It's oFISHial- MorphMarket is making waves with our new Aquatics Section! Brace yourselves for a sea of opportunities as we introduce this new addition to our site.

The aquatics section features Freshwater Fish, Freshwater Inverts, Saltwater Fish, Saltwater Inverts, and Corals. It will be free to list aquatics for the first six months. So whether you are an existing seller, or new to the site, this is a SHOREfire way to explore an ocean of new possibilities.

If you are a new seller ready to make a splash, there is no betta time to get started. Swim on over to our help articles to learn more:

• Getting Started

• How to Start Selling

• Adding & Editing Animals

Dive on in and start listing today!

We haven't added any new top level categories in 18 months, but we just promoted four today!

All of these were subcategories which now enjoy full category status. For these herps you can now enjoy all the functionality that makes finding amazing animals so easy on MorphMarket, including ads indexed by trait tags, subcategories, store directories, and calculators.

The newly minted categories are:

• Chameleons
• Tegus
• Tree Boas
• Bullsnakes

You might wonder, how did we choose these? Occasionally, we add new subcategories to group ads which are in the "other" buckets. Then, we monitor these subcategories and when they get large enough, we promote them.

We do not claim that our data is perfect, but we are always updating and improving it and we welcome your feedback. The best place for input is in our community subforum which has a form that you can fill out. In particular, there is more room for us to better organize the Tegus category.

If you have ads in these new categories, you might want to review them to make sure the appropriate traits tags have been added. You can add tags by modifying the ads and updating the traits field with the relevant tags.

We hope you enjoy these changes. We are all about improving our data, design and functionality to be the best online resource for connecting the community of herp lovers.

What do you think we promote next? The isopods and spiders are looking ripe!

We’ve updated our policy regarding the use of the Dwarf and Super Dwarf trait tags in reticulated pythons.

In reticulated pythons, the terms Dwarf and Super Dwarf (D and SD) do not refer to "morphs" in the common use of the term. They refer to the locales from which the animals originated.

Very specific islands in Indonesia are home to reticulated pythons that mature at much smaller sizes than their mainland counterparts. Crossbreeding—in particular with mainland retics to introduce morph varieties into the smaller animals—has necessitated the need for clear definitions to help ensure buyers have reasonable expectations for an animal’s mature size.

While an animal’s locality percentage does not provide certainty for the animal’s mature size, it is currently one of the best indicators available.

It’s important to have a definition for these terms for them to be understood and useful. Up until now, we have not enforced any specific definitions for these tags. Going forward, we will be enforcing the industry-accepted definitions for the use of these tags in all current and future MorphMarket ads.

• To use the plain D or SD, the locales in an animal’s lineage must add up to at least 50%. Because SD is a subset of D, SD locales may be included in defining an animal as D, but D locales may not be included in the math used to define SD.
• All retic ads that use the tags D and/or SD must include percentages of locales in the description field. If a seller is unsure, then they may not use those tags. (While not required, we strongly encourage sellers to also include sire and dam with their percentages, when known.)

What can breeders do if exact percentages are not known?

• Locale tags may still be used when the seller is certain of the locale, but either uncertain of % or if less than 50%.
• We have introduced Unknown (Super dwarf) and Unknown (dwarf) tags which can be used like the other locale tags. These can be used without knowing exact locales or percentages.
• Users will still find your animals in all the other ways, including latest listings, genetic traits or other characteristics.

Please review this support article for a full explanation of the definitions and rules MorphMarket will be enforcing when it comes to the use of these two tags.

We understand that this update may be challenging for sellers without known bloodlines; however we believe that it is important for these terms to be meaningful and useful.

We are preparing to promote a number of new subcategories to top level this year with all the trimmings: trait tags, subcategories, store listings, calculators, etc.

We are conducting a survey of these species and need your input. Would you help us by reviewing our draft and providing feedback on anything we're missing or mistaken about?

The ones ready for you review are:

• Chameleons
• Tree Boas
• Tegus
• Bullsnakes

Thanks! John

We just added not 1, not 3, not 5, but TWELVE NEW top-level categories! All of these were subcategories that we promoted to full category status. For these herps you can now enjoy all the functionality that makes finding amazing animals so easy on MorphMarket, including ads indexed by trait tags, subcategories, store directories, and calculators.

The newly minted categories are:

• Snakes: Sand Boas, Rat Snakes
• Geckos: Gargoyle, Leachianus, Fat-Tailed, Chahoua
• Lizards: Skinks, Monitors, Iguanas
• Amphibians: Axolotls, Tree Frogs, Dart Frogs

Fun facts about the increases:

• New top-level categories: 12, which is +50% (from 25 to 37)
• New subcategories added: 67
• New genes/traits: 370
• New calculators: 12, which is +133% (including 5 calculators for existing categories)

You might wonder, how did we choose these categories? It was data-driven, based on quantity of ads listed. Occasionally, we add new subcategories to group ads which are in the "other" buckets. For instance, during this upgrade we also added several new Other Python subcategories for Pygmy, Scrub, Spotted and Water Pythons. And then, larger subcategories become candidates for promotion to top-level categories as we have done today.

We do not claim that our data is perfect, but we are always updating and improving it and we welcome your feedback. The best place for input is in our community subforum which has a form that you can fill out.

Special thanks to so many who provided input including Kylie Koskan, Doug Kulie, Anthony Vasquez, Macie Lewis, Sharon Kay Strohl, Matt Horton, and many others.

If you have ads in these new categories, you might want to review them to make sure the appropriate traits tags have been added. You can add tags by modifying the ads and updating the traits field with the relevant tags.

We hope you enjoy these changes. We are all about improving our data, design and functionality to be the best online resource for connecting the community of herp lovers. We'd love to know what you think in the comments below.

Many legitimate reptile breeders accounts have been frozen by PayPal in the last month. This is allegedly due to complaints from PayPal corporate regarding higher than average fraud rates in this sector. We are continuing to monitor this situation.

While we are not discouraging the use of PayPal at this time, if you are a breeder you may want to perform more frequent withdrawals of your balance to a non-linked account in the event that your account becomes frozen.

For MorphMarket subscription payments, we will continue to accept PayPal on our website. If any users need to make payments for annual plans with another method, as in the past you may contact our support team, and we will invoice you with Square. In the next month or two we plan to add alternative subscription payment options onto the site for greater convenience.

While we recognize that PayPal has traditionally offered great buyer protection, other payment methods such as credit cards provide good protection as well. Due to the recent events, some reputable breeders may not be accepting PayPal, but this is not a reason in itself to distrust them. As always we recommend that you do your own research on any seller: read reviews on MorphMarket and consult others that you trust.

At MorphMarket we pride ourselves in offering the best online platform both for buyers and sellers. If you have any concerns about making a payment or suspect someone is not being a responsible seller, please contact our support team.

In the coming months we will be investigating the best payment methods for animal transactions for the reptile community, so stay tuned.

Thanks to Brian Carter, Shawn Gray, and others for their input.

We just promoted Burmese Pythons to a top level category. That means it now enjoys all the trimmings: trait tags, store directory, calculators, etc.

This is exciting because it's the first time we've elevated a category from an "Other" category to top level. As mentioned a few weeks ago, we are preparing to promote a number of other subcategories this year in similar fashion.

You can see what categories we are working on and provide input if you're an expert in these community forum topics. Thank you to everyone who contributed!

We are preparing to promote a number of subcategories to top level this year with all the trimmings: trait tags, subcategories, store listings, calculators, etc.

We are conducting a survey of these species and need your input. Would you help us by reviewing our draft and providing feedback on anything we're missing or mistaken about?

The ones ready for you review are:

• Burmese Pythons
• Sand Boas
• Fat Tailed Geckos
• Axolotls

We are preparing a number of others and will be soliciting input on those soon.

As promised last week, we've now added Amphibian support!

There are 10 subcategories: Tree frogs, Dart frogs, Horned frogs, Bullfrogs, Other Frogs, Toads, Salamanders, Newts, Axolotls and Other Amphibians.

Didn’t we just add Invertebrates last week? That’s right, MorphMarket isn’t just for Reptiles anymore. And in 4 days 32 Invert breeders have created 126 ads. We couldn’t believe how fast that area has populated.

Please help us get this going by spreading the word online!

As a reminder, in the future we can elevate subcategories to be their own top level categories, like Axolotls or Toads, at which point they’d enjoy traits and other benefits. We have some other subcategories in the market which we need to revisit soon for exactly this purpose.

We're excited to announce the addition of Invertebrates!

There are 12 subcategories: Beetles, Centipedes, Millipedes, Isopods, Mantises, Scorpions, Tarantulas, True Spiders, Solifugae, Assassin Bugs, Stick Insects, and Other Invertebrates.

Please help us get this going by spreading the word online! We already have dozens of animals listed.

With inverts, MorphMarket makes its first move beyond Reptiles. Stayed tuned for Amphibians which we plan to add within the week.