About Nora Kessler
Nora Kessler covers turtles, tortoises and lizards for The Faunalist, from the box turtle crossing a backyard to the leopard gecko in a spare room terrarium. Her guides answer what people look up at the moment they need it: what species this is, how long it lives, what it eats and what its enclosure actually needs. She works from state wildlife agency material and USGS range data for wild species and from university veterinary and herpetological society husbandry references for kept animals, and where care advice varies she gives the range and says why. Nora Kessler is a pen name used by a member of the Faunalist editorial team. She is not a veterinarian or a herpetologist and does not claim to be one.
What Nora covers
- Turtles
- Tortoises
- Lizards
- Geckos
- Iguanas
- Reptile husbandry
- Reptile nutrition
- North American reptiles
Browse every article by Nora Kessler.
How these guides are researched
Turtle, tortoise and lizard guides combine state wildlife agency material and USGS range data for wild species with reptile husbandry references from university veterinary programs and herpetological societies for kept animals. Care answers state temperatures, UVB and diet as ranges with the source behind them, and anything that looks like illness points to a reptile vet rather than a home remedy.
Identification, range and safety claims are checked against at least two independent sources before publishing, and where the sources disagree the article says so instead of picking the tidier answer. The full process, including which institutions we treat as authoritative for each subject area, is on our editorial standards page.
A note on the byline
Nora Kessler is a pen name used by a member of The Faunalist editorial team, and the portrait above is an illustration rather than a photograph. The person behind the name writes this subject area and nothing else. We do not claim degrees, licences or field credentials that our writers do not hold, and anything that needs a professional is sent to one inside the article. Our reasoning for working this way is set out on the editorial standards page.
Corrections and contact
Found something wrong in one of these guides, or have a question about a source? Write to [email protected] with the article name and what you found. Corrections are checked against our sources and made in the article itself.