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RepFocus: A Survey of the Reptiles of the World is an e-book written in HTML format, which makes it work like a website. It is delivered on a USB drive packed in a DVD box with a cover and a short instruction inside on how to use the book.
RepFocus is a project devoted to communicate up-to-date knowledge of the world's reptiles and summarizes the state of knowledge of their taxonomy and distribution, including an extensive bibliography. It is divided into four sections: Taxonomy, Geography, Literature, and Biodiversity (more details below). This first edition of RepFocus reflects the state of knowledge as of the 31st of December, 2018.
The Taxonomy section includes checklists of all the reptiles of the world. The format used include scientific names and common names in English, German, and Danish. Genera and species are provided with taxonomic histories. The distributions are described in detail with direct links to regional checklists with references. A total of 4,027 distribution maps are included, representing a large selection of the world's species, all genera, families, and higher categories. In cases where there is a lack of consensus among researchers regarding taxonomical matters, a conservative standpoint is usually taken herein.
The Geography section includes 1,076 regional checklists of reptiles, including all the world's countries, as well as many states, provinces, archipelagos, and islands. Each checklist includes a summary statistic on the reptile biodiversity of the country or region, including the number of endemic species and the degree of endemism. All checklists are based entirely on published literature. These references are also included in the list, indexed according to each species.
The Biodiversity section presents various statistics on reptiles, most of which have not been published before. Among many others, the statistics include: the total number of families, genera, and species of reptiles in the world; which countries that have most recorded species, genera and families; and the frequency of species descriptions since 1758. Similar statistics are available for each family, main group, and for some, selected genera, with more to come in future editions of RepFocus.
The Literature section includes bibliographies of all reptile species, genera, families, and higher categories, as well as of all countries and many other regions of the world. The bulk of the bibliography relates to taxonomy and distribution, but also publications dealing with natural history, conservation, captive maintenance, etc. have been included, making RepFocus a valuable tool, not just for researchers, but also for other dedicated naturalists, conservationists, NGOs, zoo staff, etc. The bibliography currently includes 109,979 references, which makes RepFocus the most extensive bibliography ever compiled in one publication.
