Hydrops martii has narrow, prominent bands.
The theme of red, black, and yellow (or white) bands/rings is not uncommon among Amazonian snakes. Not only are there a number of coral snake species that bear those familiar colors (although not in the sequence that we in the USA are familiar with), but there are a number of harmless and rear-fanged taxa so clad. Two of the latter are the primarily aquatic coral mud snakes, the broad banded Hydrops triangularis bassleri and the narrow banded Hydrops martii.

Like most Amazonian snakes, the 2 taxa of mud snakes are everywhere but nowhere. If you search specifically for them you will almost certainly fail. But the, if you’re out looking for aquarium fish or Amazonian water snakes (Helicops sp.) at night you just may luck onto a Hydrops. That’s just the way the Amazon works.

And so one rainy night we decided to look for caiman on an Amazon tributary. A half dozen of us clambered aboard a small boat and off we went. A half hour later we found a hatchling spectacled caiman, but we didn’t know that at the time. We did know that we found a big, and very unexpected, Hydrops martii that had obviously just consumed a huge meal. Not wanting to try for pix in the rain, we bagged the snake and returned to camp where we would then photograph the snake and return it to where it had been found. Good plan. Photogenic snake.

But when we opened the bag we had not only the pretty snake but with it was a hatchling caiman—regurgitated, sticky, but apparently none-the-worse for its harrowing experience. We made note of the before then unknown food item then turned both loose.

And as far as the other Hydrops species, H. triangularis bassleri, is concerned, one night during a pelting rain, I walked, as I had done 100 times before, from my cabin to the edge of the little oxbow a few dozen yards away. There in the shallows lay a bassleri, the first and only one I had/have ever seen in the wild. Go figure.

A tangle of aquatic caecilians, including gravid females.
It was about midnight and a heavy seasonal shower had just abated. I was standing on the edge of a small inlet on the Rio Orosa in Amazonian Peru. I had been hoping to find a small aquatic snake or two, had actually succeeded (another story), and was just about to call it a night when a bit of a commotion in the shallows a dozen feet from me caught my eye. I hurried the few steps needed to get to the disturbance, and saw what appeared to be a big dark colored worm rapidly coiling and uncoiling.

Dark and a worm, eh? Ah ha! An aquatic caecilian, Typhlonectes compressicauda, my first in the wild. .As I watched it uncoiled and moved slowly—forward, stop, reverse a little, probe, forward again--into some water edge, emergent, vegetation. I watched it for another 5 minutes before it disappeared into the bottom mulm.

These representatives of the third group of amphibians (the other 2 being the caudatans and the anurans) were once common (although, legally they shouldn’t have been) in the pet trade. Most that arrived here (USA) were imported from Colombia as tropical fish (“rubber eels”, if you will—they were also marketed as “Sicilian” eels!). Adults are hardy aquarium animals, feeding well on black (tubifex) worms or sectioned earthworms. Adults are legless, finless, have a tactile tentacle, and lack external gills. The babies, borne alive, have large, external, parchment like gills.

Perhaps at some point in time these will again be available; perhaps not. But if they are, they are an interesting and easily kept amphibian species for aquarists and herpers alike.

Profile of an Everglades corn snake.
Throughout their immense range over most of the eastern USA (NJ in the northeast, to AR and LA in the west, and the FL Keys in the southeast) the corn snake (or red rat snake), Pantherophis g. guttatus, varies widely in abundance and color. But over that geographic immensity, the corn snake is probably no better known and variable than in Florida. If you, as a hobbyist, have any interest at all in pretty, fairly large, easily bred, nonvenomous snakes, you have almost assuredly heard of “Tampa phase,” “blood reds,” “anerythristic,” “Miami phase,” “Keys corns (which designation contains 3 or 4 color variants), or just plain old “Florida” corns.

But one you don’t hear an awful lot about is also one of the brighter Florida variants. This is the Everglades phase of the red rat (or corn) snake.

The ground color of this constricting beauty is a warm tan. The red-orange dorsal blotches are edged with black. The black edging is about a half-scale wide on the front and rear of each blotch but is noticeably less prominent on the lateral edges. All colors are paler along the sides of the snake.

Caught your attention? Like other corns, this variant is active crepuscularly and after nightfall. It may often been seen in agricultural or grassland regions at the southern tip of the peninsula. But a word to the wise should be sufficient---if you are collecting, stay out of the Everglades National Park.

The crows will often alert me to nesting activities by our tortoises.
Caw, caw, caw.

Hmmmmm. That crow is really close. I glanced up from the keyboard and scanned the bird feeders. No crow.

Caw, caw, caw.

Nearer yet. Then it dawned.

The crow, inky black even when bathed in the brightness of the late morning sunlight, was sitting atop the railing that enclosed the tortoise pens. And as I had learned in previous years, when the crows come that close it is for a reason. And that reason is usually egg-deposition by one of our turtles or tortoises.

Whether by body language displayed by the female chelonians on, or a day or two before, “deposition day,” by some chemical cues (how good are a crow’s olfactory senses?) or by other behavior patterns, I just don’t know. What I do know is that when the crows arrive I had better cancel and activities that would have me away from the pens until the laying actually occurs and the eggs are laid and gathered for incubation.

What? You dig and gather the chelonian eggs? Indeed we do. If left in the hands of Mother Nature the crows are not only adept at knowing the ‘whens and wherefores” of the laying procedures but are sufficiently alert and dexterous to steal the eggs during laying or to actually excavate the chelonian’s nest one the procedure is complete.

Caw, caw, caw, indeed! Thanks, crow, for the warning.

This is the "Dixie Caverns" phase of Wherle's salamander.
Of variable colors and/or patterns in all populations, in 2 of its 3 variations, Wehrle’s salamander, Plethodon wehrlei, is just an interesting little (tyo 6”) dark-colored salamander of the wooded uplands. It range southward from extreme South West New York to extreme North Central North Carolina. Then there is a disjunct population in North Central Tennessee and Eastern Kentucky. Southernmost examples have a ground color of bluish-brown (also “ish”) that may or may not be heavily spotted laterally with white flecks. Northerly examples are of similar bluish-brown(ish) ground color with white to bluish-white lateral flecks and bronzy dorsal flecks. These latter are often referred to as the “Dixie Caverns variant”.

However it is the 3rd variant that seems of the most interest to herpers, and certainly is to me. This is the “twin-spotted” variant, a phase that might be likened to a spotted salamandey that had been on a lengthy diet. This pattern anomaly is most often seen in the TN, KY, and many western WV populations. Similar to those in the other populations, the ground color remains a brownish-gray and there are scattered light lateral spots and often light flecks from nape to a point above the forelimbs. But with these the pattern similarity ends for along the dorsum, from forelimbs to the anterior portion of the tail, there is a dual row of paired yellow to orange spots. In my opinion these markings transform what in other populations are merely ”interesting” salamanders to what are then “pretty” salamanders

But of course, what is pretty is always in the eyes of the beholder. And what is of interest to a given individual is equally personal.

Having just emerged from the walls of our house, this black racer is now waiting for the sunshine.
Every morning (weather permitting) this little black nose, belonging to an adult southern black racer, Coluber constrictor priapus, pokes out of a tiny space between our home's siding and the frame. A half hour later the owner of that nose glides slowly up onto the back steps, thermoregulates for 10 or 15 minutes, then begins its day of hunting for brown anoles, a food item of which there is no paucity in our yard. Having started this routine about 2 years ago when he or she was a youngster just losing its baby pattern, it has now become so accustomed to us that, unlike others of its ilk, the snake allows us to walk within a couple of feet of it without bolting.

A few other hobbyists have related interesting activity patterns involving racers of various subspecies both when captive and wild. In some case this involves feeding patterns while with others it has been the approachability and associated responses by the racer.
Racers (and I guess I’ll include whipsnakes (Masticophis) in this comment) are large, intelligent, and in some cases brightly colored snakes that produce fair-sized clutches of easily incubated eggs. I have long wondered why they are so often overlooked by hobbyists.