"There' one!"

I slammed on the brakes, pulled a 180, and sped back to--to another rock. Another 180 and we were moving westward again. The last "turn" had brought the false sightings up to Five. Five times we had thought we had sighted a round-tailed horned lizard, Phrynosoma modestum, basking on the pavement and five times it had been a rock or a piece of flattened vegetation.

I had about brought the old car back up to 65 mph when Jake screamed again. This time I didn't turn, I merely stopped at roadside and told Jake "Go get it." He hopped out, ran back a couple of hundred feet, and stooped to pick up another "rock." But unless he was taunting me he usually didn't pick up rocks. Maybe--just maybe...

By the time Jake had returned to the car he was grinning from ear to ear. That last "rock" actually was the horned lizard we (and especially he) had wanted so badly to see.

We had failed to find a round-tail on the first 10 of the 12 days allocated to this 2015 trip to the Big Bend and had begun to wonder whether 2015 would replicate 2014's trip when we had not found the species. We no longer had to wonder. Success, finally!

Now to find my camera.

More photos under the jump...

It had been a very long day in West Texas, and it was past time to call it quits. Jake and I had just driven almost non-stop from our Florida homes and following an hour of shuteye had hit the road for a little r&r (herping). We had done pretty well, photographing a pretty male Baird's rat snake at road edge and an equally pretty mottled rock rattler on a roadcut before changing venues.

Now, at 3 in the morning, we had decided to call it a night and had headed back for the motel when a ring-tailed "cat" at roadside caught our attention. I slowed to watch the little mammal and was just speeding up when we saw a solfugid (sun spider) on the yellow center line. Photo time. As I stepped from the car I noticed a small snake that was lying quietly on the center line only a few feet from the solfugid. Immediately recognizable as a long-nose, Rhinocheilus lecontei, the little snake was as obviously different as it was recognizable -- it lacked even a vestige of the red pigmentation so typical of the species. It was merely black and white, anerythristic if you prefer.

What a great find at the end of a long and busy day.

More photos under the jump...

Having kept and bred Santa Cruz (Channel Island) gopher snakes, Pituophis catenifer pumila, for several years, I had become enamored with this smallest of the gopher snakes. Even though these snakes are of nervous demeanor and have an occasional tendency to huff, puff, and strike, their 28 to 34" adult size makes them an easy gopher snake to handle.

Restricted in range to two of California's Channel Islands (Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa Island) there seems to still be a paucity of information on this snake's preferred habitats. However, it is probable that like other forms of the gopher snake, the Santa Cruz subspecies is a habitat generalist that utilizes most if not all of the varied insular habitats--be they montane, pastoral or littoral.

The entire range of the Santa Cruz gopher snake is now under the protection of the National Park Service and/or The Nature Conservancy. Therefore this tiny gopher snake can be difficult to acquire.

And how tiny is "tiny"? As mentioned above the adult length seldom exceeds 30" and hatchlings are 6 to 8" in length. For a gopher, that's tiny!

More photos under the jump...