Trends and main characteristics of impacted herpetological journals

Herpetological journals publish papers dealing with the study and conservation of amphibians and non-avian reptiles. Journals in this field are listed under the “Zoology” subject category of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) and are assigned a two-year and a five-year impact factor (IF2 and IF5, respectively). These are among the most widely used indicators for bibliometric and academic evaluation. In this study, I present an overview of some general and bibliometric characteristics of the 18 herpetological journals listed in the 2025 JCR database. Specifically, I analysed the temporal trends of the IF2 over the 2013-2024 period. The analysis showed that most of these journals (78%) maintained a relatively constant IF2 during the study period, while four (22%) exhibited an increasing trend. I also tested if a relationship between the IF5 and the number of issues, the number of citable items, or the percentage of gold open access items per year was present. However, no significant relation was observed at least for these 2024 bibliometric indexes. Finally, journals published by scientific societies showed a significantly higher IF5 (P < 0.03), in comparison to other journals. Therefore, choosing these journals when submitting herpetological-focused manuscripts should be more considered.