fieldherping.eu

Guillaume Gomard wrote:What will be your definition of "Europe" (which countries will it cover)?

Not the Canary Islands, not Lampedusa, Linosa etc., not Cyprus. Included, however, are the Asian Greek Islands in front of the Turkish western coast. The eastern border is a rather arbitrary longitudinal line of Crimea (Sea of Azov), although some fine tuning might happen. That means e.g. Salamandrella, Darevskia lindholmi, Elaphe dione and Vipera renardi are included. A smaller area than Glandt, as such. Going further east would mean that the book becomes too big for the layout we have in mind. For the same type of pragmatic reasons, also don't expect Ilian to draw every single morph of every single species. At this point, we are covering about 215 species, I believe.

Guillaume Gomard wrote:How are you going to proceed for the distribution maps

The maps will be constructed on a number of source, including the ones published last year by the SEH. This is not an atlas project, so no, we are not going to open the Pandora's box and collect point data.

Guillaume Gomard wrote:How could the people from the forum help you with this project?

Well, a number of you have already been helping. Some I will ask to review some material later on. Of course, I am not going to issue an open invitation, because (a) we don't need one and (b) it would be too much to handle. The forum itself is of course a valuable source of information (new insights in taxonomy, variability of species, ...). I have no clear enough idea at this point on how many pics we will include and how, but it is obvious that the authors already have a fair collection, I guess, with 3 of them having photographed nearly all of the species concerned.

Guillaume Gomard wrote:The vipera-lobby should be more active to have at least one viper on the cover

No worries, let's see how Ilian's drawing of gaditana turns out

Feel free to ask more, although we are not going to spoil the surprise too much, of course.

Thanks for the detailed answer. The distribution range sounds more than reasonable and with 215 species covered, it will certainly satisfy everybody. Just for the sake of curiosity: Are you also tackling the introduced species which have a significant and stable population?

Looking forward for the gaditanas' pictures!

Hold your horses, Guillaume, there will be 1 gaditana drawing and maybe 1 photo

A number of introduced species will have their own account, while we will try to provide a small chapter about the more recent and/or less widespread cases, without ever being able to be comprehensive.

Very nice to read all these positive replies.

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:A number of introduced species will have their own account, while we will try to provide a small chapter about the more recent and/or less widespread cases, without ever being able to be comprehensive.

I will do my best

Another part of how it all began and where we first talked about the idea -> the fabulous Eurotour we did in 2010:
http://www.hylawerkgroep.be/jeroen/index.php?id=52
http://www.herpsafari.nl/tripreports-eu ... -eurotour/

Nice project Jeroen et al! I can imagine how stupid is to waste time thinking in "political" limits for the book (necessary, but sometimes too difficult for a not specific herp-question). I would offer you my help but probably you got photos of more spanish species than me! And also in knowledge I think that I have not too much to offer. So I will just wait to see the complete book, and specially wait for a unpublished gaditana photo!!

Update!

Today, more than four years after signing our contracts, we finally submitted the last parts of our work to the publisher. Many thanks to Mario, Laura, Peter and Paul for reviewing! The book will probably have a press release by the end of this year and be for sale somewhere halfway into next year. A digital version and perhaps an app will be also available. The book will fit into a series of British Wildlife Publishing, which has been taken over by Bloomsbury in the mean time, so the design will most likely be fairly similar to that of this great book.
http://www.britishwildlife.com/viewbook.asp?bookid=3

Ilian made a new cover design, but we are going to keep that secret for now.

Thomas Reich wrote:

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:in our forthcoming book.

Do you know a date already? Can't wait.

Well, who ever thought it gets easy after submission, can think again.

We are working hard reviewing laid out pages in batches. We've reached the first lizard species at the moment, so there's still quite a bit to do. Also working on gaps to fill with additional photos, spotting errors, ...

I am thinking the book should be ready by June at the latest, but we'll have to wait and see. It's not entirely up to us anyway; all we can do is try to work as fast as we can, hoping that it may be 100% up to date for at least a couple of hours after publication.

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:Update!

Today, more than four years after signing our contracts, we finally submitted the last parts of our work to the publisher. Many thanks to Mario, Laura, Peter and Paul for reviewing! The book will probably have a press release by the end of this year and be for sale somewhere halfway into next year. A digital version and perhaps an app will be also available. The book will fit into a series of British Wildlife Publishing, which has been taken over by Bloomsbury in the mean time, so the design will most likely be fairly similar to that of this great book.
http://www.britishwildlife.com/viewbook.asp?bookid=3

Ilian made a new cover design, but we are going to keep that secret for now.

That sounds great and I'm very much looking forward to the book!

I only can follow all the other opinions: That all sounds very intersting and I'm also really looking forward this book!
Thank you for the detailed informations about the book!

Available for pre-order now:

http://www.nhbs.com/title/201426/reptil ... and-europe

I look forward to receiving my copy come summer