Note the similarities such as the narrow pointed head of mole and pine snakes that is designed for plowing through subsurface burrows. This is a young adult mole snake.
They’re a half a world apart but the similarities between the African Mole Snake, Pseudaspis cana, and the American Pine Snakes, Pituophis melanoleucus ssp. are rather remarkable. Do not mistake the mole snake of this article for our various Mole Kingsnakes. The two are very different. If you have been fortunate enough to work with both African Mole and American Pine snakes you’ll know immediately what I’m talking about.

Both are small-headed, strong-jawed, powerful constrictors that spend a goodly amount of time pursuing rodents in their subsurface burrows. Our gopher and pine snake pursue pocket gophers and the mole snakes pursue mole rats and other rodents. The two differ in scalation, with the scales of the pine snakes being keeled and with the mole snake usually (but not always) having smooth scales. A length of 6 feet is not unusual for them and anecdotal accounts of even greater lengths are often heard.

Mole snake hatchlings and juveniles are straw colored and strongly patterned with dark alternating dorsal and lateral bars. The markings fade with age and adults vary from an almost uniform light olive to dark olive-brown in color. Hatchlings of the American pine snake may be paler than the adults. This snake varies in color by subspecies with the northern subspecies (P. m. melanoleucus) being the most strongly patterned in chocolates, black, and white. The Florida subspecies, P. m. mugitus, is the palest (sometimes almost a uniform straw tan), and as indicated by its common name the Alabama/Mississippi subspecies the Black Pine, P. m. lodingi, is the darkest.

Mole and Pine snakes also differ in reproductive modes. The mole snake bears large litters (usually between 20 and 90) of live young. The Pines produce small clutches (often only 3 to 8) of large eggs.

Both species are tough and they know it. And they’re not at all reluctant to pass that knowledge on. If unduly disturbed both hiss loudly, assume a striking “S,” and lunge at the intruder. But both do tame and some make excellent pets.

Banded Geckos look a lot more delicate than they actually are. This is a San Diego Banded Gecko.

Counting species and subspecies there are 7 forms of banded geckos, genus Coleonyx, in the American West. Two of these, the Barefoot, C. switaki, and the Reticulated C. reticulatus, are larger than the remaining 5 and have very limited ranges. One, the Texas, C. brevis, is the easternmost and is smaller than any of the others. It is the remaining 4, all subspecies of the wide ranging Western Banded Gecko, C. variegatus, that we shall mention here. All have elliptical pupils and are nocturnal. The body is slender and between 2 and 3 inches long. The original tail (the tail is easily autotomized and often in some stage of regeneration) is about the same length as the snout-to-vent. Original tails are prominently banded.

The 4 subspecies of the Western Banded Gecko that occur in the USA are the San Diego, C. v. abbotti, the Tucson, C. v. bogerti, the Utah, C.v. utahensis, and the Desert, C. v. variegatus. Appearance differences are slight and it is best if you are interested in a particular form that you check a field guide for ranges.

Generally speaking though, the San Diego subspecies occurs on the Pacific slopes of southern CA. The Tucson form may be encountered in seAZ and swNM, the Utah race is restricted to swUT and immediately adjacent NV and AZ, and the Desert, by far the most wide-ranging of the 4, is found over much of AZ, NV and eastern CA.

Although these little geckos may be found beneath surface debris such as wood, cardboard, and rock by day, I’ve always found it a lot more fun to road hunt them at night. They are active, their light color contrasts well with dark pavement, and they cross roads in a series of darting rushes, often with their tail curled up over their back, this initially giving them the appearance of a large scorpion. Keep this similarity in mind as you jam your car into park, slam open the door, and rush out to slap a cupped hand of the little creature on the road. It’s not pleasant to be painfully surprised!

Juvenile Speckled Forest Pit Vipers are much grayer than the adults.

This pretty, rather large but slender lancehead of the primary Amazonian Rainforests is seldom seen and therefore poorly understood. The gray to olive green ground color (gray when juvenile, olive when adult) renders this snake all but invisible as it lies quietly coiled amidst the fallen leaves or, seemingly as often, on the mossy or lichenate trunks of fallen trees or forest lianas. Normal adult size is between 3 and 4 feet in length but may occasionally exceed 5 feet. Litter size varies from 2 to more than a dozen in number. Neonates reportedly vary from about 7 inches to 10 inches in length. The grayish color of the neonates provides no less camouflage than the green shades of the adults. At all stages of growth there are prominent darker bands are flecked heavily with the ground color and often terminate ventrolaterally with a light blotch. The iris of the eye is liberally flecked with black.

In bygone years this snake was referred to as Castelnaud’s Viper, Bothrops castelnaudi, and that name is still occasionally used today.

In more than 20 years of periodic Amazonian exploration I have seen only a single example of this species in the wild. But after seeing the remarkable camouflage of that one, I have never ceased to wonder how many unseen examples I’ve brushed by?

The finding of this blue phase speckled rattlesnake by friends had us doing a quick reversal in direction.
Our drive eastward started with a totally unintended delay. Jake and I had walked a wash known for its population of blue phase Speckled Rattlesnakes, Crotalus pyrrhus. Even Jake, who had walked much farther than I had found none. But as I had walked, a snakehook wielding pair of herpers, Mike and Nick, had passed me. We chatted a while and they went on their way. Meanwhile I returned to the car and Jake soon followed. I mentioned the other herpers and he said that they must have gone elsewhere for he hadn’t seen them. My comment was that I was pretty sure they were still in the wash.

Anyway, it was time to head eastward and Phoenix was soon far behind us. Too far behind us as it turned out, because Jake’s phone beeped and Nick (who was still in the disputed wash) said c’mon up. “We’ve got a beautiful blue speck here.” What to do now? We explained where we were and how long it would take us to get back to the spot. They kindly agreed to hold the snake so we returned over the 50 miles we had driven. From there, Jake laden with both his camera and mine, ran up the wash, photographed the snake with both cameras (I can no longer run) and after profusely thanking the duo and watching the snake crawl slowly back into its crevice, Jake ran back to the car.

We started eastward again. This time we actually made it out of AZ, through LA, and well into MS before deciding to find a herping road for that night. A likely road was found, a nearby motel had room for us so we were all set.

At dusk we realized that although there were herps on the chosen road there was also a goodly number of fast moving vehicles. But we persevered and by midnight we had added 2 species of water snakes, one of which was a beautiful big female Diamond-backed water, Nerodia rhombifer, a Texas rat snake, a Gulf Coast toad, and a Marsh brown snake to the trip total.

Time for the motel, then homeward. Florida beckoned.

Despite being an aridlland species, Scincopus is not at all like a sandfish.
I’ll start this article with a question: Is Peter’s Banded Skink, Scincopus fasciatus, going to be a species that disappears quickly from the American herp hobby?

The reason for this question is that many species, once rarely seen and coveted, then so readily available that they were accessible to anyone who wanted one and had a few dollars to spend, have again become rare, if not in nature, at least in the trade. Some are now virtually unobtainable. I’ll just mention a few here to jog your memories: Colombian horned frogs, spiny hill turtles, Asian keeled box turtles, pipe snakes, almost any European herp, and Mexican dwarf pythons, are among the many. These were imported (sometimes in the hundreds, even thousands), were deemed to inexpensive to bother setting up in long-standing captive populations, and then they slipped quietly from sight. Could Scincopus soon be added to the “here then gone” list? It’s possible.

What is Scincopus? As mentioned above it is a skink from North Africa. It is pleasingly colored, being yellowish with 7 or 8 broad black bars that cross the back and stop about midway down the sides and a black tailtip. It is adult at about 8-10 inches in length, tail included. It is a heavy bodied burrower that has often been referred to as a giant sandfish—but a sandfish it is not. The toes of Scincopus are only weakly flanged, as opposed to the excessive flanges of the sandfish. Also, Scincopus is of far greater bulk than the more streamlined sandfish. Rather than swimming through the arid desert sands this skink seems to be a burrowing resident of sandy grasslands and croplands. They are fairly quiet and are easily handled.

I received my first examples of this pretty burrowing skink way back in the 1980s. They proved to be 2 males, and try though I did, I could not find a female available anywhere in the world. They fed on all manner of insects, would take an occasional pinky mouse and would accept some of the veggie mixture I prepared for the blue-tongued skinks. I had these for many years. As far as I know, when these died there no others in the USA.

I believe they were then unknown in the herp hobby until 2014 or 2015. But when the export doors opened they opened wide, and hundreds of the Scincopus flooded the pet trade. Herp importers were selling them first in the $200 to $300 dollar range, but then as the influx continued the price dropped to $70 to $100 dollars each. I have never attempted breeding this species. I did find 1 record of successful breeding on line. Ovoviviparity is the reported mode of reproduction. Perhaps you will be the one to second this.

But today as I scan importers listings the majority of the mentions read “out of stock.” So now I wonder will more be imported or has the skink become unavailable? I wonder further if anyone has actually set up breeding colonies of this skink? Or is it already a member of the “here then gone” list? Time will tell.

Finally! Jake immortalizing the collared lizard
Throughout this trip we had hip-hopped into and out of Arizona and we were now aiming for it again.

One of the lizard species that Jake wanted badly to see was the Great Basin Collared Lizard, Crotaphytus bicinctores. On earlier trips I had found these rock lovers common but on this trip they had proven nonexistent. We drove to many out-of-the-way locales and failed to see this pretty lizard, even where other observers had reported them only a few days earlier. Jake’s estimate is that we scanned 10,000 rocks to no avail. My estimate of the rocks scanned is about twice greater than Jake’s.

But finally, almost at the edge of the species’ range, Jake hollered” “STOP! I think I just saw one. Back up.” I followed his instructions and sure enough, sitting on the largest rock in an extensive pile was one lone Great Basin Collared Lizard. Another lifer for Jake. Fortunately the lizard seemed unconcerned by our presence and allowed us to take dozens of pix at close range.

The Grand Canyon was still closed due to the Covid-19 scare, so we traveled far into the Navajo Nation to try our luck, again for the Great Basin Collared Lizard as well as in hopes of other species. Even though another cold front had arrived we were fortunate enough to see a Great Basin Gopher Snake, another Lyre Snake, and a very pretty Night snake.

We were down to just one last night in the Sonoran Desert. Despite the seasonal chill we elected to try our luck for burrowing snakes in southeastern Arizona.