Building a strong community requires scientific approach, experienced members, number of members, and healthy commerce.

I have been a part of our reptile community for over 40 years. And I have noticed some patterns that I would like to share. For the purposes of this website, the term “Reptile community” is used loosely to cover a wide variety of ectotherms.  These include reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates. Give me your insects, spiders, roaches, bugs, isopods, crustaceans, and anything else that is cold blooded and not fish! Carnivorous plants – you are big enough to do your own thing, but you are welcome to play in our yard any day! These other communities are not reptiles in the scientific sense. But until you guys get big enough to have your own shows, you are adopted by the reptile community! You can be part of us as long as you would like! 

A community is only as healthy as its members allow it to be. If the recognized leaders maintain a strong example of how we should conduct ourselves, the community will follow. You can have healthy community even with all the requisite human ego flare ups, personality conflicts, and disagreements if a core foundation of four pillars is maintained.  The four pillars are

• Accurate Science Based Husbandry
• Experienced Members
• Community Size
• Commerce

This is 100% applicable to every  reptile, amphibian, or invert community from the huge bearded dragon and ball python communities to the budding draco and jumping spider groups. My home specialized community, chameleons, is somewhere in the middle. Everything I am talking about for our specialized groups applies to the national and global community as well. And even if I give examples from the chameleon community, I suspect you will have direct parallels in whichever community you are from. Humans tend to be consistent in their habits.

We deserve the community we create. Whether through our money, time, or energy everything we do adds to or takes away from it.

We deserve the community we create. Whether through our money, time, or energy everything we do adds to or takes away from it. Realize that your contribution to the community, no matter what it is, is greater than the effort in itself. When others see what you are doing it encourages like behavior and your efforts are multiplied.

In subsequent posts I am going to explore each one of these pillars. I welcome discussion as to how we can make a better community.