Coloration alone indicated that this snake was Bothriechis supraciliaris.
This occurred in those “good old days,” in the days when, believe it or not, snakes (including this one, but usually baby boas), mouse opossums, tarantulas, and other creatures were imported by accident in shipments of fruit and especially in bananas. This snake arrived with bananas at a fruit vendor in Boston in the early 50s and rather than killing it the Boston Museum of Science was notified. The snake was gathered in due haste by researchers from the Museum’s Herp Dept.

Back then it was identified as an eyelash viper, Bothrops (now Bothriechis schlegelii (this was 1954, the same year that B. supraciliaris, the blotched palm viper was described, but back then very few folks knew of the existence of the latter). For reasons that were unknown to me then and remain so today, rather than being preserved the snake was maintained in the live collection and when a year or so later I saw the beautiful snake and got excited about its existence it was given to me. I kept it for years, photographed it (as best I could in those days) and after its death the snake was disposed of in a now forgotten manner. From time to time I have published its photo. For years nothing was said, but in recent years I have been told that the snake, rather than a schlegelii was a supraciliaris. Others steadfastly maintained it was a schlegelii.

Nothing remains of this snake but its old photos. Its identification has not really been settled. Although I’ll probably never know for certain, Just for the record, I have since seen snakes that were very similar to my questionable snake, and that were definitely supraciliaris. I’m still leaning in that direction and always shall.

This is a typically marked adult ringed salamanderJake and I were recently back in southwestern Arkansas on, as might be expected, a herping foray. Ever since Jake had learned of this salamanders existence, he had told me time and again, he had been enamored of the beauty of the ringed salamander, Ambystoma annulatum, and although we had been in the region where they were found on previous trips, neither weather conditions nor season, had been conducive for these aptly named mole salamanders to have emerged from their burrows. So we had previously whiled away our time searching for and photographing some of the other Ozarkian caudatans.

But today, a cool autumn day, was different. It was raining and the rain was forecast to extend well into the coming hours of darkness. We had a few locales to check out before dark. All in all things were looking good. Necessary tedium first--motel, a bite to eat-- then into the mountains.

After bumping for several miles along a woodland dirt road we found ourselves in a land of rocks. This was definitely ringed salamander habitat—but there was a problem. Rock after rock, for as far as we could see, had been freshly turned out of its cradle and just left lying atop the leaves. We could only guess that this was the work of uncaring market hunters. For the first hour Jake and I rolled rocks back into their original positions. By then darkness was approaching and we discontinued the reconstruction efforts with hundreds of rocks still out of place. We did want to get a few minutes of salamander hunting in.

We walked a bit further to a small ephemeral pond and found after considerable searching Jake’s lifer ringed salamander and dozens (probably hundreds) of freshly laid eggs.

The rain continued making photographing difficult but not impossible and we were soon on the way back to the motel.

Once back to the paved road, the rain now barely a sprinkle, we were lucky enough to see another 4 ringed salamanders. Our trip was a resounding success.

A profile of the beautiful white rattlesnake.
Can white be a camouflage color? It sure can when it is peppered with tiny black flecks of color and sitting atop or amidst a number of rocks that are similarly colored.

And is there any such place?

There surely is. And Jake and I were amidst those rocks right now—or actually, right then. It was late on a night late in August in Arizona and even at well past midnight the heat was radiating from those black speckled white rocks as we searched for our target, a black fleckled white speckled rattlesnake. “Speckled” is the name of this snake, Crotalus pyrrhus, as well as its color.

It was Jake who had decided on this target, the speckled rattler. Then he had added the specific color. Sounded good to me, and after all, the locale was only 2000+ miles away from our homes. Heck. What’s 2000+ miles to dedicated herpers. I had dragged Jake farther than that to see a single species of bird. And neither of us make any special claim to our birding prowess.

So after borrowing and loading Patti’s car for the trip, off we went. A day and a half later we arrived and were searching the habitat. 4 days later, after finding a fair number of great herps and groggy from lack of sleep, we realized we had failed to find the target and since we still had a few semi-target species—rock rattlers, regal horned lizards and a stop at the wonderful Arizona Sonora Desert Museum-- a few hundred miles to the east it was time to begin our multi-stopped retreat. Fortunately we were more successful on our list of semi-target taxa than we had been on the target.

Are we going to try again? You betcha! And the next time, in the famous last words of somebody (I think it was Jake!), “we shall succeed.”

But for now, Eastward-ho!