# Reptiles Magazine is Lame



## AB^ (Mar 9, 2008)

The magazine is just getting worse and worse. 
I just want to point out some of the retarded things this magazine has. These are simply my opinions so feel free to share yours. I would be speaking on will be the May 2008 issue.

I would like to start with the "show us your stuff" portion f the magazine. This months was a real gem. A water dragon enclosure that IMO is not very good at all, and certainley not deserving of any prizes/rewards. They have had decent set ups in the past but the last few issues have been things like this one (page 8 if you have the magazine) Rewarding people for run of the mill pet store set ups is a shame and sends out the wrong message about reptile housing. People should see images that inspire them to do something more for their aniamls not a 55 gallon tank with a red basking light,gravel for substrate and an ultra sonic fogger (I could go on and on about how I would set up a water dragon but dont have all day to type)


Next 

The herpetological queries section
page 14 in this issue.


Wow this is mind numbing. The "Ships Safely" article is ok, but the "NEW Blue" article is ridiculous. A simple google search would have told this person all the answers they needed. but that's fine the person didnt know anything about it. But why on earth would reptiles magazine publish this??? it's just purposterous.
Read it you'll see what I mean.

now it gets even worse.

A conversation about iguanas being over shadowed by bearded dragons in the pet trade???? who cares!!! That is a good thing that captive bred animals are taking the place of farmed iguanas.

then the most retarded "query" of the month
"what is a hemipenal bulge"
durrrrrrrrrrrrr, why would they even bother to respond and publish this. why not answer some Care advice questions about a species not regulalry seen or answer something that isnt almost common knowledge to anyone except the newest of newbies

There's also an article about False water cobras written by our good freind Ken Foose who if you look in the good guy bad guy forum on here and on the fauna BOI, I have had some run in's with about selling colombian tegus as argentines at argentine prices, fun stuff.


There's A NICE "REPTI GEAR" article this month too. showing 4 different types of mercury vapor bulbs with the makers description of them. NOw if this magazine were about promoting the best products for reptile keepers they might have invested in a comprehensive study on these bulbs against each other. Then again that would alienate companies with sub par products and the magazine would lose valuable advertising dollars that keep us in great supply of great article such as the "retailer spotlight"
or "who's who in reptiles" which are pretty horrible if I do say so myself.

umm I know there's more that I wanted to comment on but cant seem to find them through the pages and pages of ads.


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## AB^ (Mar 9, 2008)

hmm lotta spelling ,punctuation and grammatical mistakes up there and I cant edit it, oh well.


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## ZEKE (Mar 9, 2008)

i read the article about the false water cobra and i thought i had heard of the name Ken Foose before! now i know where.

thanks for your throughts on the magazine. i didnt read it through. i only read about the false water cobras. now i am going to read the rest to see what your talking about.


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## shiftylarry (Mar 9, 2008)

I hate Reptiles Magazine. So much of that periodical is influenced by products as opposed to the actual needs of the animal. People interpret it as if it was some sort of Bible. If my opinions contradict what's in Reptiles Magazine, their wrong because they aren't published.

It's nice that they outline the care of certain animals, but you can't summarize animal husbandry in 3-6 pages. Inevitably you'll leave something out. And, whenever they have an article about a new animal, it creates a frenzy of buyers who are inexperienced and what the next "hot reptile". I was so upset when the argus monitor article came out a while back. There was a lot of bad information, and I had to deal with customers who wanted them. When I told them they needed a 10 ft enclosure, they got all in my face and told me I was being ridiculous. Oh well.

The worst offender, in my opinion is reptiles tv. They have some HORRIBLE information. Check out the iguana care video. It recommends calci-sand and lake water for your iguana. Along with a string of nonsense.

I still pick up copies of the magazine, but mainly for the pictures.

-Chris


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## AB^ (Mar 9, 2008)

I beleive I remember the argus article where they suggested a cage size of 6 x 2 or 6 x 3 for an adult.
I used to love the magazine when I was like 14 (some 11 years ago) but it really sucks now. I need to invest in Reptilia. A much better publication from what I have seen.


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## ZEKE (Mar 9, 2008)

what is Reptilia? is it another magazine?

i mainly get the magazine subscription for something to read and the awesome pics they have. but i dont take any of it as pure fact. i research everything and make my own opinion on it. i dont just take anyones opinion as fact.


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## AB^ (Mar 9, 2008)

Reptilia is another reptile magazine that is european based if I remember correctly


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## shiftylarry (Mar 9, 2008)

Europeans, especially Germans really seem to be on top of it in terms of reptile care.

Yeah, 6x2x3 for an animal that gets 4.5 ft and digs 6 ft burrows in the wild. Sounds like a prison to me.


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## AB^ (Mar 9, 2008)

> Europeans, especially Germans really seem to be on top of it in terms of reptile care.




Indeed they are definatley a few steps ahead of american keepers on several levels of reptile keeping.


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## ZEKE (Mar 9, 2008)

ooh. how do you get the Reptilia magazine in the US?


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## DaveDragon (Mar 9, 2008)

http://www.reptilia.net/html_english/suscr.asp

46 EUR = 70.53 USD http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi


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## DZLife (Mar 9, 2008)

Sounds like a good magazine, but it's pretty pricey compared to Reptiles!


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## PuffDragon (Mar 9, 2008)

I don't have a subscription but do find myself picking one up from time to time (Rep Magazine that is). More or less for the pictures I suppose. I haven't really noticed any well thought out articles where they give "insider" information on anything. The amount of ads is outstanding, but I imagine that is how they pay their bills. 

Maybe we could collaborate to produce a better US Mag...now that would be something. Who's are marketing and journalist majors??


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## ZEKE (Mar 9, 2008)

yeah thats awesome puff. we should have a TeguTalk magazine!


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## shiftylarry (Mar 9, 2008)

I don't know how I would collectively write a magazine with someone. I feel like it would be nothing but constant arguments.


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## joshandjack (Mar 9, 2008)

yeah the pics and stuff in REPTILES are awesome but it does absolutely seem like the magazine has turned into a bunch of crap and it seems like they are getting paid to publish bs articles for the purpose of marketing by their sponsors. its a shame


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## ColdThirst (Mar 9, 2008)

I was just thinking about this same topic the other day! Every time I go into petco I look at one while I'm waiting in line and the cover pic is always cool, but thats it. I bought one the other day, and the articles to me were eaither to short on the important information and way to long and drawn out on the stupid pointless things in it to fill space, and as for pictures, the ads are the pictures that I like to look at and the cages that they do advertise are the cages by Design that are 4K minimum, so I think that has an affect on people when they go on their website and find out how much they charge haha. But overall, unless your looking for cool products to buy, this is not a very informative magazine at all, and you can't destinguish where the articles end and the ads begin.


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## ApriliaRufo (Mar 10, 2008)

Ahh no we do not need a marketing and journalism major for that. Desiree and I were talking about it just the other night about starting one. If someone knows how to get ahold of a publisher. I think I could put a proto-up in photoshop very easily. I don't believe that the arguements would be a problem, because there are arguements over information on every subject and being a non-biased magazine would be simple. We could even make sure we don't write articles about BTS eggs like Reptiles did just a few months ago... Idiots... I hate that mag.


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## Beazer (Mar 10, 2008)

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of REPTILES magazine either. A lot of their stuff seems to be bs. Infact didn't Arie and Eric Stoops write an article on Boelen's pythons for them? They have always been known to be the big fish story kind of guys and never back up their information. Reptilia seems to be an okay magazine. Can be confusing for some people because of how the taxonomy on animals seems to differ from what it is represented in the USA. Perhaps some of their information is a bit off too. Though, it seems like they write it then translate it to English the best they can if any of you have noticed that. Like someone previously stated, no matter what you will get arguments and debates on reptile care. I would just like to see magazines that cover subspecies and distributions or variablity with species. My biggest thing is trying to know exactly what subspecies I have and try and get the best idea on where it may have come from. Also, it'd be kind of cool to have a legit article on how to set up some wicked vivariums with waterfalls and care for plants. I always kill my plants , lol. Good topic guys.


-Jon DeLong


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## hoosier (Mar 10, 2008)

also not a fan but i do like the pictures. :lol: most of what i have read there including the Argus article is :bs and seem like they are trying to sell the animal more than try to give you proper care information.
I argee with AB and ShiftyLary about the europeans. they seem alot more intreasted in the care and knowladge of the animal and less on selling it. Matter of fact two of the biggest known monitor researchers are european. Loche and Bohme. they just resently re-examined the Salvator complex or the varanids and elevated a few subspecies their own species. If thats not authority i dont know what is. lol


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## hoosier (Mar 10, 2008)

it would be nice if we could get men and women like that to write our articles.


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## DZLife (Mar 10, 2008)

Lol, last night, I just put up about 10 posters from Reptiles magazines in my room 

Durn... I wanted to put the the Sailfin Dragon poster, but I lent it to an artist friend of mine; she wanted to paint a rendition of it.


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## hoosier (Mar 11, 2008)

hey ShiftyLary: have you seen the BIAWAK journal yet? im sure you would LOVE it. :cheers 
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.varanidae.org/">http://www.varanidae.org/</a><!-- m -->


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## shiftylarry (Mar 11, 2008)

Yes I have. It is incredible. It has actual INFORMATION about localities and so forth. Not just your basic "how can I set up this animal with the minimum requirements and keep it from dying for a few years" type of articles you get in Reptiles.


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## hoosier (Mar 11, 2008)

it has to be my favorite publication. i especially love the actual research that is being done in the field. another thing i love about it is that there isnt really anything for beginners. no dumb questions like "what are hemepinal buldges?" or "what is a monitor?" all together one of the best publications i have ever read.


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## DZLife (Mar 12, 2008)

hoosier said:


> it has to be my favorite publication. i especially love the actual research that is being done in the field. another thing i love about it is that there isnt really anything for beginners. no dumb questions like "what are hemepinal buldges?" or "what is a monitor?" all together one of the best publications i have ever read.



I like the magazine, but I would like to disagree with you here, at least a little bit; they do put the occasional rediculously easy-to-find-answer-to question through.
For the price, I think it is worth it...although the magazine has been coming more and more commercialized lately.


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## hoosier (Mar 12, 2008)

DZLife said:


> hoosier said:
> 
> 
> > it has to be my favorite publication. i especially love the actual research that is being done in the field. another thing i love about it is that there isnt really anything for beginners. no dumb questions like "what are hemepinal buldges?" or "what is a monitor?" all together one of the best publications i have ever read.
> ...



i dont believe you buy it. you download it from their site so its free. i also believe its new and has only published a a few issues.


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## DZLife (Mar 12, 2008)

hoosier said:


> DZLife said:
> 
> 
> > hoosier said:
> ...



Oops, lol. I think that we are referring to two different magazines....I was referring to Reptiles XD


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## ApriliaRufo (Mar 12, 2008)

Holy CRAP. I just downloaded and printed the backissues and the current issue of BIAWAK. That mag RULES.


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## PuffDragon (Mar 12, 2008)

Link please!!!!?


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## PuffDragon (Mar 12, 2008)

this is where I beat everyone to the punch and say "Just google it noob!" LOL

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://varanidae.org/biawak">http://varanidae.org/biawak</a><!-- m -->


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