There was some great news regarding the regulation changes for Florida; including Tegus, Iguanas and a selection of large constrictors.

This is the announcement from USARKFL:

We have some news... good news. The judge agreed with USARK FL and found that SB1414 is in fact unconstitutional! We will post full details soon but the judge granted our motion for summary judgment and now we just await his formal order stating the same. Thank you to everyone who supported us. Please keep the donations coming! We must still pay for this lawsuit and future actions. What a win!

NOTE: This will take a few days to all be finalized and for FWC to rescind their Executive Order. We also do not know if FWC will appeal. Also, by "unconstitutional" we mean the Florida Constitution, not the U.S. Constitution. This is a state lawsuit against a state agency, not a federal lawsuit.

Please stay tuned to both USARK and USARKFL to follow updates and please continue to support USARK. They are getting things done!

The finding of this blue phase speckled rattlesnake by friends had us doing a quick reversal in direction.
Our drive eastward started with a totally unintended delay. Jake and I had walked a wash known for its population of blue phase Speckled Rattlesnakes, Crotalus pyrrhus. Even Jake, who had walked much farther than I had found none. But as I had walked, a snakehook wielding pair of herpers, Mike and Nick, had passed me. We chatted a while and they went on their way. Meanwhile I returned to the car and Jake soon followed. I mentioned the other herpers and he said that they must have gone elsewhere for he hadn’t seen them. My comment was that I was pretty sure they were still in the wash.

Anyway, it was time to head eastward and Phoenix was soon far behind us. Too far behind us as it turned out, because Jake’s phone beeped and Nick (who was still in the disputed wash) said c’mon up. “We’ve got a beautiful blue speck here.” What to do now? We explained where we were and how long it would take us to get back to the spot. They kindly agreed to hold the snake so we returned over the 50 miles we had driven. From there, Jake laden with both his camera and mine, ran up the wash, photographed the snake with both cameras (I can no longer run) and after profusely thanking the duo and watching the snake crawl slowly back into its crevice, Jake ran back to the car.

We started eastward again. This time we actually made it out of AZ, through LA, and well into MS before deciding to find a herping road for that night. A likely road was found, a nearby motel had room for us so we were all set.

At dusk we realized that although there were herps on the chosen road there was also a goodly number of fast moving vehicles. But we persevered and by midnight we had added 2 species of water snakes, one of which was a beautiful big female Diamond-backed water, Nerodia rhombifer, a Texas rat snake, a Gulf Coast toad, and a Marsh brown snake to the trip total.

Time for the motel, then homeward. Florida beckoned.

Continue reading "The Long Drive Eastward"

Despite being an aridlland species, Scincopus is not at all like a sandfish.
I’ll start this article with a question: Is Peter’s Banded Skink, Scincopus fasciatus, going to be a species that disappears quickly from the American herp hobby?

The reason for this question is that many species, once rarely seen and coveted, then so readily available that they were accessible to anyone who wanted one and had a few dollars to spend, have again become rare, if not in nature, at least in the trade. Some are now virtually unobtainable. I’ll just mention a few here to jog your memories: Colombian horned frogs, spiny hill turtles, Asian keeled box turtles, pipe snakes, almost any European herp, and Mexican dwarf pythons, are among the many. These were imported (sometimes in the hundreds, even thousands), were deemed to inexpensive to bother setting up in long-standing captive populations, and then they slipped quietly from sight. Could Scincopus soon be added to the “here then gone” list? It’s possible.

What is Scincopus? As mentioned above it is a skink from North Africa. It is pleasingly colored, being yellowish with 7 or 8 broad black bars that cross the back and stop about midway down the sides and a black tailtip. It is adult at about 8-10 inches in length, tail included. It is a heavy bodied burrower that has often been referred to as a giant sandfish—but a sandfish it is not. The toes of Scincopus are only weakly flanged, as opposed to the excessive flanges of the sandfish. Also, Scincopus is of far greater bulk than the more streamlined sandfish. Rather than swimming through the arid desert sands this skink seems to be a burrowing resident of sandy grasslands and croplands. They are fairly quiet and are easily handled.

I received my first examples of this pretty burrowing skink way back in the 1980s. They proved to be 2 males, and try though I did, I could not find a female available anywhere in the world. They fed on all manner of insects, would take an occasional pinky mouse and would accept some of the veggie mixture I prepared for the blue-tongued skinks. I had these for many years. As far as I know, when these died there no others in the USA.

I believe they were then unknown in the herp hobby until 2014 or 2015. But when the export doors opened they opened wide, and hundreds of the Scincopus flooded the pet trade. Herp importers were selling them first in the $200 to $300 dollar range, but then as the influx continued the price dropped to $70 to $100 dollars each. I have never attempted breeding this species. I did find 1 record of successful breeding on line. Ovoviviparity is the reported mode of reproduction. Perhaps you will be the one to second this.

But today as I scan importers listings the majority of the mentions read “out of stock.” So now I wonder will more be imported or has the skink become unavailable? I wonder further if anyone has actually set up breeding colonies of this skink? Or is it already a member of the “here then gone” list? Time will tell.

Continue reading "Peter’s Banded Skink"