This is the striped phase of the tiny greenhouse frog.
If I concentrate, on almost every warm, humid night, the twitterings and chirpings of greenhouse frogs, Eleutherodactylus planirostris, can be heard in our anuran friendly Alachua County yard. The calls are high pitched, soft, and more reminiscent of the stridulations of some cricket species than of an amphibian. In other words, it might take a dedicated effort to hear and have the tinkling notes you are hearing register as the vocalizations of a frog.

Apparently the first notice of the greenhouse frog, a West Indian species was in 1875 when it was noted in Miami-Dade County. Since then it has spread pretty much throughout the state and has been heard or found in Alabama, Georgia, southern Mississippi, southeastern Louisiana, and eastern Texas, as well. It has also been found in heated greenhouses in more northerly states.

This little reddish-tan to gray with reddish overtones frog is fully grown at from ¾ to 1 ¼ inches snout-vent length. It occurs in 2 pattern forms, a striped and a mottled.

There being no free-swimming tadpole stage this species does not require water to breed. The 6 to 26 eggs are deposited in moist leaf litter, beneath moist ground debris, in the cups or between the leaves of bromeliads, and other places that offer similar protection from predators and drying. Metamorphosis is rapid, with the tiny froglets hatching when conditions are ideal in as little as 13 days after egg deposition.
This little tiny frog eats the tiniest of insects and is not known to compete seriously with any native species. An interloper though they may be, they are always welcomed when we happen upon them.

Tiny legs having one toe each identify the one-toed amphiuma.

One minute I was standing upright on the edge of a semi-dried creek’s backwater. Then one more step I was thigh deep in soupy mud and if there hadn’t been a bank edge sapling for me to grab I’d have probably been face down in the goop. Kenny was doubled over with laughter. I didn’t know whether to try and back out or to flounder forward another step. In fact, right then I was wondering exactly why we were here. I had expected mud. Just not so quickly (read that unexpectedly) and not so deep. And I had expected to search for the target beast, a one-toed amphiuma, Amphiuma pholeter, by standing high and dry on the bank and dragging the small meshed net through the goo.

This was a colder than cool Florida day in February, and although it was nothing like a Maine winter day would have been I was uncomfortable, and knew that before I could get back in the car I had to get even more uncomfortable cleansing at least most of the mud off in the colder-than-cool fast moving stream ahead of me. Also, since I had fully intended to stay high and dry I had not brought a change of clothes with me. Well, darn it!

So let’s see now—I was in thigh deep mud that seemed to promise it was even deeper ahead of me, Kenny, dry and fairly warm, was busily scooping through the liquid mud with his net, and I had to get at least partially cleaned off. Stream, here I come.

Although I never did get to net up a one-toed amphiuma (aka mud eel) on that trip, it mattered not. While I was trying to extricate myself Kenny got a couple of the little critters, and pix were possible.

Many buff-striped keelbacks are less colorful than these.
It was back in the 1980s that I made the acquaintance of the natricid (garter, water, and related snakes) species.

Chris had received a shipment from Bangkok, and along with the cobras, kraits, and pipe snakes, was a bag identified only as “keelbacks.” Upon seeing the designation I immediately thought Rhabdophis, a keelback with a virulent toxin. But when Chris opened the bag it contained something very different—a keelback species that I didn’t recognize.

Several of the snakes were similar to each other in body color, being an olive tan (with vaguely bluish interstitial skin) and having a buff colored dorsolateral stripe along each side. The light stripe was indistinguishable on the neck but very apparent on the posterior three quarters of the snake. The heads of these were also olive-tan with black vertical interstitial markings on the upper labials. Most bore broad black bars from lower side to lower side but where the dark bars crossed the light dorsolateral stripes, the latter were markedly lighter. The black barring was most prominent anteriorly, faded posteriorly and was absent from the rear of the body and the tail.

But then there were the odd 3. On these the patterns were the same but the colors differed greatly. On these the head and neck were a rich orange. The scale sutures of the yellow upper labials were black. The ground color was rich olive tan and the dark cross barring was hardly any darker.The light stripes were buff anteriorly but shaded to a rather bright yelliow posteriorly. And trhe interstitial skin of the body was pale but definite blue.

Can you say “pretty?” I sure did, and these 3 snakes were with me for many years, thriving on a diet of ranid frogs.
Strangely, although I have since seen several shipments containing this species, I have never again seen the orange headed form. Beginner’s luck I guess.

This is a subordinate male rainbow lizard from a Miami population.
The northeastern South American country of Colombia was once the predominant shipper of neotropical wildlife to the United States. Birds of all manner (cock-of-the-rocks to parrots), mammals (wooly monkeys to ocelots to anteaters), amphibians (remember the Colombia horned frog?), reptiles (boas to red-footed tortoises, to rainbow lizards).

Rainbow lizards?

So, How Does One Accurately Describe a Rainbow Lizard?

Well, if I chose to try, describing the little 8-striped (the vertebrals strip is divided!) brownish and greenish female would not be awfully difficult. But to describe the blue, yellow, green, brown (and several hues between) of a dominant male could prove to be a chore and would probably wind up being inaccurate anyways. So, to make things easy, allow me to suggest that you determine the origin of the example in question. As it now stands the lizards making up what is currently known as Cnemidophorus lemniscatus are probably a species complex. They will differ in color and pattern at different locales. Color intensity also varies according to the status of the male within a given population. Dominant males are much more colorful than subordinate males.

So have at it. At least you’ll be more satisfied with your description of the example at hand. That’s a certainty! Oh, by the way, the lizards depicted here are from a Miami-Dade County population that probably contains genes from several Colombian origins.

Rainbow lizards, a teiid, are adult at 10-12 inches in total length. Although the primary diet is insects and other invertebrates these lizards also eat seeds, berries, and blossoms.