At first I thought it was just me, but when a half dozen of us each had the same problem with an array of different cameras, I'm now thinking the problem was digital. That's D-I-G-I-T-A-L.

We were all looking at the same Western two-lined forest pit viper, Bothriopsis bilineata smaragdina, and none of us was happy with the color rendition. This was a problem none of us had experienced with film. You'd point the camera, focus, snap the photo (or 10), and leave feeling confident that the camera and film had seen pretty nearly the same thing you had.

But now there was this. True, the snake, an adult, was lighter in color than most I had seen. But is wasn't yellow. In fact, it was a long way away from yellow. No matter how we tried, from all auto to all manual and every stop in between, our cameras were seeing yellow.



We changed apertures, speeds, every setting available. The snake was cooperating fully. After we all fiddled around, foamed and fumed for half an hour we gave up. We improved the scene from "almost" to "darn close," and it was time to take the pictures and move on. The snake was green when viewed from a distance. But the closer we got the yellower it became.

This gave us all plenty to discuss at dinner that evening. By the way, the pic of the neonates herewith was with film. The adult was not as intense in color as the juveniles, but it was brighter green than the pictures now detail.

More photos below...

How far would you drive to see and photograph a frog?

Well, a toad actually. Or to be absolutely accurate, a spadefoot, a little burrowing anuran of the family Pelobatidae. How far? Not too far, you say. But that statement really means nothing. It needs to be quantified. Would you go 100 miles? Maybe. 200 miles? Well, for a good reason, maybe. But the reason would have to be good. 500 miles? Nope. Never.

I needed a photo of a Great Basin spadefoot, Spea intermontana, and I had already failed on two attempts, each of which entailed a drive from Florida to southern California and back. On the second attempt I had met up with Gary Nafis, Pacific Coast herper par excellence. Together we had failed, and I was looking at another 2,500 mile drive back home with a big X rather than a photo next to the Great Basin spadefoot listing.

So when Gary said he knew an absolutely 100 percent assured locale in northern Washington, I said "What the heck. Let's go!" It was only another 1,200 miles and maybe, just maybe, the X of failure would be replaced by a photo of success. Five minutes later we were heading northward. Total insanity! But just maybe.

And you know, perseverance paid. At about 11 PM the next night we rolled into a region of rolling sands. And by midnight on a dry, breezy night on which I would not have really expected any anuran to be active, Gary had directed me to a shallow cemented irrigation/runoff canal and we were listening to the 2-pitched quacks of the coveted Great Basin spadefoot. Success!

It was wonderful. Now I only had a drive of about 3,200 miles diagonally across the USA to reach home. Altogether the search had carried me about 10,000 miles! But that hated X was gone. Thanks, Gary. (And yes, Patti is still shaking her head about this search, LOL!)

The first time I ever saw a scarlet kingsnake, Lampropeltis (triangulum) elapsoides, I was in northern Georgia herping with Gordy Johnston.

On our way to Florida, we had stopped at a small patch of recently burned pine woodlands as much as for a break in the driving as for actually herping. We checked the environs of a small soot-edged pond, seeing only a southern leopard frog or two. Along the way we rolled a log now and again, finding first a slimy salamander and then absolutely nothing under the next several.

We gave up on the log rolling until we were almost back to the car and we were actually stepping over the outermost log before deciding to roll it. That proved a fortuitous decision, because after straining and tugging when the log yielded, coiled tightly on the ground, was the most beautiful little snake either of us had ever seen.

Red, black, yellow,black, red black...the pattern was repeated over and over. And the vivid colors actually ringed the 15-inch long snake. That was our introduction to the scarlet kingsnake, and the memory of that introduction remains with me until this day.

More photos below...

It had rained hard for much of the afternoon and the rainforest trails were muddy and very slippery. Trail-crossing creeks were running high, and some slopes, normally steep but safe, had become a true challenge. In other words, the rainforest weather we were experiencing was being very typical rainforest weather: rain, clear, rain, clear, rain...

I had about a half-dozen herpers with me and a few others were with Lorrie, who was either ahead of us or who had started her hike on the opposite end of the same loop trail. The boops, barks, and whistles of various treefrog species serenaded us as we walked slowly along, stopping to look at an insect here or a frog there.

By the time we had reached the intersection (right kept us on the short trail, left was the long trail where if we missed the next turn we could walk until the day after tomorrow) it had begun raining again. In front of us was a huge stand of bananas and a few of our hikers wanted to divert the rain by holding a big banana leaf over their head.

So into the bananas we went, and it was a good thing we did. Just past the first row, at a height of about 8 feet, was a beautiful, slender, red snake -- a red vine snake, Siphlophis compressus.



Rain or not, our night had then been made.

More photos under the jump...

Teeny-weeny? That barely describes the tiny patch-nosed salamander, Urspelerpes brucei, which is now known to exist not only in Stephens County, GA, but in adjacent SC as well.

Only an inch and a half in overall length, males of this little salamander are prominently striped while the females are a unicolored greenish-gold dorsally and laterally. Both larvae and adults have a variably prominent light patch on the snout, and it is from this marking that the common name is derived.



Urspelerpes is a monotypic genus and although some initial commenting wondered whether this classification of a salamander that was in superficial appearance quite similar to many of the brook salamanders of the genus Eurycea would stand the test of time, it has.

It was thanks to John Jensen and Carlos Camp that I had an opportunity to photograph this little plethodontid. And although I have procrastinated for the several years that have elapsed since it was described, I still intend to travel to and photograph its montane stream home. That jaunt is planned as one of this month's (July 2014) field excursions.

Goals. There always needs to be a goal.

More photos under the jump...

"Dick, could you take a look at this?"

Patti was standing in the utility room, just on our side of the doggie door. At her feet were some of the dog-pack, but none seemed particularly interested in anything there. But when I walked in to the room I was confronted by a sizable greenish-brown (or maybe it was brownish-green) blob on the floor. There, sitting quietly, seemingly staring at the wall, was a subadult bullfrog, Rana (Lithobates) catesbeiana.



Now, bullfrogs are not uncommon in this region. In fact, they are abundant. But a few facts were unusual:

1. Bullfrogs are highly aquatic and the closest pond was more than a quarter mile away.

2. In the 20 years we've lived here I've never heard a bullfrog singing there.

3. The closest I have heard vocalizing bullfrogs was about three quarters of a mile distant (on the far side of a busy four-lane highway).

4. Once in the yard, it elected to come up the back steps and bounce through a heavy doggie door.

Well, it couldn't live in the utility room, so I gathered it up and moved it to the nearest bullfrog pond, where hopefully (if it can avoid the gators, herons, and cottonmouths) it can live out its long life.

More photos under the jump...

The Bulgarian rat snake, Elaphe (quatuorlineata) sauromates, is also known as the Eastern European rat snake and the European blotched snake.



Once considered the easternmore of the two subspecies of E. quatuorlineata, it is now most often considered a full species designated by the binomial of E. sauromates. Although lengths of more than 8 feet have been verified, most examples range between 4 and 6 feet in length.

Unlike the westernmore E. quatuorlineata that undergoes extensive ontogenetic (age related) color and pattern changes, the Bulgarian rat snake retains its juvenile blotched pattern throughout its life.

So slow, the dawning; so very slow...

As I sat at the computer this morning looking at this pic and that, for some reason I paused at the photos of the tiny (males barely more than 1/2", female to about 3/4") orange-bellied leaf toad, Dendrophryniscus minutus.



"Hmmmm (almost all of my deep thoughts start with 'hmmmmm')," I thought, "When was the last time I saw one of these?"

When I first began traveling to the Iquitos region of Peru, these minuscule bufonids were common. I saw them almost daily on low shrubs at Amazon Camp, at Madre Selva, at Paucarillo, and on dozens of trails in many other villages.

But now, in truth, I think it has been 8 to 10 years since I last saw one. Have I become that much less observant (I don't think so)? Or could these little anurans actually be disappearing, in this case before my very eyes, just as the related Atelopus are before the eyes of others?

More photos under the jump...

With each passing year, as the various exporting countries close or open their seasons and/or shipping quotas, the herps we see in the pet trade change.

Availability of some changes from abundance to rarity, of others from rarity to abundance. As an example the Colombian horned frog, Ceratophrys calcarata, once available in the thousands each breeding season, has not been available for decades.



Those among us who are keepers (yes, I am one) owe each and every animal, be their cost mere pennies or thousands of dollars, the best of conditions and care. Research each species before acquisition, and then acquire only those that you can care for adequately and with relative ease.

More photos of species rarely seen today under the jump...

I had followed an old "woods road" through a hemlock forest to a beautiful pond of about an acre in size. As I had plodded slowly through the shady woodlands that were still enshrouded and dampened by the morning's fog, I took pleasure in seeing that the forest floor was literally acrawl with red efts.



These, the terrestrial stage of the red-spotted newt, Notophthalmus v. viridescens, were the most obvious and seemingly the most common amphibian species along my trek. But by the time I had reached the pond-bank the fog had dissipated and the sun was shining brightly.

Pickerel frogs, Rana (Lithobates) palustris, leapt to the safety of the shallows as I walked slowly along the sunny banks.



Here and there a stirring in the water would draw my attention to an aquatic adult newt or a diving beetle.

But unbeknownst to me at that moment there was a grand finale just a few steps ahead. There in a narrow and shallow inlet, partially shaded by a fallen tree, I encountered a breeding congregation of red-spotted newts.



Numbering in the low hundreds, dozens of pairs were in amplexus while others were still in the courtship stage, The population in this one small inlet would certainly account for the vast population of efts I had seen earlier. It is always good to see Mother Nature hard at work.