When I began my search for the beautiful Amazonian fringed leaf frog, it was nestled in the genus Agalychnis (pronounced Ag-ah-lick-ness) along with the more familiar red-eyed and blue-sided leaf frogs of Central America. By the time I had actually found it -- or it had found me -- the Amazonian fringed leaf frog and a more northerly relative lacking fringes had been reassigned to the bitypic genus Cruziohyla. It's full name was (and is) Cruziohyla craspedopus.



For years on every trip to Madre Selva Biological Preserve (on Peru's Rio Orosa, a tributary of the mighty Amazon) on night walks I had heard in one locale, from high in the canopy, the "burping" calls that I thought were those of the Amazon fringed leaf frog. But winter or summer, rain or clear, the frog was never seen.

And then one summer afternoon while I was photographing a few herps that had been found earlier, Rick (an entomologist) returned from a walk handed me a bag and said, "Devon said you'd want to see this." And he was so right. The bag contained one of the eagerly-sought leaf frogs.

After the whys and wherefores had been asked and answered, I learned that the frog had been found resting on a broad-leafed understory plant at the point in the trail where I had so often heard the calls that had so interested me.

And why had it so interested me? One look at the accompanying photos should answer that question.

More photos under the jump...

Somewhere, somehow, and I don't remember where or why, the first species of rat snake that I can remember seeing was a colored drawing in a book.

I seem to remember that the picture was simply captioned "Four-lined Rat Snake." and although other information was probably provided, I don't remember what this may have been. But I do know that I came away from that introduction with a firmly entrenched mind-picture of what a four-lined rat snake was supposed to look like. And as it turned out, for an American herper, it was an erroneous mind-picture.

Years later, after meeting a fair number of our "four-lined rat snakes" (as the yellow rat snake, Pantherophis obsoletus quadrivittata, was once known), I realized that there was a fly in the ointment. Our four-line was decidedly different than the one in memory.



Why was this, I wondered? With a few library visits I found out.

There was our American four-lined rat snake (then being ever increasingly referred to as a yellow rat), and there was a European four-lined rat snake, Elaphe quatuorlineata, and it was this latter I had first seen depicted.

OK. Now I could at least put names with faces (so to speak), and this made me feel a bit better. Following the advent of the Internet, finding pictures of the European species became a snap. But it was not until 2010 that I actually had a European four-line in hand. And that one, a hatchling, certainly did not look like the picture in the old book.

But by the time it was 3 years old, ontogenetic changes had changed the strongly blotched baby to the striped (lined) snake that had initially confused me so. It was a long wait but the end result well worth the time.

More photos under the jump...