The Origins of RASCals

In 2010, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County launched the Lost Lizards of Los Angeles (LLOLA) project. The goal of this project was to understand how urbanization has impacted the distribution of lizard species in the Greater L.A. Area. LLOLA had several major successes including documenting the first established Mediterranean House Gecko population in L.A. County and the first established Indo-Pacific Gecko populations in L.A. and Orange Counties. These latter two observations were also the first records for the state. LLOLA also demonstrated that citizen science can be a very effective tool for gathering observational records of lizards throughout the region. With these successes, we realized that LLOLA should be expanded to all reptiles and amphibians and also to all of southern California, hence RASCals – Reptiles and Amphibians of Southern California.

RASCals was developed with two main scientific goals in mind: 1) to document modern day occurrences that can be compared to historical museum records to assess how species have responded to the urbanization of southern California; and 2) to document and track introduced species.

We are dedicated to growing RASCals into an extremely successful citizen science project. We anticipate growing the number of RASCals partnering agencies, which should also result in more project goals and more accomplishments. As these lists of partners, goals, and accomplishments grow, we will keep you apprised of those developments here.

Posted on September 17, 2013 04:16 AM by gregpauly gregpauly

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