (and let me tell you, writing field guides is a labor of love, emphasis on labor).
Jeff has also been heavily involved in research and conservation efforts for West Indian rock iguanas (genus Cyclura), and consequently he is a coauthor of Cyclura: Natural History, Husbandry, and Conservation of West Indian Rock Iguanas.
Jeff has also spent a considerable amount of time in Australia, which we discuss in our conversation. We also talked about his role as a principal architect of the North American Field Herping Association (NAFHA). I hope you enjoy our conversation, I sure did!
So Happy New Year folks, and let’s stay safe and healthy! Thanks again to all my Patreoners, and folks, if you haven’t done so yet, please take the time to rate this podcast on whatever platform you use – that goes a long way to support the show and spread the good word.
And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, favorite Croc Hunter episodes, tips for herping better, etc.
Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Twenty Seven! And we add yet another country to the list with this episode, a lengthy conversation with Belgian researcher / author/ herper Jeroen Speybroeck, recorded on Thanksgiving. We had a lot to talk about during this episode, including Jeroen’s fire salamander research, herping in various places around the globe, and also his very good field guide to the herps of Britain and Europe (see second photo). Jeroen and I are both life listers, and we talk about that a bit, and for the second show in a row, Australian thorny devils (Moloch) are discussed (top photo of lucky Jeroen and a thorny devil, I’m just a bit envious).
Another thing Jeroen and I have in common is the documenting of herp adventures – his 
Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Twenty Six! We’ve had shows coming from the United States, Mexico, and Canada, and now we get to add Australia to the list. Last month I talked with Scott Eipper, who hails from Brisbane, up in southeast Queensland. Scott and his wife Tie own and operate 
Hello again everyone and welcome to Episode Twenty Five! The episode where I experiment with a different format – 13 segments featuring a baker’s dozen of folks sharing their best and worst (or worst and best) experiences in the realm of amphibians and reptiles. That’s twenty six anecdotes, if you think about it. I have been collecting these tales of woe and woah for a few months now – many thanks to Andy, Mack, Bryan, Phil, Matt, Marisa, Shaun, Brandon, John, Pat, Alex, and Justin for your participation in this project. I had a lot of fun talking with this group and (with one notable exception) no two stories are alike!
Hey there everyone! Welcome to Episode Twenty Four! Thanks for your patience, I had a lot of crazy stuff going on over the past couple of weeks! I think I’m back on track again and I plan on releasing another episode next week for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. This week’s guest is my friend and co-author, Josh Holbrook, and this past October I got to sit around a campfire with Josh, down in the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois, and we had a nice fireside chat.
Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Twenty Three! I like turtles, you like turtles, we all like turtles, so I’m very happy to have Carl Franklin on the show to talk about – turtles. There’s Carl in the photo with a double-handful of Alligator Snappers. Carl is a very busy person, with an impressive list of accomplishments to date, and along with talking about turtles, we also cover a number of other topics – including flying turtles, weaponized turtles, and worm lizards. And who doesn’t like worm lizards? It’s been a long while since I spoke with Carl, so I was happy to sit down with him for ninety minutes and do some catching up, and I hope you all enjoy our conversation as well. It was so much fun for me.
FUTURE SHOW NOTE: My request for herp jargon is coming to an end – the window closes in one week! I’ve got a neat little pile, but I need more! Get those pithy phrases and clever words to me via the show email below, and we’ll get a future episode together from the results!
Hello everyone! We’re going to hang around south of the border for just a while longer. Episode Twenty Two was recorded in September in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, at the tail-end of a two week visit to Baja Sur. Tim, Bryan, Matt, Mack, Andy, John, Pat, Shaun, Brandon and Jeni agreed to hang around the hotel for an hour or so, with the notion of having a round table discussion about herping in Mexico. Cumulatively, this bunch has spent hundreds of days in Mexico, across many regions, and I thought it was an appropriate group to cover the subject. Thanks to the media’s focus on drug cartels, Mexico can seem like a scary place, and my goal with this round-table was to get folks more comfortable with the idea of visiting and herping there. I can’t wait until I get to go back!
FUTURE SHOW NOTE: My request for herp jargon is coming to an end – the window closes in two weeks! I’ve got a neat little pile, but I need more! Get those pithy phrases and clever words to me via the show email below, and we’ll get a future episode together from the results!
Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Twenty One! I recorded a bunch of material while in Mexico back in September, including this episode with Shaun, Jeni, and Brandon Vought. I recorded our interview at the Casa Juarez bed and breakfast in La Paz (an excellent place operated by a lovely Italian couple), where we stayed before visiting Isla Cerralvo just off the coast. Herping families are a fairly common thing now, which I think is pretty cool, and so I was happy to get the Voughts talking about their experiences. A herping family and a family of metal heads as well (hence the intro done by Shaun and Brandon). I hope you enjoy our conversation – I know a number of parents who provide their children with full experiences out in the wide world, and not just with amphibians and reptiles. And I’m proud to know them.
Howdy herpsters! And welcome to Episode Twenty! My guest is Steve Marks from Windsor, Ontario. And at left we see composite photos of Steve engaged in tracking fox snakes. Steve and I have been buddies for a long while now, and I am happy to get him on the show and talking about his projects and passions, which are often one and the same thing. One of the things we talked about is the Herb Gray