Frequently asked questions

The Reptile Club maintains the public Registry and issues Certificates of Pedigree. It also publishes Standards and operates the reptile expo list. HatchLog is a separate recordkeeping app connected to the Registry.

HatchLog is your private working record book for animals, clutches, pairings, photos, notes, feeding, weights, reminders, QR labels, and breeding history. Those records stay private unless you choose to submit an animal for registration.

The Registry is the public, permanent record maintained by The Reptile Club. Once a registration is approved, the accepted Registry information becomes public record and the animal receives an RC code and Certificate of Pedigree.

Registration begins from an animal record in HatchLog or through the Registry registration entry points on reptileclub.com. The breeder submits the animal’s accepted registration information, including species, hatch or provenance details where available, producer attribution, and any sire or dam links that can be supported.

The submission is reviewed by the Registry. If approved, the animal receives a permanent RC code and a public Certificate of Pedigree. Registering an animal uses one Registry credit. HatchLog Pro is not required.

Photos are part of the permanent record. Review depends on them, and when a registered animal is first transferred, the photos it carried become a permanent part of its record.

Upload photos at full quality. Landscape and portrait photos qualify when the longest side is at least 720 pixels and the shortest at least 480. The first photo is the cover and must be landscape. Screenshots and thumbnail-sized copies lose the detail review needs. Keep every photo in focus, in good light, with the relevant features visible. For the cover photo, show the animal completely. The tail may extend beyond the frame.

A breeder’s watermark or logo is fine when it stays off the animal and doesn’t distract from it. No other text on the image. The record carries the animal’s name. The photo carries only the animal.

Upload photos you took or have permission to use. A photo taken from another breeder’s website or listing cannot go on a record without that breeder’s permission.

Registering an animal costs one Registry credit. Credit packs are $10 for one, $45 for five, and $200 for twenty-five. Credits are separate from HatchLog Pro and can be purchased by free users.

HatchLog Pro is $8/month or $79/year and adds automatic cloud backup and instant cross-device sync. Pro supports multiple people working on different devices while signed into the same account, so changes to the collection sync between devices instead of going stale.

Pro does not include recurring Registry credits. A user’s first annual Pro subscription currently grants a one-time 10-credit welcome bonus to help establish animals in the Registry.

The local HatchLog app is free for your entire working collection. There are no animal, breeder, clutch, or hatchling limits. Every user gets up to 12 photos per animal.

Paid boundaries are reserved for hosted costs and permanent public infrastructure: HatchLog Pro covers cloud backup, instant sync, and same-account work across devices. Registry credits cover reviewed registration and permanent public Registry storage.

Use one HatchLog account. Sign in with the same account on both phones, and cloud backup and sync keep the records the same on each. Cloud backup and sync are part of HatchLog Pro.

A partner invite is different. Partners share a breeder name, and each partner keeps their own account and their own collection.

An RC code is RC- followed by eight letters and numbers. For example: RC-K7M2QX4P. The RC code is the animal’s public Registry identifier and appears on its Certificate of Pedigree and Registry page.

RC codes are separate from HatchLog’s local HL codes. An HL code can exist for a private HatchLog animal that has not been registered.

Yes. Looking up a pedigree by RC code is free for everyone. No account is required.

Some fields are permanent once the registration is issued. The registration code, species, hatch date, and producer are locked at issue. Sire and dam slots follow a fill-once rule: an empty slot may be completed later with a registered parent, but a filled slot cannot be replaced through ordinary editing.

The current owner may amend the animal’s name, sex, and photograph. The recorded producer may amend the morph designation. Determination amendments are recorded in the animal’s Registry history. Genuine errors of fact in other locked fields may be raised with registry@reptileclub.com for individual review.

The Registry records morph and trait information cautiously. A breeder’s private morph text in HatchLog does not automatically become a Registry fact. Genetic traits, appearance descriptors, line or locality information, and breeder claims are treated as separate kinds of information.

Where a Reptile Club Standard supports a trait or display convention, the Registry follows that Standard. Where evidence is incomplete, the Registry avoids overstating certainty, especially for traits whose inheritance is not established.

A transfer changes the current owner. It does not change the animal’s RC code, producer attribution, species, or lineage. The Registry records transfer events as part of the animal’s history, but The Reptile Club is not a party to the animal sale and does not handle payment, shipping, health guarantees, or other arrangements between keepers.

HatchLog is designed for reptile breeders and keepers. The default My Species set focuses on commonly kept reptiles, with a wider catalog available through species search. The current list is at reptileclub.com/species.

Custom species records may be useful as private HatchLog records, but custom species records are not eligible for Registry registration unless the species is supported by the Registry.

HatchLog is available in open beta on Google Play and through Apple’s TestFlight. The Registry website at reptileclub.com works in a browser and can be used to verify public Certificates of Pedigree without an account.

You can delete your account from within HatchLog or by emailing support@reptileclub.com. The Reptile Club removes account-level personal data as described in the Privacy Policy.

Approved Registry records are different from private account data. A public registration is retained as part of the Registry’s permanent record, even if the account that submitted it is deleted. The record is no longer tied to your personal account. The permanence rules are explained at reptileclub.com/permanence.