Although capable of climbing, the peeper does not usually ascend very high.
Although peeper season down here in the “deep southeast” (nFL, sGA and sAL) is now almost over (it’s mid-April), it was brought to my attention the other day that it has just started up in the northland that I still think of as “home.”

Unlike in New England, where winter is a fearsome period of unruly (and usually COLD) weather and warmth providing fireplaces, down here, rather than by climatic extremes, “winter” is best defined by calendar dates. Depending on rains and temperatures peepers, Pseudacris crucifer, in the southeast may be heard calling in the late autumn to and through the winter months (November to March). So in actuality they (and most other chorus frogs, of which the peeper is one, are winter peepers.

Peepers are capable of limited metachrosis. They are usually darker when cold than when warm. And a darker, often imperfect, X (the crucifix from which the species name crucifer, is derived) is usually visible on their back. This little frog, a hylid (treefrog), has tiny toetip discs that allow it to climb, even if haltingly, and is adult at a SVL of 1.5” or less.

For the most part, our chorus frogs are done vocalizing until next autumn. Now with the advent of warmer weather it’s treefrog time, with the green treefrog often leading the other choristers. It’s nice to have frog voices year round.

It is during the breeding season that the head of the male broad-head is fiery and enlarged.
The broad-headed skink, Plestiodon laticeps, is easily kept but not always easily bred.

It was way back in the early 1950s that I first saw this species. It was then known as the “greater five-lind skink.”

I was on the 2nd floor of a deserted and decrepit house on Okeetee Hunt Club. Gordy and I had just left Carl, Bob, and Zig, and were hoping to find a few more herps before nightfall. I was infatuated with the region’s resident rat snakes, the black (actually more greenish than black) and corn snakes. Knowing that the former were accomplished climbers, I had climbed the rickety stairs and was checking the rotted and loosened window sills. No rat snakes yet but as I moved to where a hefty limb lay against the house I saw what was until then the prettiest lizard I had ever seen in wild. Having it’s body a burnished brown and it’s head a fire orange, I had just met a male broad-headed skink.

I soon had acquired a pair of these beauties—the male from SC and the female from FL. They were kept in a 36gal savanna terrarium with climbing/basking limbs and profuse ground cover/hiding areas that included enough soil to burrow. The diet consisted of insects and occasional small pinkies. They had a large ceramic dog watering bowl. The terrarium was sprinkled occasionally. A natural photoperiod and a hotspot of 105+F was provided on a uppermost limb. The lizards thrived, breeding several times during the years I kept them.
Today I live in Florida and wild examples of this taxon are almost daily warm weather visitors on our back deck. I never tire of seeing them.

Despite the similarity of appearance to that of a slimy salamander, the white-spot is more closely allied to the Wehrle's salamander
“Looks bad, Jake.”

There was 4” of snow and the higher we climbed the faster the snow was falling. We were on a mountaintop on the WV-VA stateline hoping to find a white-spotted (Cow Knob) salamander, Plethodon punctatus. Although having the white-spots on a black ground color of a slimy salamander, this 6-inch long montane caudatan is more closely allied to Wehrle’s salamander.

As I had done a decade-plus earlier, Jake was now trying to accrue a life list of all USA herps, and P. punctatus was one of the few Appalachian caudatans remaining on his “wannasee” list. But despite our efforts on that day and the next to two locales, we failed to find this wanted and localized taxon.

On day one, after a slow, rocky, muddy, several mile climb on a Jeep trail, my trusty CRV made it to within .8 mile of the destination. At that point we encountered a Jeep-only puddle that prevented us going further. But it mattered not. Because of the snow cover and existing snow storm, we had learned by that time it that it was almost impossible to find the habitat we had hoped to see, and the cover we did find was still frozen to the ground.

Except for not being stopped by a puddle, conditions on day two conspired equally against us. The snow was even deeper, the ground cover was still frozen. And if salamanders were there they succeeded in hiding from us. It was time to give up.
C’mon spring!

A prettily marked red sided garter snake in eastern OK.
Although to some degree all of the 12 subspecies of the common garter snake, Thamnophis sirtalis, are variable in color and pattern, overall some subspecies are more colorful than others. The red-sided garter snake, T. s. parietalis, of our plains states (and far northward into Canada) are consistently more colorful than some others. But in keeping with the variability of the species, some have bright red bars on the side while on others (especially on old individuals) the red may be seen only on the interstitial skin. Those that Jake and I recently photographed in Kansas ran the gamut of color variations. Old friends to me, this subspecies was a lifer for Jake. All, no matter the color, were welcome.

Aquatic plants provided food and seclusion for these turtles.

The 2 subspecies of the Trachemys dorbigni, are the southernmost of the red-eared slider group. The northernmost, T. d. braziliensis, occurs in various waterways in northern and central Brazil while the southernmost form, T. d. dorbignyi, occurs in southern Brazil, Uruguay, and northern Argentina. Where the ranges meet intergradation occurs.

Both subspecies are green as hatchlings and juveniles. The green persists the longer on the northern subspecies but, dulls to olive or brown on the southern race. Facial striping is also different on the two, with the northern subspecies having a broad red ear-stripe and the southern having a narrow yellow to orange stripe.

The few that I have had have been very much like typical pet-trade red ears in all respects. The hatchlings and juveniles ate all manner of prepared turtle chow, but seemed especially fond of the floating pond fish pellets fed daily to the goldfish with which they shared the pond. As they grew these slider added aquatic plants of many types to their dietary preferences.

While the babies were shy, paddling furiously to the seclusion of the floating plants, the adults were less inclined to do so.

Although this big eastern diamondback initially coiled when we surprised each other, It soon continued slowly across the road.
The diamondback in front of the car was unhappy. It had emerged from the grassy expanse on my left and made it unchallenged halfway across the road when along came I. Swerving back and forth in a futile attempt to avoid the numerous potholes that stretched in front of me, I was just a few feet from the big rattler before I noticed it.

I had been carefully checking out fallen pines along a shaded roadway and by the time I had reached the road’s end had, for my efforts, found beneath the snags 2 fair-sized scarlet kingsnakes, Lampropeltis triangulum elapsoides.

Having checked obvious herp hideouts on the way in, I was going a bit faster while leaving. When I saw the big diamondback, Crotalus adamanteus, I slammed on the brakes and stopped a mere 4 feet from it. The snake came to the same conclusion as I—this was much too close for either of us—so I backed up a bit.

Despite never slowing its crossing, the snake assumed a typical diamondback defense stance, a position that said as plainly as possible “back off buddy. I’ll go my way and you go yours.”

Which we both did.