Juvenile color and patterning may remain visible until the Black Milk Snake is nearing adulthood.

Lampropeltis triangulum gaigeae is an Interesting Milk Snake. Brightly tricolored at hatching, not only does this subspecies undergo rather remarkable ontogenetic changes, but this Central American (Costa Rica and Panama) subspecies is also the longest and probably the heftiest of the milk snakes, attaining the rather remarkable length of 7 feet when adult!

Hatchlings are 10-12 inches long, a notable length for any member of this group, and they are strongly tricolored and can easily consume pinkies. By the time a hatchling has undergone 2 or 3 sheds, a suffusion of melanism will be seen dulling the hatchling brilliance somewhat and by the time the snake is a subadult there will be no doubt about its parentage. It has been many years since I last kept tricolors of any subspecies, but I still recall the amazement felt when I compared hatchling photos with those taken as growth ensued. Try this beauty yourself. I think you’ll be very pleasantly surprised. And strangely, in these days of upwardly spiraling hobbyist costs, I think that the price of Black Milk Snake hatchlings remains comparatively affordable.

Kingsnakes (this is a South Florida or Brook's phase) may hunt their prey in surface or sub-surface locales.
Interestingly the different groupings of rodent-eating snakes tend to orient themselves a bit differently. For example the nonvenomous rat snakes, prominent members of the serpentine rodent patrol, tend to be more ubiquitous in their hunting techniques than, let’s say, the kingsnakes, milk snakes, or pit vipers. The former, the rat snakes seek prey (rats, mice, and other unwanted furry visitors) on the ground, in barns and other out-structures, in trees, and under surface debris. Even long grasses and shrub cuttings may suffice as a harbor for rodents and these predators.

The venomous pit vipers, rattlers and moccasins, tend to be ambush rather than active predators. To heighten chances for success, these, especially the rattlers, often seek out rodent trails and position themselves next to a fallen tree or other such visual barrier in hopes of a careless rat or squirrel coming along. Small rattler species may be more active. Cottonmouths often seek out road-killed carrion and pry it from the pavement. Copperheads overindulge on cicadas and other insects as well as frogs, lizards, nestling birds and rodents.

Kingsnakes, milk snakes, and members of the bull/pine/gopher snakes clan are often active ground-surface predators that follow trails of mice, voles and other prey through grassy/weedy tunnels and may follow prey trails into subterranean burrows. In fact the pine/gopher/bullsnakes are dedicated hunters of gophers and voles within the burrows. Kingsnakes and milk snakes are adept at following rodents or herps but are not as specialized at burrow-hunting as the gopher snake group.

Snakes seek prey wherever the trails lead them. Besides their individually preferred hunting sites almost all snakes—yes even kings and pit vipers, are capable of ascending trees. We humans, or Mother Nature, will either purposely or accidentally create the habitats. Our friends, the snakes and their prey often closely follow.

The Carolina Pygmy Rattler of the Sandhills can vary widely in ground color but are usually light with well defined dorsal blotches.
The Variably Colored Carolina Pygmy Rattlesnake, Sistrurus m. miliarius is the most northeasterly, most variable in color, and marginally the smallest of the 3 subspecies of Pygmy Rattlesnakes. It ranges southward from the Albemarle Peninsula of North Carolina to South Carolina, Central Georgia, and westward to Northern Alabama. At the southern extremes of its range it intergrades with the Dusky subspecies in the east and with the Western subspecies in the west. Adult size is a stocky 15 to 20 inches. It seems as if the record length is 25 inches.

It is in color that this little buzztail varies most. Two of the most often mentioned color phases are the “sandhill” phase and the “red” phase. The latter seems restricted to neGA and eNC while the lavender sandhills phase, restricted to the NC sandhills, is aptly named.

Besides the lavender and red ground colors already mentioned, this little snake may vary from gray to brownish. It lacks the dark stippling of the dusky phase but has clearly defined light edged dark dorsal saddles as well as lateral smaller lateral blotches. In areas of intergradation stippling is heavier and the patterns are less clearcut.

Between 2 and 9 young are produced in each clutch. Neonates measure a rather slender 6 inches in total length.

The tail is usually dark on adults but yellowish on neonates.

Both in young and old (this is a hatchling) the plastra of Western Painted Turtle, Chrysemys picta bellii, bears a variable dark figure against the red.
For nearly my entire life I have been enchanted by the beauty and abundance of the 4 subspecies of painted turtles—the eastern, the midland, the southern, and the western. Where I spent my childhood, both the eastern and western subspecies were common. But to see both the southern and the western painteds in the wild, it was necessary to travel several hundred miles. But travel those distances I did, and was happy to do so.

Of the four subspecies, the southern is the smallest and the western, at a straight-measure carapace length of 8 to 10 inches, the largest. The western also has the largest range and just happens to be the most colorful. It may be seen throughout most of the central states, to the Pacific Northwest, southwestern Canadian Provinces, and in several disjunct river systems and lakes of our southwest. The olive-ish carapace may or may not have a busy pattern of light lines and the plastron is red to reddish (especially bright on hatchlings) with broad areas of dark pigment following the scute junctures. Face, neck, limbs, and tail are olive to dark grayish green and are busily striped or spotted with yellow.

Adult female Cuban Treefrogs can be quite a handful.
Cuban Treefrog: Osteopilus septentrionalis.

Color: Variable, often some shade of uniform tan, or occasionally green, bluish green, pasty-white, or mottled. All individuals are capable of a wide range of color changes.

Skin (glandular) secretions: Irritating, toxic

Size: Sexually dimorphic. Males are adult at from1 to 3+ inches, females are larger and bulkier occasionally attaining a snout-vent length of 5 ½ inches.

Food: Besides invertebrates small vertebrates including other frogs are consumed.

Lifespan: Males 1 to 3 years, females to 5+ years.

How long in the USA: First recorded on the Florida Keys in 1930s.

Native to: Cuba, Bahamas, Cayman and other Caribbean Islands.

Current Range in USA as of 2021: Currently expanding, now throughout most of Florida, occasionally reported from southern Georgia. May be unexpectedly carried to more distant area in plant shipments.

Habitat: Many and varied, but often most common near human habitations. Plant nurseries, ponds, puddles, irrigated areas, illuminated areas to which insects (and other frogs) are drawn.

Comments: The presence and spread of the Cuban Treefrog in Florida has created at least two very different biological outlooks. One viewpoint, based as much on this frog’s cannibalistic propensities as on any thing else dictates that each-and-every-one found be humanely euthanized. The argument is that Cuban Treefrogs deplete populations of our native hylids, in some cases to the point of localized extirpation. To this I respond that on the southern peninsula, where the Cuban Treefrogs have been present for most of their 90 years, I can still find native species without looking too hard.

The opposite viewpoint is that this species has been in FL for 90 years and its presence should now be ignored allowing Mother Nature to work things out. Sadly, in those early years this frog’s presence on the Keys was ignored. But then, so was the presence of virtually every other non-human ignored.

Do Cuban Treefrogs belong in the USA? The answer is a resounding and unequivocal “no.” But perhaps they are not quite as devastating as so often portrayed.