A few days ago we have released a new version of the Reptile Database, about 3 months after the previous release (28 Jan 2012). Here are the latest vital stats:
9,596 species (up from 9,547, i.e. plus 49, including resurrections etc.).
29,700 literature references (+401), including 177 published in 2012.
5,892 photos, representing 2,278 species (plus 161 species)
34 new species have been described in 2012 (so far):
More photos: we have added 672 new photos since the last release, most of which are from just 4 photographers. Notably, Michael Franzen from the ZSM donated several hundred photos of types and other specimens from the ZSM. On top of the 5,892 photos in the database we link to 2,750 photos in Flickr, 2,517 in CalPhotos, and 2,078 on other sites (including Reptarium.cz and Arkive.org). As a result, you have access to photos of 3,312 species.
More links to literature sources. In the past 3 months, we have almost doubled the number of links from the literature references in each species entry to web sources such as the Biodiversity Heritage Library. At this point, almost 13,000 references (or 43% of all references) have links. Unfortunately, many of them require subscriptions or other access permissions. Let us know if you know of open access papers or even personal websites that we can link to. Check out this example:
As usual, please send your contribution, papers, comments, photos, or corrections to comments@reptile-database.
Best wishes,
Peter + Jiří