The lament from an old country song ,"You slip through my fingers just like quicksilver," describes the most unusual-appearing of the American skinks perfectly.



Long placed in the monotypic genus Neoseps, the Florida sand skink is now known as Plestiodon reynoldsi. This fossorial skink is highly specialized for a life of burrowing in the sugar-sand locales (often low dunes) of central Florida.

Although four limbs are present, they are tiny. The forefeet bear only a single toe each and the slightly larger rear limbs bear two toes each.



The eyes are small and the lower eyelids each have a transparent "window." Despite the very real limb-size reduction, this silvery 3-1/2 to 5 inch long lizard is alert, remarkably agile, and very difficult to hold.

Whether found by accident or as the result of a concerted effort its response to the light is immediate and decisive: it dives headfirst into the sugar-sand and within a fraction of a second has disappeared into the substrate for which it is so very well-adapted -- and named.

Along the side of the road that had traversed the driest-appearing of desert lands, a small sign proclaimed the presence of a spring.

A widened parking spot beckoned us to stop for a few moments and stretch our legs. We found the little spring, and, while limbering up from the long drive, checked the area over carefully for herps and birds to photograph.

We found little, but as it turned out, a most impressive find found us. We were standing next to a treefall when a fleeting movement among the broken limbs caught our eye. Whatever had made the motion had disappeared again and we had no idea of what the perpetrator was.

That we decided to stand quietly for a few more minutes proved a wise decision. After about five minutes we noted more motion, this about 3 feet away from the initial occurrence. And as we watched a shiny tan lizard head pushed above the twigs and a beady eye watched us intently.



We remained as motionless as possible and a minute or two later the lizard felt secure enough to emerge a little further. Following an elapse of another several minutes the lizard was finally lying fully in a patch of sun. And a rarely seen lizard it was. By accident we had happened into the habitat of the beautiful Panamint alligator Lizard, Elgaria panamintina, just as one lizard had become active for the day.

And to make the sighting even more memorable, the lizard appeared to be a gravid female! Now that's luck!

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A half dozen intrepid explorers walked a narrow forest trail on Madre Selva Preserve in Amazonian Peru, each apparently stepping over a patch of leaves on the trail. They walked a few hundred yards beyond, then turned and retraced their steps.

As they neared the bit of leaf cover on the return trek, the head of a small snake was seen protruding from beneath the leaves. Carefully collecting the snake, they brought with them to the field station the only pygmy black-backed coral snake, Leptomicrurus scutiventris, we have yet seen there.

The snake was photographed and released exactly where it had been found -- note that a single ring of yellow on the head and one or two rings of orange on the tail are the normal pattern for this snake:



This species attains a length of about 18 inches but is usually smaller. Remaining is the question of whether this tiny elapine snake is actually rare or merely secretive? But for those of you who believe the red to yellow rhyme (red to yellow, kill a fellow; red to black, venom lack) infallible, take note. This is just one of the many neotropical coral snakes to which the familiar ditty does not apply.

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There are times that things are not at all as they initially seem. For example, there was that night when I was moving slowly from bridge to bridge along a small creek on Madre Selva Preserve in Amazonian Per looking intently for aquatic coral snakes. Usually common, this coral was proving difficult to find on this trip.

While I was studying the bottom of a shallow pool, a large fallen leaf began moving slowly away. My interest quickly changed from coral snake to the "moving leaf." The water was silted and the moving object was further obscured by fallen leaves. But it took only a few moments for recognition to occur.

Well-camouflaged though it was, I was looking at a common Suriname toad, Pipa pipa. And that one sighting had turned what had been a rather slow herping trek into a memorable stroll.



Suriname toad facts:

This anuran is a member of the family Pipidae, the tongueless frogs.

The eyes are small and lidless.

The fingers are tipped with tactile skin flanges and prey is literally shoveled into the tongueless mouth with the forefeet.

After a complex breeding sequence the eggs are placed on the female's back and are soon covered by skin.

The eggs undergo full development while being carried by the female. At hatching the toadlets are fully metamorphosed miniatures of the adult.

This species is fully aquatic.

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For several years I traveled the USA extensively from border to border and from coast to coast, gathering photos and bits of information for our planned herpetological field guides. Always, at some point during my western jaunts, the blunt-nosed leopard lizard, Gambelia sila, came to mind.



This lizard was, I knew, a very localized federally endangered California endemic, and to have even a chance at seeing it I would have to travel to one of several areas where it still existed. So on one hot summer day I decided to visit the almost perpetually dry Carrizo Plains in search of the lizard.

By the time I arrived at this amazing and vast arid region and had bypassed the sentinel burrowing owls, had marveled at a Northern Pacific rattlesnake coiled tightly in the shade of a roadside creosote bush, and stopped to look at a Botta's pocket gopher as it trundled along, it was early afternoon. The sun beat down from a cloudless sky and the heat was so intense that I doubted I would succeed in my quest.

Actually, I had no trouble at all. As I drove slowly along, I startled a small whiptail that darted up and over the low berm. Deciding that I wanted to photograph the lizard if possible, I bolted from the car, the lizard camera in hand. The whiptail stopped for a moment beneath a creosote bush, began to move off again but was almost instantly seized by a large lizard that had appeared as if by magic at the mouth of a burrow.

The aggressor was a blunt-nosed leopard lizard, the very lizard that had drawn me to the Carrizo Plains. Success!

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"Dick," Ken said,"I've decided to part with my puff adder (Bitis arietans). Would you want it?"



I knew this to be a beautiful snake that was in perfect health so, although I had no experience with anything more sinister than a northern copperhead, after an impassioned plea to my mother (I was still living at home then), the answer was yes, yes indeed, I did want the snake.

And thus began the first of my many experiences with the variable and hardy puff adder. I had read of their proclivity for burrowing and within a few days I had watched this heavy bodied snake shuffle its way beneath leafy litter and well down into its sandy substrate. I had learned that it was an accomplished ambush predator, the venom of which could kill a food rodent within seconds. I was certain that it was not a snake that would want to run afoul of. I watched it strike forward from a lateral "S," and I found that it could strike quickly and accurately to either side and occasionally for a few inches straight up.

That was my first puff adder, but certainly not my last. And from that snake my interest burgeoned to the numerous congenerics, to Gaboon vipers, rhinoceros vipers, horned adders, and more, all subjects of future posts!

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"What kind of snake have you not seen that you would like most to see?"

The question was posed by Sandy, a first time participant in our herp-tours to the Peruvian Amazon. I thought for a moment and then replied, "Bothriopsis bilineata smaragdinus, the Western two-lined forest pit viper."



Where would you expect to see it?" Sandy then asked.

My prompt answer was "Somewhere along the trail we will be on tonight." Then no more was said on the subject.

That afternoon it rained a bit, promising a hot and humid night walk along a wet trail. In other words, a rather typical rainforest walk was the evening agenda.

Darkness comes quickly on the equator. By the time we finished supper, the velveteen darkness had enveloped us. Flashlights were activated, spare batteries were pocketed, and we were outward bound on a 2-mile long circular trail. The trail was slippery, muddy in spots, and we moved slowly, stopping to look at a treefrog, a planarian, a tailless whip scorpion, or a sleeping lizard every few feet.

Finally at the half way point we stopped for a "breather." Our guides forged on ahead to ascertain that the trail was not obscured by a treefall or other such natural impediment. A few of us stood talking, and then Sandy quietly asked, "Is this one of the snakes you wanted to see?"

Next to the path, at shoulder height, she had found a neonate Bothriopsis! And before we left the area the group had found three more. Sandy definitely got the "attagirl" award on that trip.

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The blunt-headed tree snake, Imantodes cenchoa, is occasionally found coiled quietly in an orchid or bromeliad during the hours of daylight. But after darkness has fallen, this pencil-thin, 3-foot-long rear-fanged snake uncoils, and slowly and quietly, but actively, joins the ranks of nocturnal predators.



Its slender build -- proportionately as slender as many of the vine snakes -- enables the blunt-head to access and forage through the slenderest of twigs, sites often preferred by sleeping anoles and geckos, both favored prey of this common opisthoglyphid (rear-fanged) snake species.

Most of our sightings of this interesting little snake have occurred in the Peruvian Amazon. Here, in this snake's stronghold, we have rarely not seen at least one on our nocturnal herping walks and have on some of the best nights seen up to ten of the bug-eyed, brown saddled arborealists. They never fail to evoke positive comments from the viewers.

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