Great Basin National Park's 2021 Reptile BioBlitz

First published in The Midden, the Great Basin National Park newsletter, Vol. 21, No. 1, Summer 2021. By Bryan Hamilton, wildlife biologist.

A western fence lizard basks on limestone on a cool day. NPS photo by Bryan Hamilton.

Reptiles under pressure

Reptiles are a diverse group of nearly 10,000 species, about 95% of them snakes and lizards. Nevada, with its desert climate and big, open, undeveloped spaces, has more than 50 species of snakes and lizards.

But reptiles are declining worldwide.

• They are ectothermic — cold-blooded. Some lay eggs; others give live birth. Most are both predators and prey. Climate change is interacting with these traits and shifting where reptiles live.
• Invasive plants such as cheatgrass hurt species like horned lizards, which need open ground to escape predators.
• Some reptiles, such as Burmese pythons, have been introduced outside their range and dramatically changed ecosystems.

Hard to count

Surveys are key to understanding reptiles' role in ecosystems — but many are rare, well camouflaged or live underground, making it hard to measure where they live, how their numbers are changing, and what habitats they use.

The BioBlitz

A BioBlitz is a short event to learn about an area's biodiversity. Great Basin National Park focuses each year on one group of plants or animals for 48 hours, taking a snapshot across many habitats at once.

• 2021's focus: reptiles, June 11–13, 2021, with herpetologists Dr. Bryan Hamilton, Dr. Chuck Peterson, Jason Jones, Meg Horner, Jeremy Westerman and park staff.
• How: participants logged sightings on iNaturalist — in the park or wherever they lived.
• Why: to build appreciation of reptiles, and to compare the results with survey data from the past 20 years, to see whether reptiles are changing with climate or habitat.

More from this issue of The Midden: International Year of Caves and Karst 2021 · a short recap on Strawberry Creek Canyon.

Sources

Based on "2021 Reptile BioBlitz," by Bryan Hamilton, The Midden — Great Basin National Park, Vol. 21, No. 1, Summer 2021, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. Written before the event; its results are not part of the source.