• Posted 12/19/2024.
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    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
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    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Locality Question

J

jjhill001

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Is there any sort of standard for what "locality" means. I thought it used to mean a unique looking phase is from X region of the country and that's why it's worth mentioning the locale so we can breed for X trait to accentuate it.

Is there a point in just slapping a locality label on a reptile even if it's just a generic representation of the species? Because I feel like I see that a decent amount.
 
Well, literally 'locality' means that the animal or its progenitors were from a certain collection area (however narrowly 'area' is considered). Locality has nothing conceptually to do with appearance.

Two specimens of differing localities won't necessarily be visually distinguishable (for example, many localities of Lichanura trivirgata are indistinguishable). And a specific morphology may or may not be restricted to a certain location. So, practically speaking locality and appearance are not very closely related in any simple way.

To answer your last question, there are indeed good reasons to identify the locality of a visually typical specimen or line when the collection locale is known. One is that as species delineations no longer depend on visual determinants (species determinations are now largely made on the basis of genetic distinctions, not visual distinctions), knowing the locale of an animal may now or in the future have bearing on what species it is. A real world case of this is the former Lampropeltis pyromelana that are found in the extreme southern US; (some of?) these are now L. knoblochi, though they look like pyros.

Another is that locality info may be useful for purposes of outcrossing, in cases where there is reason to believe that a certain population is best not crossed with some other population. This differs by species, of course, but it may not currently be known whether a certain species has regionally distinct populations or not, so future projects may depend on having locality information.

A bit of a late edit to add: many keepers of locality animals would be very resistant to the practice of "breed(ing) for X trait to accentuate it"; many keepers think that artificial selection sort of negates some of the value of locality animals, which are what they are because of natural selection. Such artificial selection is quite impossible to avoid entirely, of course, since there are numerous factors aside from 'trait X' that go into choosing a breeding pair, but all those other factors are also selected artificially (that is, by human intention whether conscious or not).
 
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"A bit of a late edit to add: many keepers of locality animals would be very resistant to the practice of "breed(ing) for X trait to accentuate it"; many keepers think that artificial selection sort of negates some of the value of locality animals"

Inbreeding for aberrant traits is not good for the hobby, we are now producing "poodle" snakes that make the snake and the snake owner look silly. This practice leads to the production of unhealthy animals, and discards the "normal" looking ones as less valuable. Lord knows what happens to all the less desirable ones on the way to producing the next mocha zebra rainbow bright whatever first. Cringe worthy is when I see an adult with an albino washed out snake in front of a group of kids discussing herpetology and the natural history of boas and pythons. It's like showing off a poodle and trying to connect it to wolves in the wild. More people need to stand up and be vocal, many locality specific populations within the U.S. and abroad are in decline and once lost they may never be available to the hobby again.
 
FYI, 'inbreeding' and the perpetuation of genetic mutations ("morphs") aren't one and the same. The latter can be and sometimes is done without the former.
 
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