We sure don't live in the country, but there is enough undeveloped land around us to support a few Florida box turtles, Terrapene carolina bauri.



This pretty subspecies of the eastern box turtle is variably but quite consistently marked with yellow striping against a black carapacial ground color. Most seen here are adults and although it is always a pleasure to see them, I occasionally wonder where these turtles nest and how can the babies remain so successfully hidden?

A couple of years ago, I got lucky. A gravid female Florida box turtle wandered up to the edge of a restraining board in our yard, dug her nest, and laid 4 eggs. I was able to watch the whole nesting and incubation sequence, and I happened to be nearby when three of the four eggs hatched (one appeared infertile). I decided to keep all and give them a "head start" before loosing them into the wilds.

As with other subspecies of the eastern box turtle, the carapacial color of the quarter-sized hatchlings was fragmented and the carapace itself was far less domed that of the adult. The hatchlings ate ravenously and at the end of the year I allotted for head start, they were more than one and half inches in length, carapacial doming was noted, and the carapacial markings were forming into the radiating stripes so typical of this turtle.

Although they have no identifying marks, I'll forever hope that at least some of the box turtles that I meet near my house are these babies, now grown.

More photos below...

"Wow! Look at that old place."

"I'll be darned. That's a pump house, Jake. It's been a while since I last saw one of these."

I pulled the car onto the shoulder and we piled out to take a better look. Fond memories came flooding back. Pump houses, you see, were the rat snake meccas of a formative and much enjoyed yesteryear.



Occasional cars and trucks traveled Route US27 south from Clewiston, Florida to Miami. Then a two lane thoroughfare, US27 was lined for miles along the east shoulder and to a somewhat lesser extent along the west shoulder with Australian pines, willows and some Brazilian pepper.

Sod fields and sugar cane were just coming into their own and these crops were irrigated by immense gasoline pumps that were protected from the elements by roofing tin and 2x4 or cinderblock structures termed pump houses. And to these structures, seeking shelter, came the rat patrols of the crops, the Everglades rat snakes, the corn snakes, the peninsula and scarlet kingsnakes and the occasional barn owls. And, of course, to the pump houses and snakes came the seekers of snakes, both hobbyist and commercial. This seemingly normal progression of events continued for years, but eventually all things changed - modernized, if you will.

Route US27 is a now huge four to six lane road with traffic streaming steadily in both directions. In the widening (and return to native species) process, 95% of the Australian pines have been removed. Sod and cane fields have expanded exponentially, redesigning much of the south-central Florida land corridor.

Irrigation techniques have modernized and pump houses - the snake meccas - are no longer needed. Those that stood and acted as snake refuges for decades have, often with the help of careless snake hunters, toppled or disintegrated. They have become things of the past, merely memories to the elder snake seekers and totally unknown entities to the newer herpers.

It was little wonder that I was surprised to find this pump house still standing and in relatively good shape. Neither it nor the several others we found that afternoon contained snakes, but being as modernized as the surroundings they contained herpetological newcomers: Cuban treefrogs and African agamas. We were, however, saddened to find a fresh DOR corn snake on the road in front of one.

In those "old days" when traffic was light and when you could look westward from Route US27 and see waving sawgrass rather than waving sugarcane, when there were more snakes and far more snake habitat both natural and artificial, the many pump houses reigned supreme.

More photos below...

Patti and I stood in front of the beautifully planted terrarium at the National Aquarium in Baltimore talking with Jack Cover. Jack, the General Curator, seemed justifiably proud of the success being had with the beautiful taxon we were watching: the Panamanian Golden Frog, Atelopus zeteki.



We watched as the frogs, yellow or yellow with black spots, moved slowly about their terrarium. Although they sometimes moved in short hops, more often they progressed in a deliberate hand-over-hand manner. Hand waving, a form of silent communication, was frequently used by the frogs.

Learning that this frog was almost extirpated in the wild (since 2007, no wild examples have been found) lent sadness to the beauty and enjoyment we were experiencing at the aquarium.

I first met the Panamanian golden frog, Atelopus zeteki, back in the 1960s when it was still a subspecies of A. varius and known as A. varius zeteki. At that time it was inexpensively, but only occasionally, available in the North American pet trade.

Through the years, the golden frog withstood not only the ravages of over-collecting, but of deforestation that resulted in habitat losses and increasing pollution of the streams along which it lived. But this frog, like many others, was not able to withstand the onslaught of chytridiomycosis, the now famous amphibian fungus disease that rose from virtual obscurity to formidable prominence in the 1990s. As researchers are wont to say, the disease (specifically Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) knew no boundaries, affecting and killing frog populations both in and out of protected areas.

But back to the aquarium now: We were encouraged to further learn that there are more than 4 dozen participating facilities in the recovery program for this endangered anuran. Still lacking, however, is a program to reintroduce this taxon safely to the wild; to the wild where the pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, is still lurking.



More photos below...

Ranging in Atlantic versant tropical forests from Mexico southward to Panama, the spiny-headed tree frog, Anotheca spinosa, is a beautiful and unique hylid species.



It is the only species in the genus Anotheca. Although it may occasionally call from arboreal bromeliads, it is more often found and heard in treehole situations. It is easier to find by following the hollow-booping nocturnal calls to their source than by sight.

Interestingly, the eggs are deposited above the water level and take nearly a week to develop and hatch. The light colored larvae darken within a few days after hatching into typically dark tadpoles. The tadpoles feed on various aquatic organisms including unfertilized eggs produced at several day intervals when the female returns to the breeding site.

Laying of these food-eggs seems induced by nudging the female by the tadpoles. As an aside, this tree frog has now been bred in captivity, and it is from these captive breedings that we have learned much of the reproductive biology.

Anotheca is a relatively large hylid with adults varying between 2 1/2 and 3 1/4 inches. The pattern of variably sized dark spots and blotches against a grayish ground color produces a pleasing but easily overlooked camouflaged tree frog.

Metamorphs and juveniles lack the head spines from which both common and specific names are derived, but on adults the coronet of conical spines is very apparent.

More photos below...

Kenny had a break in his scholastic pursuits and wanted to see a mink frog, Rana (Lithobates) septentrionalis.



I had a bit of time to spare, and the birding side of me wanted to see trumpeter swans and common loons and the herping side wanted more and better photos of the odoriferous little mink frog. Mink frogs are a green frog lookalike of the boreal climes that are named for their smell. The back and sides of this frog may bear large spots, small spots, or be reticulated.

We hopped in the car and started northward. Fifteen hundred miles later, we were at Seney National Wildlife Refuge in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. A quick palaver with the refuge biologist and we were on our way to the first of four ponds that this little frog called home.

We slowed for a bend in the road and a half dozen trumpeter swans swam rapidly away from the shoreline. Tick. We stopped at pond one. Green frogs were abundant, but no mink frogs were in sight. We continued to pond two. Same scenario. Lots of greens, no minks. As we continued to pond three, we drove by an immense lake and, as if waiting for us, a pair of common loons floated on the near side of a bed of emergent vegetation. Tick.

Pond three, heavily vegetated, held a few green frogs. There, floating, one front foot on a lily-pad, about 3 feet from shore was a single mink frog. The trip had been a success. Now we had only the 1,500 miles back to Florida and we could take a breather.

More photos below ...

When I think of the tiger salamander-like axolotl (pronounced ax-oh-lot-ul), Ambystoma mexicanum, my mind drifts back to the 1960s and rather than the genetic oddities of today, it is images of albinos, leucistics, and normals that I first picture. In those days there were few breeders of this salamander, with the primary source being the research colony at Indiana University.



The species is now apparently known primarily (if not exclusively) from the Chalco wetlands region south of Mexico City where the wild examples are now at least marginally protected.

The axolotl is a neotenic (paedomorphic/perennibranchiate) salamander. Simply stated, it is a salamander that rarely metamorphoses, and is capable of attaining sexual maturity while in its larval state. As a larva, the axolotl retains its 3 pairs of bushy gills, has non-protuberant, lidless eyes, and has a noticeable vertebral fin and pronounced caudal fins.

Dermal glands of this aquatic salamander also differ from those of the rare terrestrial adults. Adult size is normally between 8 and 11 inches, but 12 inch long examples have been seen. Appendages such as feet, legs, and tail parts, can be regenerated if lost or damaged.

Hatchling and juvenile axolotls can be (and often are) cannibalistic and are best kept singly, but subadults and adults are relatively peaceful. A 2-gallon aquarium is large enough for an adult and as long as the water is kept clean (changed every day or two), filtration is neither needed nor preferred. Chloramines and chlorine should be removed from the axolotl's water.

Today, axolotls of many colors (several albino forms including the very beautiful gold albino, normal, melanic, piebald, and leucistic, GFP varieties that glow under black lights, and other genetic colors) are readily and inexpensively available. This morning I noticed axolotls of most colors and sizes being advertised on Kingsnake.com. No longer are hobbyists restricted to a single source.

For more information, I suggest that you peruse Susan T. Duhon's paper, Short Guide to Axolotl Husbandry. This helpful and easily understood paper may currently be found online here.

More photos below...

Back and forth, back and forth, and then back and forth again. Jake and I were on a stretch of road that was new to us; a stretch of road that was known for the many hatchling Burmese pythons, Python (molurus) bivitattus, that had been found on and along it.



The day had been hot and very humid. We arrived at our destination early to spend a pre-dusk hour birding. With some bird species already queuing for their winter migration southward, that pursuit was successful. With sunset fading on the western horizon and dusk well upon us, a crossing Florida banded water snake signaled that it was time to turn our attention to herping. So we did.

During the following several hours, we saw dozens of green, banded, and brown water snakes, striped crayfish snakes, and corn snakes, while hoping all the while for a crossing hatchling python.

Garter and ribbon snakes became active and water snakes became super-active. By 10:00PM, we had seen no pythons and we began thinking about the air-conditioned comfort of the motel, but were loathe to give up. 11:00PM came and went.

Serpentine activity had waned and we were now counting pack rats, cotton rats, opossums, and raccoons. Although all of these small mammals have supposedly been decimated by the pythons, there were many visible on this night.

We were on what we had decided would be our last pass of the night, when Jake hollered "PYTHON!" We never did see any of the hatchlings we so eagerly sought, but the finding of this ten foot long, slightly skinny male, brought a satisfying closure to our many hours of road-cruising.

More photos below...

Among the world's most beautiful snake species, the slender, tri-colored, ringed, Eastern coral snake, Micrurus fulvius (no subspecies today) is usually an easily recognized serpent.



Throughout most of its mainland range (coastal North Carolina to extreme eastern Louisiana, unless an aberrant example like melanistic or albinistic), the coral snake is of rather standardized appearance. The oft times heard ditty of "red to yellow kill a fellow, and red to black venom lack" aptly describes the snake.

The identification based on color can be a little tricky on the southernmost tip of the Florida peninsula and Key Largo. It was in those areas that the snake was and is of different enough color to have been once (but no longer) designated a subspecies that was called Micrurus fulvius barbouri.

The difference is that in southern Florida, the red rings are often noticeably widened and, except for the first well-defined yellow ring, the yellow rings are less prominent than on typical examples of the Eastern coral snake. In some cases, rather than being precisely delineated, the broad red bands may shade gradually to yellowish-red, a characteristic that can be confusing if unexpected.

Please compare the pictures included with this blog and rely less on the pattern and expected color to identify this dangerously venomous micrurine snake. As an aside, the red to yellow rhyme can lead you far astray in Latin America where very few coral snake species have the two caution colors (red and yellow) touching.

More photos below...

Kenny wanted to see an Eastern fox snake, Pantherophis vulpina gloydi, because it would be a lifer for him and I wanted to see it just because I wanted to see it.



I had seen this species before, but I never tire of seeing herps in the wild, so we were somewhere along the southern shore of Lake Erie in northern Ohio. We walked through a beautiful park where the Eastern fox snake was said to be common. We failed to find one there. We were now walking a breakwater that had jumbles of boulders for its entire length and a fairly dense tree canopy for most of its length.

We walked for more than a mile without seeing as much as a garter snake and then, having decided to try our luck elsewhere, turned to return to the car. The morning lake fog that kept temperatures a bit cool was now burning off and the boulder jumbles not shaded by the trees were beginning to warm - but still no fox snakes.

Ahead of us the area opened up to a boulder-rimmed parking lot, the near side of which had a couple of huge spreading oaks. I decided to go and look at the acorns, and as I neared the tree I almost stepped on an adult fox snake that had just emerged from between two boulders.

I called to Kenny but he was now determined to find his own and declined to come look at mine, which, it turned out was a smart decision. Just as he made another step he hollered, "Here's one," and a couple of moments later, "here's another."

First target of the day found. Westward Ho!

More photos below...

"Gordy! Will you look at this! This turtle has a red belly!"



The place was somewhere south of Ringwood, New Jersey. The time was back in the 1950s. The occasion was me seeing my first red-bellied turtle of any species. My companion was my friend and mentor, E. Gordon (Gordy) Johnston (now deceased).

I was 14 or 15 years old on my first herping jaunt away from home. It was memorable because we had already seen more Eastern box turtles than I had ever guessed existed, we saw an Eastern king snake, and visited Asa Pittman and seen his collection of Northern pine snakes and "Coastal Plains" milk snakes. Now I had just hand-caught what I thought to be a hatchling painted turtle only to find it was a Northern red-bellied turtle, Pseudemys rubriventris.

And to top it off, that night we camped in a little deserted Pine Barrens cabin and were serenaded all night long by whip-poor-wills and screech owls. What an occasion for a herp loving kid!

Since then, I have seen many Northern red-bellied turtles, and although I marveled at each and every one of them, none have stuck in memory like that first one. I can still see myself darting from the damp shoreline into the shallows to grab that little "painted turtle" I had just startled only to find it was something so very different that I hadn't then known it even existed.

That's herping at its very, very, best.

More photos below...

When I was a kid in Springfield, Massachucets, smooth green snakes, Opheodrys vernalis, were among my most cherished serpentine finds. I never considered them common.



In fact, they were otherwise. But with sufficient dedication I could usually find one or two hiding beneath a piece of damp newspaper or a flat stone in some urban vacant lot. Even after I had outgrown the "kid stage" by two or three decades, smooth green snakes were still findable in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and as far west as the Dakotas and New Mexico.

Fast forward to today. Although these pretty little insectivores can still be found here and there over their huge range, if information is correct, some populations have been extirpated. In other locations, where the snake was once common, they have seemingly become rare.

A friend considers them abundant in Wisconsin, but in several areas of Michigan, Maine, and Massachusetts where they were once seen annually, none have been seen for years. This is also true in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas, and other portions of their always disjunct range.

I guess that what I am asking is this: are smooth green snakes significantly more rare, or are we, as aging and aged adults whose sight may not be as acute as it once was, merely overlooking these grass blade lookalikes?

More photos below...

Xenodon (Waglerophis) merremi, the giant false viper, is a variably colored and patterned dipsadine snake that has several well-developed defensive mechanisms including body inflation or hood spreading, hissing, and striking.



In these actions, this three and one-half foot long snake is much like North American hog-nosed snakes. Unlike the hog-noses, which are reluctant to bite, the false viper displays no such hesitancy. It is an opisthoglyphid species with enlarged teeth at the rear of the upper jaw and a venom that quickly immobilizes its anuran prey, and which can be painful to humans should they be bitten.

This is an oviparous species and clutches between fifteen and thirty-nine eggs have been recorded. Hatchlings, juveniles, and subadults usually bear light edged hourglass shaped bands that are darker than the ground color. Once adult, the pattern fades and many of the older adults are basically an overall dark olive-gray with a light fleck on each scale.

More photos below...

Of the 5 subspecies of copperheads, Agkistrodon contortrix, I had seen four in the field. I still lacked the Osage form, A. c. phaeogaster.



It seemed that the Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, and Oklahoma home range of this, the northwesternmost of the five subspecies, was just a bit out of my normal scope of roaming. When Kenny and I found ourselves herping Kansas a couple of years ago, the Osage copperhead became an eagerly sought snake.

Friends told us to do this or do that and we would be unable to miss seeing the pretty snake, but we had been told this for other taxa and some of these "sure things" not only initially failed but we were, years later, still looking. We had a nice relaxing trip to central Kansas, found a lot of snakes, and were now driving a long route back to Florida via eastern Kansas and central Texas.

We had plenty of time to stop and search for copperheads. We straggled into northeastern Kansas and barely turned southward when we noticed a rocky wooded spot such as we had been told to watch for. We stopped, hopped out, turned a half dozen rocks, found two burrowing crayfish, some plains ring-necked snakes, and ---what do you know-- our target, a beautiful two-foot-long Osage copperhead.

Although we looked for and found more on the way south, the finding of that first one was for both Kenny and me the most exciting. It rounded out an already great trip.

More photos below...

We were a couple of nights into our Peruvian Amazon tour and the group, 10 field-herpers including me, had decided that this would be a good night to try to see a caiman or two.



We all piled excitedly into the Amazon equivalent of a John-boat and were, with our Peruvian guide, motoring slowly into a quiet oxbow that was outlined with overhanging shrubs and had great patches of emergent vegetation protruding from the shallows. Flashlight beams probed the darkness, each hoping that it would be their beam that found the reflective eyes of the caiman and each wondering whether it would be a "caiman blanco" (the local name for the spectacled caiman, Caiman crocodilus) or the more uncommon "caiman negro" (the black caiman, Melanosuchus niger) that would be the first to be found.

We didn't have to wait long to find out. The boat edged carefully around a fallen tree and ahead was eyeshine. The lights of all but the guide in the prow were turned out (this prevented the guide from being silhouetted and easily seen by the caiman).

Slowly, slowly, the boat edged forward and the prowman whispered "blanco." We were approaching a spectacled caiman. A quick grab by the prowman and the 24 inch long caiman, a lifer for many of the tour participant, was passed back for us all to see.

But there was an extra added attraction here because it quickly became apparent that the surprised (but unharmed) caiman had a half-swallowed something in its mouth. And after a couple of convulsive hiccups by the caiman the something disgorged proved to be a 15 inch long snake--a beautiful snake bearing narrow rings of black, red, and white. A coral snake? No. A coral mud snake, Hydrops martii, a second and very unexpected lifer found in a most unorthodox manner!

More photos below ...

About 10 of us had bunked down in the dormitory on Santa Cruz Forest Reserve on the banks of the Rio Mazan, about an hour and a half north of Iquitos, Peru. We had arrived earlier in the day after traveling southward from Madre Selva Biological Preserve on the more northerly Rio Orosa where we spent the last 5 days.

After several herp-filled hours in the field at Santa Cruz, most of us were were more than ready to call it a night. But it seemed that some of the herps weren't.



It began raining an hour earlier making use of digital cameras in the field difficult. Since we do allow some field collecting to assure that all tour participants have an opportunity to photo all herps found, there was a bag or two that contained snakes in the dorm. All would be photographed and released the following day.

Suddenly, from one end of the pitch black dorm came the query "Did one of you lose a snake?" Flashlights came on. Bags were checked. The answers from beneath 3 mosquito nets were "no," "no," and "no." All bags were secure.

"Well, I think there's a snake next to my bunk."

Instantaneously awake, we all clambered down to the far end of the dorm and, sure enough, stretched over the loose end of Jerry's mosquito netting was a beautiful 4 foot long Brazilian rainbow boa, Epicrates c. cenchria (these were once thought to be the Peruvian subspecies, E. c. gaigeae, but have now been synonymized with their better known Brazilian counterpart). We had seen several during that evening's walk and since everyone had taken photos, our visitor was taken outside and released.

You just can't help but love the Amazon.

More photos below ...

Have you ever heard that old saying, "A frog is a frog is a frog"?

What? You haven't? Well, fret not! I don't think that I've ever heard it either. In fact, I'm neither sure that anybody has heard it, nor that it was ever said. But it is a truism. Just look at any ranid frog up here in the USA and then compare Rana palmipes, the Neotropical green frog of Amazonia, and the similarities are immediately apparent.



Lately, rather than a question of appearance, my question has become one of abundance of the latter species. One time, and one time only (20 years ago), in one locale on the Rio Nanay, I found dozens of this pretty taxon. But since then I have neither seen nor heard of this species being found in Amazonian Peru. As folks are now wont to say, what's up with that? This has just become a January 2015 target taxon!

More photos below...

At first I thought it was just me, but when a half dozen of us each had the same problem with an array of different cameras, I'm now thinking the problem was digital. That's D-I-G-I-T-A-L.

We were all looking at the same Western two-lined forest pit viper, Bothriopsis bilineata smaragdina, and none of us was happy with the color rendition. This was a problem none of us had experienced with film. You'd point the camera, focus, snap the photo (or 10), and leave feeling confident that the camera and film had seen pretty nearly the same thing you had.

But now there was this. True, the snake, an adult, was lighter in color than most I had seen. But is wasn't yellow. In fact, it was a long way away from yellow. No matter how we tried, from all auto to all manual and every stop in between, our cameras were seeing yellow.



We changed apertures, speeds, every setting available. The snake was cooperating fully. After we all fiddled around, foamed and fumed for half an hour we gave up. We improved the scene from "almost" to "darn close," and it was time to take the pictures and move on. The snake was green when viewed from a distance. But the closer we got the yellower it became.

This gave us all plenty to discuss at dinner that evening. By the way, the pic of the neonates herewith was with film. The adult was not as intense in color as the juveniles, but it was brighter green than the pictures now detail.

More photos below...

How far would you drive to see and photograph a frog?

Well, a toad actually. Or to be absolutely accurate, a spadefoot, a little burrowing anuran of the family Pelobatidae. How far? Not too far, you say. But that statement really means nothing. It needs to be quantified. Would you go 100 miles? Maybe. 200 miles? Well, for a good reason, maybe. But the reason would have to be good. 500 miles? Nope. Never.

I needed a photo of a Great Basin spadefoot, Spea intermontana, and I had already failed on two attempts, each of which entailed a drive from Florida to southern California and back. On the second attempt I had met up with Gary Nafis, Pacific Coast herper par excellence. Together we had failed, and I was looking at another 2,500 mile drive back home with a big X rather than a photo next to the Great Basin spadefoot listing.

So when Gary said he knew an absolutely 100 percent assured locale in northern Washington, I said "What the heck. Let's go!" It was only another 1,200 miles and maybe, just maybe, the X of failure would be replaced by a photo of success. Five minutes later we were heading northward. Total insanity! But just maybe.

And you know, perseverance paid. At about 11 PM the next night we rolled into a region of rolling sands. And by midnight on a dry, breezy night on which I would not have really expected any anuran to be active, Gary had directed me to a shallow cemented irrigation/runoff canal and we were listening to the 2-pitched quacks of the coveted Great Basin spadefoot. Success!

It was wonderful. Now I only had a drive of about 3,200 miles diagonally across the USA to reach home. Altogether the search had carried me about 10,000 miles! But that hated X was gone. Thanks, Gary. (And yes, Patti is still shaking her head about this search, LOL!)

The first time I ever saw a scarlet kingsnake, Lampropeltis (triangulum) elapsoides, I was in northern Georgia herping with Gordy Johnston.

On our way to Florida, we had stopped at a small patch of recently burned pine woodlands as much as for a break in the driving as for actually herping. We checked the environs of a small soot-edged pond, seeing only a southern leopard frog or two. Along the way we rolled a log now and again, finding first a slimy salamander and then absolutely nothing under the next several.

We gave up on the log rolling until we were almost back to the car and we were actually stepping over the outermost log before deciding to roll it. That proved a fortuitous decision, because after straining and tugging when the log yielded, coiled tightly on the ground, was the most beautiful little snake either of us had ever seen.

Red, black, yellow,black, red black...the pattern was repeated over and over. And the vivid colors actually ringed the 15-inch long snake. That was our introduction to the scarlet kingsnake, and the memory of that introduction remains with me until this day.

More photos below...

It had rained hard for much of the afternoon and the rainforest trails were muddy and very slippery. Trail-crossing creeks were running high, and some slopes, normally steep but safe, had become a true challenge. In other words, the rainforest weather we were experiencing was being very typical rainforest weather: rain, clear, rain, clear, rain...

I had about a half-dozen herpers with me and a few others were with Lorrie, who was either ahead of us or who had started her hike on the opposite end of the same loop trail. The boops, barks, and whistles of various treefrog species serenaded us as we walked slowly along, stopping to look at an insect here or a frog there.

By the time we had reached the intersection (right kept us on the short trail, left was the long trail where if we missed the next turn we could walk until the day after tomorrow) it had begun raining again. In front of us was a huge stand of bananas and a few of our hikers wanted to divert the rain by holding a big banana leaf over their head.

So into the bananas we went, and it was a good thing we did. Just past the first row, at a height of about 8 feet, was a beautiful, slender, red snake -- a red vine snake, Siphlophis compressus.



Rain or not, our night had then been made.

More photos under the jump...

Teeny-weeny? That barely describes the tiny patch-nosed salamander, Urspelerpes brucei, which is now known to exist not only in Stephens County, GA, but in adjacent SC as well.

Only an inch and a half in overall length, males of this little salamander are prominently striped while the females are a unicolored greenish-gold dorsally and laterally. Both larvae and adults have a variably prominent light patch on the snout, and it is from this marking that the common name is derived.



Urspelerpes is a monotypic genus and although some initial commenting wondered whether this classification of a salamander that was in superficial appearance quite similar to many of the brook salamanders of the genus Eurycea would stand the test of time, it has.

It was thanks to John Jensen and Carlos Camp that I had an opportunity to photograph this little plethodontid. And although I have procrastinated for the several years that have elapsed since it was described, I still intend to travel to and photograph its montane stream home. That jaunt is planned as one of this month's (July 2014) field excursions.

Goals. There always needs to be a goal.

More photos under the jump...

"Dick, could you take a look at this?"

Patti was standing in the utility room, just on our side of the doggie door. At her feet were some of the dog-pack, but none seemed particularly interested in anything there. But when I walked in to the room I was confronted by a sizable greenish-brown (or maybe it was brownish-green) blob on the floor. There, sitting quietly, seemingly staring at the wall, was a subadult bullfrog, Rana (Lithobates) catesbeiana.



Now, bullfrogs are not uncommon in this region. In fact, they are abundant. But a few facts were unusual:

1. Bullfrogs are highly aquatic and the closest pond was more than a quarter mile away.

2. In the 20 years we've lived here I've never heard a bullfrog singing there.

3. The closest I have heard vocalizing bullfrogs was about three quarters of a mile distant (on the far side of a busy four-lane highway).

4. Once in the yard, it elected to come up the back steps and bounce through a heavy doggie door.

Well, it couldn't live in the utility room, so I gathered it up and moved it to the nearest bullfrog pond, where hopefully (if it can avoid the gators, herons, and cottonmouths) it can live out its long life.

More photos under the jump...

The Bulgarian rat snake, Elaphe (quatuorlineata) sauromates, is also known as the Eastern European rat snake and the European blotched snake.



Once considered the easternmore of the two subspecies of E. quatuorlineata, it is now most often considered a full species designated by the binomial of E. sauromates. Although lengths of more than 8 feet have been verified, most examples range between 4 and 6 feet in length.

Unlike the westernmore E. quatuorlineata that undergoes extensive ontogenetic (age related) color and pattern changes, the Bulgarian rat snake retains its juvenile blotched pattern throughout its life.

So slow, the dawning; so very slow...

As I sat at the computer this morning looking at this pic and that, for some reason I paused at the photos of the tiny (males barely more than 1/2", female to about 3/4") orange-bellied leaf toad, Dendrophryniscus minutus.



"Hmmmm (almost all of my deep thoughts start with 'hmmmmm')," I thought, "When was the last time I saw one of these?"

When I first began traveling to the Iquitos region of Peru, these minuscule bufonids were common. I saw them almost daily on low shrubs at Amazon Camp, at Madre Selva, at Paucarillo, and on dozens of trails in many other villages.

But now, in truth, I think it has been 8 to 10 years since I last saw one. Have I become that much less observant (I don't think so)? Or could these little anurans actually be disappearing, in this case before my very eyes, just as the related Atelopus are before the eyes of others?

More photos under the jump...

With each passing year, as the various exporting countries close or open their seasons and/or shipping quotas, the herps we see in the pet trade change.

Availability of some changes from abundance to rarity, of others from rarity to abundance. As an example the Colombian horned frog, Ceratophrys calcarata, once available in the thousands each breeding season, has not been available for decades.



Those among us who are keepers (yes, I am one) owe each and every animal, be their cost mere pennies or thousands of dollars, the best of conditions and care. Research each species before acquisition, and then acquire only those that you can care for adequately and with relative ease.

More photos of species rarely seen today under the jump...

I had followed an old "woods road" through a hemlock forest to a beautiful pond of about an acre in size. As I had plodded slowly through the shady woodlands that were still enshrouded and dampened by the morning's fog, I took pleasure in seeing that the forest floor was literally acrawl with red efts.



These, the terrestrial stage of the red-spotted newt, Notophthalmus v. viridescens, were the most obvious and seemingly the most common amphibian species along my trek. But by the time I had reached the pond-bank the fog had dissipated and the sun was shining brightly.

Pickerel frogs, Rana (Lithobates) palustris, leapt to the safety of the shallows as I walked slowly along the sunny banks.



Here and there a stirring in the water would draw my attention to an aquatic adult newt or a diving beetle.

But unbeknownst to me at that moment there was a grand finale just a few steps ahead. There in a narrow and shallow inlet, partially shaded by a fallen tree, I encountered a breeding congregation of red-spotted newts.



Numbering in the low hundreds, dozens of pairs were in amplexus while others were still in the courtship stage, The population in this one small inlet would certainly account for the vast population of efts I had seen earlier. It is always good to see Mother Nature hard at work.

The search had not begun as a jaunt to find the Florida scrub lizard, Sceloporus woodi. That wasn't even close to the reason. Rather it had been my hope of finding a little spotted skunk that had brought Jake and me to Okeechobee County.



But spotted skunks (which we failed to find, by the way) are primarily crepuscular and nocturnal, and that left us with many hours of daylight to delve into other pursuits. So, having no real plans. we accessed an eastbound road and our next stop was in some scrub habitat in Martin County.

At that point we both recalled that we would like to update our photos of the scrub lizard, so Sceloporus woodi became our new secondary target.

Restricted to sandy areas from the latitude of Marion County southward, the little scrub lizard is a localized Florida endemic. A smaller adult size (to 6 1/4"), smaller scales, a well defined brown lateral line, and less black pigment on the belly differentiate the scrub lizard from the sympatric fence lizard, Sceloporus undulatus.

And unlike the skunk (that, despite several additional nights of trying we still haven't found), the habitat and locale in which we were then standing proved ideal for the scrub lizards. They were found and photographed, allowing us to consider the trip at least a partial success. And at the price of petrol nowadays, successes on road trips, be they accidental or intended, are evermore appreciated.

More photos under the jump...

In the late 1900s, say around 1980 or so, it was finally realized that the range of the mole kingsnake, Lampropeltis calligaster rhombomaculata, as then shown in field guides was woefully inaccurate.

Rather than stopping just south of the Georgia and Alabama state lines as then suggested, the snake actually ranged to the Gulf Coast on the Florida Panhandle and perhaps even further south on the peninsula. But then, even as now, the actual range of this persistently fossorial snake was (and is) imperfectly known.

How little we actually knew about this subspecies was further demonstrated when in 1987 R.M. Price described a mole king from the southern peninsula of Florida that bore sufficiently different facial markings to warrant the erection of a new subspecies that he called L. c. occipitolineata, and that is now known by the common name of Southern Florida mole kingsnake.

Despite having been recognized for more than a quarter century, this small (usually less than 3 feet long), strongly blotched lampropeltine is still considered a comparative rarity. Like its more northerly relative(s) the head of the southern Florida mole king is not much broader than the neck, and, although the head pattern comverges on the neck, it is not as precise as the diagnostic "spearpoint" of the corn snake, the only species with which this mole king is apt to be confused.

For additional information on this interesting snake, please look up Price, R. M. 1987, Disjunct occurrence of mole snakes in Peninsular Florida, and the description of a new subspecies of Lampropeltis calligaster. Bull. Chicago Herpetol. Soc. 22(9):148.

More photos under the jump...

As I sat on the back deck this morning, my interest was drawn to several displaying or battling anoles. We have both common kinds here, the indigenous green anole, Anolis carolinensis, and the firmly established Cuban brown, A. s. sagrei. During the spring and summer, when breeding and territoriality are at their peak, it takes only the presence of two males to create a war zone. In autumn and winter they are a bit less belligerent but only a bit! Females show little interest in each other.



I have heard ad infinitum that the browns will overun and (presumably) extirpate the greens, that the browns do not belong here and should themselves be extirpated. Perhaps at some time in the future extirpation of the green anole by the brown may occur, but for now, wherever I have taken the time to watch the various interactions, the scores of the skirmishes seem about even. The anoles battle, sometimes green on green, sometimes brown on brown, but as often as not it is one species against the other, and if of equal size early attempts of determining a winner is almost futile.

Whether you like or hate them, the brown anoles are here to stay. They often position themselves on fences, railings, and the lower trunks of trees and shrubs. The native (color changing) greens may also be seen in/on these locations but they are usually higher from the ground, often in the tree canopy. The two species, then, are at least partially partitioned.

But, during breeding season, when the males are "set on feisty," when they do meet the show is on!

More photos under the jump...

Excitement was palpable. We left Iquitos, Peru, at 0800 that morning and then, 12 hours later, we were nearing our destination.

Segundo Rios, our captain, eased back on the throttle of the Tucanare (our river boat), and almost imperceptably the boat nosed against the shoreline. We had arrived at Madre Selva Biological Preserve on the west bank of the Rio Orosa, our home for the next 10 days; ten days of around the clock tropical herping.

We had eaten on the boat and everyone was ready for at least a short introductory night walk so as soon as we had all located our tambos (screened individual rooms).



I elected to take the group along the short trail, a wonderful loop of herp habitat. Once again, I instructed all of the absolute need to watch carefully for fer-de-lance and to remember that rhyme of "red to yellow kill a fellow and red to black venom lack" did not apply to any of the several species of coral snakes we might encounter.

Even before we had gotten out of the biological station's clearing, we had found several species of lizard (anoles and geckos), an auspicious beginning to a wonderful and educational trip. Fifty yards down the trail C-sar commented, "Snake, Imantodes." He had spotted a blunt-headed tree snake, Imantodes cenchoa, in a trailside bush.

Flashlight beams were quickly brought to bear on the little snake of vine-like slenderness, and the popping of camera flashes brought to mind a mini lightning storm.

When all had taken what they felt were sufficient photos we moved on. Broad-headed treefrogs (Osteocephalus sp.) and an occasional monkey frog (Phyllomedusa sp.) vocalized from bromeliads high overhead, but none were seen than night.



However, crested forest toads, Bufo margaritifera, were numerous along the trail, and some were seen three feet above ground on flat-leafed plants.

"What kind of lizard is this?" someone asked. Ah ha! The guides had walked by (and they don't often miss much!) a foot long green forest dragon, Enyalioides laticeps, sleeping quietly on a horizontal limb 8 feet above ground. Again, a pause for photos and we continued.