Amphibians and reptiles are beautiful and enigmatic creatures I've been fascinated since early childhood.  Past 30 years I've been involved in very different aspects of herpetology and herpetoculure. I've been doing field work, research, writing, consulting, conservation management, photography, som movie and show making, captive breeding and sales. Although you can find many sources I use to share my knowledge with public, the this site it the oldest and the major media, I use to support interested folks. In 1991, when I was on my 8th grade in a High School, I was volunteering at the aqua-terrarium of the Yerevan Zoo. In that period of my life I compiled and printed a my very first the guide to snakes of Armenia, with drowings and short species accounts. My dad helped me out with printing that catalogue. That manuscript remained know only within our family and some close friends. However, since thet have been nurishing an idea about writing and publishing an informative guide about snakes. 7 years later, in 1998, while studying at post-graduate school, I decided to create an online guide about amphibians and reptiles of Armenia, which would become a free comprehensive online source for those who are interested in Armenian herps. Since than i started intensively make and collect photos and references for the future guide, but the actual event of compiling the guide and publishing it got delayed until 2004, when I finally got some time to do something else besides my daily duties. Today, THR articles are linked to Wikipedia, EMBL Reptile Database etc, AND i enjoy not bad volume of costumers. The THR currently includes a number of original and unique divisions including The checklist of herps of Armenia with species accounts, Online guide for venomous snakes of Armenia, Projects, Library-Net, Gallery, Links, etc. On the bottom of each page there is an information on the last update, and link to visitor counter.

Besides that, I have ask visitors to give me know about necessary remarks there was not any serious and particular suggestion during all this period. Nevertheless, the web site contents have been reviewed and remarked by me 6 times. It is necessary to mention that there were a lot of remarks regarding nomenclature, species destribution, and site design.

Armenia is a small mountain land with area of 2974,3 thousand ha. It is situated between 38º50’ – 41º18’ Northern Lattitude and 43º27’ – 46º27’ Eastern Longitude from Grinwich.
In Armenian highlands many river heads of two large rivers – Kura and Arax, start. All Armenian rivers belong to The Caspian Sea basin. In the North, Armenia borders with Georgia, in the West with Turkey, in the East and South-West with Azerbaijan (Nakhichevan), in the South with Iran.
In spite of the small area (Armenia consists only 6,76% of territory of Caucasus), the herpetofauna of Armenia is rather rich (table 1). It consists of 67,78% of Caucasian herpetofauna (77 species of reptiles and 13 species of amphibians), 67,78% of exotherm vertebrates (90 species) & 11,68% of total vertebrate fauna of Armenia (522 species) (Dahl, 1951).

Aknowledgments

I wish to thank Dr. Aram L. Aghasyan, Dr. Ashot V. Aslanyan and Dr. Ilona E. Stepanyan for friendly let to use some data on the geographical distribution, conservation statuses and caryotypes of snakes and lizards from their unpublished dissertations.

The head of the aquaterrarium of Yerevan Zoo - Aram Martirosyan hase provided few species of snakes from Yerevan Zoo collection (Natrix natrix persa, Vipera transcaucasiana, Telescopus fallax iberus) as well as my dear friends Ashot B. Yengibaryan for providing (Zamenis hohenackeri, Laudakia caucasia) and Sargis L. Paruryan for providing (Rhinchocalamus melanocephalus satunini) to make a photos. Rafael Kniazyan provided (Eremias sp. probably velox) to make a photo and helped me to make a photos of open mouth Macrovipera lebetina. That his fingers are keeping snake's had on the page.

I am also grateful to professor Dr. Felix D. Danyelyan for reading first version of the site in early 2003.

Looking forward to read or hear your comments and suggestions regarding this site.

References:

Trevor J.C. Beebee & Richard A. Griffiths, 2000, Amphibains and Reptiles A Natural History of The British Herpetofauna, Harper Collins Publishers LTD, 270 pp.

Site is uploaded 05.08.2004

Last updated 10.24.2011.

© Tigran L.Tadevosyan, 2004-2011.