Red Mountain Park Added as a New AAN Partner

Habitat at Red Mountain Park - Photo by Dr. Jennifer Layton

ALAPARC and the Alabama Amphibian Network (AAN) would like to extend a warm welcome to Samford University and Red Mountain Park as partners in the AAN! Dr. Jennifer Layton (Samford) has been working with Red Mountain Park officials in Birmingham to install new coverboard and treefrog shelter arrays at the park for participation in the network. This site is a great addition to the seven environmental education partners already serving in the network and will add a unique comparison with the AAN’s site at Ruffner Mountain Nature Center. Both Ruffner Mountain and Red Mountain are located in habitat characteristic of the Valley and Ridge physiographic province and will provide a great snapshot of this region’s amphibian diversity.

Huge props to Dr. Layton and colleagues for spearheading the design and installation of the site, and we look forward to this new partnership! For more information on the AAN – a collaborative citizen science network funded through Legacy, Partners in Environmental Education – please visit the ALAPARC website.

Outdoor Alabama Fact Sheet Info Now Online

Since our organization's inception, ALAPARC has had a continuing partnership with the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources's award-winning Outdoor Alabama website. As part of this partnership, ALAPARC members have contributed over 15 species profiles for Alabama herpetofauna for publication. These profiles serve as one of our first lines of defense in combating a lack of herp awareness by communicating reliable, comprehensive info about reptiles and amphibians to members of the public in a jargon-free, accessible format. In return, the ADCNR has graciously allowed us to link to these profiles as part of our own website's inventory of Alabama herps.

Not all of these species currently contain published profiles, however, and we are seeking to complete this species list as soon as possible. Laura Laurencio has recently created an excellent outreach initiative page on our website to aid in this effort, including an Excel spreadsheet of those Alabama species that currently need profiles.

If you are an expert on one of the species listed at the link above, please consider serving as an author! “Expert” is a relative term, of course, so we welcome anyone with a strong familiarity of a particular species and a desire to condense knowledge from the scientific literature into an easy-to-read, jargon-free format for public consumption. If you're interested in becoming an author, please contact Wally Smith at whsmith1@crimson.ua.edu for more info.