(Part 2) Top products from r/herpetology

Your snake is most likely looking for food or some sort of more favorable condition.
Things to make sure your snake has before worrying about the snakes mental health:

1. A proper hide. (My 6ft RTB just started rubbing the shit out of his nose on the screen for some reason and I found out he just wanted a more secure feeling hide even though he's never 'complained' before.
   
2. Prober temperature gradient. See where he likes to hang out in your tank and tweak the temp towards what you think he's looking for (I invested in a $14 mechanics temperature gun amazon so I can instantly read the temp of anything. Best purchase yet.
   
3. Different food choices. I've had a tree boa that did this in search for food every time she was hungry however would sometimes refuse rats despite having a visible appetite.. turns out she was a little racist and only liked eating white rats.. Sometimes snakes will only take a certain animal as prey, usually its mice though. Try a live pinky to stimulate the feeding response (and please never feed live prey unsupervised rats have been known to kill snakes; frozen/thawed strongly recommended if they will take it) Its important to have the thawed prey item warm to the touch. Dipping in warm chicken broth has also worked.
   
4. If you really cant get him to stop climbing around the trim, maybe give him a little perch to climb to. I use dollar store suction cups and thicker string as a 'jungle gym' for my baby RTB. It looks cool and they love it.
   
   Conclusion: I wouldn't (and didn't) like it either, but its actually not very dangerous for the snake unless he hits his head on something hard. They routinely fall from bushes and trees all the time in the wild. most likely if you satisfy his every need/desire, he will not go looking for better conditions.
   Hope this helped. You should also find a local small reptile shop (not a chain like ptsmart/petco etc.) you can call and ask questions, most of them are more than happy to give you advice, and theyve usually seen it all. Where I live there is a great place where the guy knows literally almost anything Off The Ark . If you're in the US, you could always give them a call, and just ask.

There are a number of resources for snake ID and this list is nowhere near comprehensive.

Globally, comprehensive species lists are available via Reptile Database Advanced Search. Reptile Database is mostly correct and up to date in terms of taxonomy. Another worldwide resource is Snakes of the World which, in addition to being comprehensive for extant snakes, also provides a wealth of information on fossil taxa.

Regional guides are useful. If you're in North America, the Eastern Peterson Guide and Western Peterson Guide are great tools, as is Snakes of the United States and Canada. While plagiarized and problematic, the book Snakes of Mexico is the best easily accessible information for the region. For Central America, the Kohler book as well as Savage's Costa Rica book are excellent resources. South America is tough but has a diagnostic catalog. Australia has Cogger as a herp bible. SE Asia has two guides one in German and one comprehensive. For Europe, you simply can't get better than the three volumes of Handbuch der Reptilien und Amphibien Europas. Africa is also difficult - no comprehensive guide exists but there are a few good regional guides like Reptiles of East Africa and Guide to the Reptiles of Southern Africa. Amphibians and Reptiles of Madagascar is a good source for that distinct region. For the Indian subcontinent, use Snakes of India

Remember, species names are hypotheses that are tested and revised - old books become dated by the nature of science itself. One of your best resources is going to be following /r/whatsthissnake, or (for North America) with the SSAR Standard Names List for the most recent accepted taxonomic changes.

Here is an example of a small personal herpetology library.

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I am a bot created for /r/whatsthissnake, /r/snakes and /r/herpetology to help with snake identification and natural history education. You can find more information, including a comprehensive list of commands, here and report problems here.

Such a guide doesn't exist. The very expensive Herpetofauna of Vietnam is by far the best and most complete guide. It's definitely not a field guide, and still only lists the provinces and towns where animals have been found (no range maps). The closest thing to an acceptable guide is something like this or this both of which are mediocre and don't directly cover Vietnam. Don't bother with this one either, the drawings are shit, the natural history info is lacking and there's almost no distribution information. Your best bet is to cobble information together from a few other guides. Amphibians are harder yet still, but you should be able to get down to at least genus with other sources. Sorry to be a downer! Still, Vietnam is great fun for herping!

Scholarly articles might be a bit much without an intro to scientific papers. Lectures might be helpful, like introduction to the biodiversity of the region, chapters on Virginia habitat types and ecology. There's a good north Carolina herp book that may have some of that information already in the front pages.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Reptiles_of_North_Carolina.html?id=kGP0AwAAQBAJ


Marking techniques:
https://www.amazon.com/Individual-Recognition-Techniques-Amphibians-Reptiles/dp/0916984680

Chapter 2 is a pretty basic introduction to phylogeography: http://download.bioon.com.cn/view/upload/201308/07110702_8444.pdf


And this is an advanced scholarly paper concerning a reptile in the state. You can always have them skim methods and just read the introduction, skim results and read the discussion. http://www.cnah.org/pdf/88558.pdf

This is also a good, simply written introduction to an important method https://scienceasaverb.wordpress.com/2010/10/29/introduction-to-ecological-niche-modeling-environmental-niche-modeling-species-distribution-modeling-part-two-what-is-niche-modeling/

Hmm, books are tricky. You'll have better luck looking up individual snakes. Here's a few of my favorites though.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691124361/ref=mp_s_a_1_28?ie=UTF8&qid=1481930124&sr=1-28&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=snakes

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/mobile/w/snake-chris-mattison/1100488504?ean=9780756613655&st=PLA&sid=BNB_DRS_Core+Shopping+Books_00000000&2sid=Google_&sourceId=PLGoP62465

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0520224876/ref=mp_s_a_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1481930293&sr=1-16&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=snakes&dpPl=1&dpID=51haSGah73L&ref=plSrch

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0084ETQCC/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481930435&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=handbook+of+venomous+snakes&dpPl=1&dpID=51cl0ph79uL&ref=plSrch


Those should do a pretty good job of keeping you busy. I tried to list them from most broad to most technical.

My two specialties are Snapping Turtles and embryology (incubation) so if you have any specific questions related to those I can definitely send some materials your way. Oh, I forgot, if you like Snapping Turtles at all I LOVE "Biology of the Snapping Turtle", it's very pretty and made up of scientific essays on many aspects of their biology. https://www.amazon.ca/Biology-Snapping-Turtle-Chelydra-serpentina/dp/0801887240

They are hardly what I would call rare, uncommon sure. They remain on protected status because the state gets a federal stipend to keep it that way.. It works in their favor (the gilas) tbh, they are kept as pets in other states. There was concerns back in the early 50s export to Europe was high and little was known about them..was the main reason they were quickly given the protected status.

Highly recommend this book http://www.amazon.com/Biology-Monsters-Lizards-Organisms-Environments/dp/0520259874

If you're looking for a comprehensive, detailed guide to general herpetology, this textbook has most of that:
Link

It's a bit of a read, and I certainly haven't read all/most of it but it will have most information you'd be interested in knowing. I'd recommend having a dictionary of herpetology or some sort of biological dictionary to go along with it as not all of the words are explained completely clearly.

Just so you know, I'm no herpetologist, just someone who's trying to get there.

My very good friend has written two books on them. I would recommend it. Then you won't need to solicit advice from random "experts" online.

https://www.amazon.com/Redfoot-Manual-Beginners-Guide-Tortoise/dp/1441494030?keywords=red+foot+tortoise+manual&qid=1540499837&sr=8-1-fkmr1&ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1

> In the United States, all coral snakes follow the 'red touch yellow' pattern

Occasionally they don't, and there are a couple of harmless species that do. However, once you hit Latin America, it's best to forget that dreadful "red-on-yellow" rule altogether.

This article discusses the subject in detail:

http://thevenominterviews.com/2016/06/02/mythbusting-coral-snakes/

In Latin America, the simple rules aren't reliable, and the reliable rules aren't simple. You would be looking at subtle differences in head shape, eye size and scalation.

For learning the local species, Janis Roze's Coral Snakes of the Americas is an excellent reference.

As a fellow Georgian, I would recommend "Amphibians and Reptiles of Georgia" as linked here It has relevant information about ranges, habitats, colorations, habits, everything. Its a little big for a field guide (huge) but is a wonderful tool to learn from and then reference when you get back to the field.

Yes! We have a few different ones we've collected over the last couple of years. The one she uses most often is an animal track one we picked up at a state park's gift shop. We also have this and this.

We have this book in our lab. I've only glanced through it but it's definitely on my list of books to own.

Amazon