This beautiful subadult Banded Gila Monster was just perched along a rocky trail.

The Gila (pronounced Hee-laa) Monster, Heloderma suspectum, is famous for its venomous bite. It is the only venomous lizard in the USA.

I find them appealing both for their appearance and the fact that they are unpredictable in their appearances in areas as different as rocky deserts, mountain slopes, and heavily populated areas. I rarely find them when I’m looking for them. But when I’m not actively looking, I may stumble across one or two.

This is a long lived lizard. A life span of 20 to 30 years is often quoted, but one researcher has been observing and documenting the same Gila Monster in her (he has determined it to be a female) on her winter refuge for more than 40 years. That’s right, 40+ years for that matriarch!

To highlight their unpredictability, on a recent trip to California, Jake and I had failed to find the White rattlesnake we had hoped to photograph and were returning to the car along our different trails. Suddenly Jake gave a holler, saying “come look at this!”

I clambered over to where Jake stood, and there amid the rocks on the trail was a beautiful young adult Gila. And what made this even better than good, it was a Banded Gila, H. s. cinctum, the westernmore subspecies that neither of us had seen in the field before. Cameras were activated and the lizard was immortalized as it crawled slowly to the ground and out of sight.

Elsewhere and at another time a Reticulated Gila, H. s. suspectum, the easternmost subspecies caught our eyes as it crawled, well after darkness had shrouded the Arizona desertland, along a sandy roadside. More pix, happy smiles, and more herping ahead. Life was good.

About the Gila Monster:

Subspecies and Range:
Banded, H. s. cinctum, Western Arizona, Extreme Southwestern Utah, Extreme Southern Nevada, possible isolated pops in Southeastern California
Reticulated, H. s. suspectum, Central and Southern Arizona, Extreme Southwestern New Mexico, Central and Southeastern Sonora
Color/Markings: Usually pink(ish) with black bands or reticulations
Size: Adults 18-22”; Hatchlings ~6”.
Appearance: “Chunky,” short-legged, relatively slow-moving. Tail about half as long as head and body and of variable thickness (the tail is a fat storage organ). This lizard is not capable of autotomizing the tail. Scales beadlike.
Status: Often seen but protected.

Even antheristic Corn Snakes very dark in color can be identified by the spearpoint on the top of the head.The Corn Snake, Pantherophis guttata, also known as the Red Rat Snake, is known to countless snake enthusiasts as a beautiful red, buff and yellow snake. Due to selective breeding in captivity, this species exceeds even the ball python in the variety of colors (and patterns).

But familiar though the hobbyists may be with the captive and normally red variations of this pretty constricting snake, many, many fewer realize that there are in the comparatively few wild areas left on the southern part of the Florida Peninsula, corn snakes of “a different color.”

Termed “anerythristic” (meaning lacking red), these snakes, pretty in their own modest way, have a variable ground color, gray with a brownish oversheen in most cases, to a pure dark gray on a few. Dorsal saddles and lateral blotches have brown centers with narrow to wide dark rimming. There is usually a dark edged, buff, postorbital bar present.

And while we’re discussing these, how did the name “Corn “ snake originate? It seems likely that this term describes the seemingly preferred habitat for this snake. It was and still is often found at the edges of agricultural (including corn) fields or in crop-storage barns.

Viva la Corn Snake!

Yellow cheeks and reddish ears. We can only guess at the genetics.
Yellow-bellied Sliders, Trachemys scripta scripta, are among the more abundant of the sliders in the southeastern USA. At the northwestern areas of their extensive range they intergrade with the “once” more westerly Red-eared slider, T.s. elegans. I placed the word once in quotations simply to draw attention, for nowadays, due to releases and escapes, the Red-ear may be found not only throughout the range of the Yellow Belly but also far to the north and south of it as well. The two subspecies have much in common, not only genetically but in general appearance—they’re brightly colored as juveniles, have much the same carapacial appearance, darken appreciably (males the most) with age, attain the same adult size, and have plastral markings are almost the same. One sub species has red ear markings, the other has yellow facial blotches that are often suffused with some degree of red.

When Patti and I go across the street to the Wetland Park, one of the first herps we see are the Yellow-bellied Sliders. In early summer we can find hatchlings amidst the sedges at the shoreline. Throughout the days during all 4 seasons, as long as the sun is shining, we can usually scout out a half dozen or more adults basking atop floating vegetation or straddling emerging logs or floating alligators (‘gators also eat turtles). As I said, the taxon is common to the point of abundance, and we are glad this is so.