For Authors

Herpetological Review is a peer-reviewed quarterly that publishes, in English, articles and notes concerning the study of amphibians and reptiles, as well as book reviews, commentaries, regional and international herpetological society news, and letters from readers directed to the field of herpetology.
Issues from 1967–2015 and all Natural History Notes, Geographic Distribution Notes, and other select sections from 1967 – 2020 are now Open Access and available as PDF downloads. Complete issues from the last five years are available to SSAR members. There is also a link to a downloadable EndNote library of HR references.

Article types

Herpetological Review is a peer-reviewed quarterly that publishes, in English, articles and notes concerning the study of amphibians and reptiles, as well as book reviews, commentaries, regional and international herpetological society news, and letters from readers directed to the field of herpetology. Articles reporting the results of experimental research, descriptions of new taxa, or taxonomic revisions are not published in HR, but should be submitted to the Journal of Herpetology. Please consult SSAR’s Ethics Statement prior to submitting manuscripts to Herpetological Review.

Submission requirements

Standard Manuscripts (including Articles, Techniques, Herpetological History, Points of View, Letters to the Editor)
Please send these directly to the Editor (Drew Davis; editor.herpreview@gmail.com). Electronic submission is strongly encouraged to expedite reviews and reduce costs to the society. Manuscript files should be sent as e-mail attachments in RTF or MS Word files. If file sizes are large (i.e., greater than 10 MB), please use a standard compression utility (e.g., zip) to reduce file size before sending via email. Questions about any of this should be directed to the Editor.

Style and Formatting

Double-space the entire ms., including the lit cites.
Do NOT include an abstract, as HR does not publish these.
Do pay careful attention to proper lit cite format, as this is typically the biggest problem area and only results in publication delays and aggravated editors.
If English is not your primary language and you think your manuscript could benefit from a pre-review process, please check this link to SSAR’s Presubmission Manuscript Review service.
Illustrations should be discussed in the text and numbered sequentially with Arabic numbers. References to illustrations should be placed in parentheses at the end of sentences. (Also, please read “Graphics Materials/Art Files” below for details concerning how to send figures).
Editorial Conventions

For legends, use Fig. 1, Table 3 (no bolding, small caps, and Fig. rather than Figure).
0800 h and 24 h (note spacing).
Temperatures as 24°C (note spacing).
Sample size use upper case N (not italicized), and N = 7 (note spacing).
Literature citation for HR is Herpetol. Rev.
Spacing items: 78 ± 2.6; P = 0.56; 6-20%; mid-April; 0.5 m
References in a citation string should be sequenced chronologically, separated by a semi-colon: (Parker 1972; Aaronson et al. 1981; Jordan and Johnson 2016)
Spell out all state/province names (e.g., Arizona, not AZ).
Include country in all postal addresses (e.g., Berkeley, California 94720, USA).
Avoid use of personal/professional titles in Acknowledgments (e.g., We thank John W. Jones rather than Dr. John W. Jones).
A period should be followed by a single space.
Regarding proper use of dashes:Use a single dash (-) for hyphens.
Use a n-dash to indicate a range (such as page numbers, or specimen series; e.g., pp. 21–25)
Use a m-dash to show a break in a sentence, or to set off sections of a manuscript. Example: Methods.—
For GPS coordinates, preferred format is decimal degrees (e.g., XX.XXXX°N, XXX.XXXX°W). Note spacing and punctuation.
Examples of proper literature citation formats:
For an article in a journal or serial publication.

Smith, J. W. 1988. Distributional notes on amphibians of eastern Texas. Texas J. Sci. 42:12-14.

For a book or monograph.

Conant, R., and J. T. Collins. 1991. A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America. 3rd ed. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, Massachusetts. 450 pp.

For an article or chapter within a book.

Auffenberg, W. L., and W. W. Milstead. 1965. Reptiles in the Quaternary of North America. In H. E. Wright, Jr., and D. G. Frey (eds.), The Quaternary of the United States, pp. 557-568. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, New Jersey.

For further guidelines, authors should consult Scientific Style and Format: The CBE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (6th edition, 1994, Council of Biology Editors, Inc., 11 South LaSalle Street, Suite 1400, Chicago, Illinois 60603, USA. ISBN 978-0521471541).

Animal Care and Permits
The Society feels strongly that all animals used in research be treated humanely and ethically. The Society has published a guide (jointly issued by ASIH and HL) for appropriate treatment of amphibians and reptiles used in field research, and all contributors to HR are expected to comply with these guidelines. In addition, HR requires a statement indicating that authors have complied with all applicable institutional Animal Care guidelines,
and that all required state and federal permits have been obtained. This statement should be included with your manuscript submission cover letter and should also be referenced in the ms. “Acknowledgments.”

Graphics Materials/Art Files
Illustrative material (e.g., photographs, diagrams, graphs, etc.) should be sent with initial manuscript submissions as low-resolution digital files (as PDFs or JPEGs) or imbedded as figures within the ms. text file. If your manuscript is accepted for publication, you will be asked to send these materials electronically in a high-resolution format. Download “Guidelines for Submission of Digital Art Files” in (PDF) or (HTML) for
specific digital file requirements. HR is now published in full color, and there are no page or color charges for authors. Therefore, authors encouraged to prepare figures in color as appropriate.

Publication details

Reprints
High-resolution electronic (pdf) reprints of articles are provided at no charge to the primary/corresponding author as a benefit of SSAR membership. Reprint files will normally be sent prior to the issue mailing date from the printer. Authors who are not current SSAR members may purchase pdf reprints from the SSAR Publications Office for a modest cost. All other material (geographic distribution notes, natural history notes, book reviews, etc.) is OPEN ACCESS and may be downloaded from SSAR Publications shortly after publication.