Hi everyone,
My name is Matt, born in 1978 in Lancashire, UK. In 2008 I had an epiphany (a blonde, female one) and since then have been resident in Spain, initially in Barcelona but more recently in Málaga, Andalucía.
Must confess that I'm not 100% a field herper. Freshwater fishes are my first love, so much so that I decided to study them, but nature in general has always been my passion. Amphibians are perhaps my second-favourite group, although reptiles, birds, mammals, and pretty much all other life forms that are not highly invasive simians follow close behind.
Found this forum some time ago via Jeroen Speybroeck's website, and since then have spent many enjoyable hours improving my knowledge here and reading trip reports on certain members' home pages. Having amassed enough herp photos to avoid embarrassing myself completely decided to join up and hope to give a little back. Would also love to learn more about photography (pretty much all my shots until now are in situ) and field techniques, specifically relating to snakes and lizards, and will undoubtedly need plenty of help with species ids.
As appears to be traditional I'll now post a couple of pics. Hope it's ok to post non-European species here so as not to eat into my horribly finite photo bank.
Anolis homolechis, Pinar del Río, Cuba
Python reticulatus, Tioman Island, Malaysia