Sara Viernum created this website in June 2011 to share her many adventures with reptiles and amphibians and to provide news and information about these fascinating animals.
Sara is a herpetologist, meaning she studies amphibians and reptiles with salamanders being her favorite herp. Her journey as a herpetologist really started while she was working on her BS in Wildlife Biology in Kentucky. She was interested in herps and started helping out in her herpetology professor’s lab, Dr. Zimmerer, AKA Dr. Z, doing odd jobs like preserving specimens and helping graduate students collect animals for their studies. The graduate student she helped the most was her good friend Valorie. Val was working with Northern/Southern intergrade Copperheads (Agkistrodon contortrix mokasen x A. c. contortrix) and they spent many nights road running for these snakes in Western Kentucky.
Sara spent two field seasons studying the natural history and habitat selection of the Green Salamander (Aneides aeneus) in Northeastern Alabama while working on her MS in Biology/Herpetology. She has also perform studies on Arizona Tiger Salamanders (Ambystoma mavortium nebulosum) in Colorado, surveyed for Blunt-nosed Leopard Lizards (Gambelia sila) in California, collected Clouded Salamanders (Aneides ferreus) in Oregon for a genetic study, surveyed for terrestrial and pond breeding amphibians in Oregon, plus many other adventures with herps across the country. On other jobs she has come across a wide range of herps, including her favorite spotting of a Reticulated Gila Monster (Heloderma suspectum suspectum) in Arizona. She is one of those people who runs towards a snake instead of away. Her motto is leave no log unturned.
She is currently a Wildlife Biologist and Herpetologist for an environmental consulting company in Madison, Wisconsin.
P.S. – Many, many thanks to her wonderful husband for helping her set-up, edit, run, and edit this blog. 
Happy Herping! >}(o_o){<
Sara’s Herp Life List - All the amphibian and reptiles this site’s owner has observed in the wild to date.
