With the age of the Internet the amount of information available to reptile owners has reached an all time high. The only downfall to this resource is that anyone with a reptile and a computer has become an instant expert. All that is necessary to provide others with information about the captive care and illnesses of reptiles is a computer and a will to tell others how their last reptile died. In fact, some sites even offer unscientific case studies of the site owners reptiles that have died. The fact that the information is being based on information gathered from the study of an individuals dead reptile should immediately send up warning flags to anyone serious about learning how to properly care for their reptile. If the information that was being provided were proper and beneficial it would be offered based on the successful captive husbandry and treatment of illness, not on the unsuccessful cases of an individual owner or breeder. Proper information should be based on successful prevention and treatment and not on failed prevention and treatment. Some scientific data is obtained from dead animals and is usually the exception rather than the rule and is only used when a new or unknown illness is presented and an underlying cause of death may not be determined, not when a common illness or injury is involved and diagnostic techniques are available to determine a cause.
Another reason that information is so unreliable with concern to reptiles is the fact that a lot of the information that reptile owners receive is provided by a local pet store or a breeder, all of whom have a financial stake in providing you with information that will require you to purchase their products. A good example is the fact that manufacturers of reptile light bulbs all base their information in relation to their reptile lights ability to produce UVB light on studies that were performed by the companies themselves and NOT by independent studies under controlled conditions. Each company will tell you that their lights are the only lights that produce UVB and that their competitor lights do not. Well, if that is the case then that would mean that if we took these companies at their word none of them manufacture UVB lights, because they all provide only positive information about their product and negative information about their competitor's products. Who do you believe? Without independent and scientific tests who is to say that any, if at all, of these companies tests were valid?
What is the point to all of this you may ask yourself? Well the point is that until recently there has been a lack of hard facts related to reptile care and as a result everyone with a reptile became an expert if their reptile lived for a few years in captivity without complications. Scientific and veterinary studies have already started to disprove many of the old ideas on reptile care. When choosing your source for information you should consider the credentials of the individual who is providing it and base the validity of the information that they provide on their education and experience and not just on their personal experiences alone.
The comments made in this article are not directed at any single individual or organization and are being made in order to provide the reader with a better understanding of the proper method for researching reliable information on reptiles and to help prevent the unnecessary loss of life that may result from improper information.
