Versions

Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
Single word	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Version 6.2. 6 January 2023. Addition of Geographic occurrence reports to species records, including (1) listing of political entities were a vouchered naturally occurring member of the fauna; (2) where like to occur or controversially thought to occur; (3) where endemic, and (4) where introduced.

Version 6.1: 25 January 2020. Not visibly different from version 6.0 on the public face, but much improved on the administrative side, allowing much faster updating. See https://web.archive.org/web/20070000000000*/http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.php

Version 6.0: 17 January 2014. Completely renovated database with the capability of real-time modifications. Improved searching capability using Boolean grammar. See https://web.archive.org/web/20070000000000*/http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.php

Version 5.6: 9 January 2013. Corrections and updates. Addition of links to iNaturalist and CalPhoto Images, and improved comment-searching. See https://web.archive.org/web/20070000000000*/http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.phpVersion 5.5. 31 January 2011. Corrections and updates. See https://web.archive.org/web/20070000000000*/http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.php

Version 5.4. 8 April 2010. Corrections and updates as well as a new imbedded feature that provides a complete bibliographic citation for each in-text citation. Also, adds links to GenBank. Style changes to bring the amphibian catalogue into line with the overarching AMNH style. See https://web.archive.org/web/20070000000000*/http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.php

Version 5.3. 1 February 2009. Corrections and updates. See https://web.archive.org/web/20070000000000*/http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.php

Version 5.2: 15 July 2008. Corrections and updates. See https://web.archive.org/web/20070000000000*/http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.php

Version 5.1. 1 October 2007. Many corrections and updates. See https://web.archive.org/web/20070000000000*/http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.php

Version 5.0. 1 February 2007. Many corrections and updates. Improved searching of Google by using not only the preferred taxon name, but also common synonyms. (ASW now employs the power of the web and the database to circumvent the problems associated with using taxonomic names as indices to literature and images.) See https://web.archive.org/web/20070000000000*/http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.php

Version 4.0. 17 August 2006. Counts of species for supraspecific taxa provided as well as many updates and additions. See https://web.archive.org/web/20070000000000*/http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.php

Version 3.0: 22 August 2004. New web interface and new database structure, as well as many corrections and additions. Improved geographic searching ability with the addition of Boolean searches. See https://web.archive.org/web/20070000000000*/http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.php

Version 2.21: 15 July 2002. Many corrections and additions to text and improvements in geographic searching ability. Improved database software. Changes in subfamily organization of the Leptodactylidae and Hylidae. Version lost by AMNH IT.

Version 2.2: 1 September 2000. Many corrections and additions to text made. Geographic querying improved. The distributions for many species, particularly in tropical Asia and Africa, are poorly known and their descriptions highly provisional. I have also made a large number of educated guesses as to the countries within which taxa might occur. Users are therefore cautioned to use the results of the geographic querying tool as a finding aid and not as an authoritative summary of taxa documented for any particular political unit. (This will have to wait until large numbers of research collections have placed their voucher data on the web and the quality of identifications in collections is drastically improved.) Because "common names" (i.e., English coined names) are frequently requested/required for regulatory paperwork in the United States, English names that have previously been published or commonly used by CITES or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are included and searchable. (Many of these names are clumsy and wildly inappropriate but are included because of perceived need within the anglophone North American regulatory community.) First version to be linked to GenBank. Version lost by AMNH IT.

Version 2.1: 15 November 1999. Many, many corrections made and querying speed much improved. Addition of taxonomic browsing. Version lost by AMNH IT.

Version 2.0: 22 July, 1999. First online database version. Many corrections and additions. Reformatting of records and addition of synonymies as well as literature source of those synonymies. Reformulation of abstracts of relevant literature in comments. Version lost by AMNH IT.

Version. 1.0: June, 1985. Printed version.

Contact Darrel Frost (frost at amnh dot org) with questions about past versions of the catalog.