The other day a friend came by and I showed him my recently hatched Super Genetic Banded Albino Pied Ball Pythons. He just about lost it when he saw them. He told me that he thought the pictures I had posted were just photo shopped. As a result I decided to take a picture with both the Abino Pied and a Banded Albino so that people could see the difference.

Ball Python people know that all albinos are not created equal. This Genetic Banded gene I work with is a real color enhancer and pattern reducer, especially when in the super form. Of course, the Pied gene has an effect on color and pattern mixing as well. It is true that the Banded Albinos will lighten with age, but it is also true that Pieds darken with age and are lighter as babies. It will be interesting to see how these Super Genetic Banded Albino Pieds color up as adults.

Eastern Black Kingsnake Lampropeltis getula nigra
Since 2003 Phil Peak and I have observed and recorded 760 live Black Kingsnakes in scores of different Kentucky counties. There is a lot of variation out there and I sure like them all, but at the end of the day I have limited space and resources and am only able to keep a handful of specimens. It took some time, but I soon realized that I like the ones around my home town the best of all. What I like so much about the Black Kingsnakes around Louisville are that they have the least amount of pattern and markings and are also a kind of shiny black coloration not seen in all examples of this species.

The captive hatched specimen in the photo is only around 30 inches long but has already lost all signs of the juvenile markings and has already developed the kind of shiny black coloration that makes these my favorite. I have noticed that a lot of my fellow field herpers tend to appreciate the animals that live in their own backyards too, and I think this is great. In addition to the natural beauty that these local snakes have, all of us who spend time hunting snakes also see something else when we look at our local favorites. Let’s face the truth here, life is tough. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can tell you right now that when I look at the snake in the picture I remember the day when I was out in the field with my good friend Phil and we flipped an old rotten board and found the clutch of eggs that this snake hatched out of. On that day there were no jobs, no family dramas, no bills to pay, and no cell phones ringing. Instead the sun was shining and I was a free man out in the woods breathing fresh air and doing what I wanted to do for once. I like that.

Northern Ravine Salamander Plethodon electromorphus
After herping a place for years and years a person can begin to learn what to expect to find during the course of an outing, but remember to never let your guard down because you just never can tell what your going to find!

Such was the case back in April 2015 when Phil and I returned to one of our favorite snake hunting sites where we expected to see the usual suspects. Instead we flipped up a pair of these Northern Ravine Salamanders. Heavy rains during the right time of year appear to have driven these specimens up to the surface where we could locate them under materials we had set out for well over ten years. After discussions with our local wildlife officials we learned that this species was suspected but not confirmed in this area. Thanks to our efforts, they are now confirmed!

Eastern Box Turtle Terrapene carolina carolinaI took this in-situ photograph of a wild Eastern Box Turtle in May of 2015. Despite missing many scutes, this scarred specimen was out searching for food and behaving completely normally. After years seeing thousands of reptiles and amphibians in the field it has been my experience that turtles can be very tough creatures.

I have seen turtles that have survived all kinds of major injuries, including a Common Snapping Turtle, Chelydra serpentina, whose head was cut in half but survived for years. If you have not seen the Red Ear Slider, Trachemys scripta elegans, that survived having its eyes, nose, and mouth parts cut off you should be sure to google that.

I consider myself to be a humane person, and many of my herp friends are as well. None of us want to see an animal suffer, but think twice before you take any sort of humane action against a wild, free-ranging reptile. You might be surprised by the healing powers that many wounded reptiles possess. We have all seen herps run over by vehicles, and in years past even I might be tempted to, “put a snake out of its misery.” However, time and experience demonstrated to me that a lot of these injured animals have the ability to heal and survive for many years. When legal, I am more likely to move an injured animal to safety than to euthanize it, and I encourage all of you to learn from my experience and give injured wild animals a second chance at survival.

Photographing herps takes practice
Photographing herps is an art form that takes many years to master. Even after many years of practice I can always find something wrong with the best pictures I have taken and, like all of you, I wish I could take better herp pictures. But I am still practicing and learning, and getting a little better each time.

A lot of photographers think you need to have the best this, or latest that, to capture that epic picture. I have a different approach than many herp photographers I see out there. No matter how nice your camera is, someone else has a better one. But it's not the camera that makes the photograph, it's just a tool. Even the cheapest digital cameras can take a killer picture if you learn how to use it properly and learn to work within its limitations. So my first two points for now are that even a cheap camera can capture a killer picture if you take time to learn how to use it, AND if you have the most expensive camera out there you will still find something wrong with the pictures you take and will be plagued with the desire to improve.

I will discuss herp photography more in future blogs, but in the meantime enjoy this shot I took of a Green Tree Frog, Hyla cinerea. And as you can see, even with this photo there is a lot of room for improvement, and it is important that you always see things that way when you review your own pictures!

Every year I try to do something in my snake rooms that I have never done before. One thing I tried this year that actually worked out was having one of my Children’s Python maternally incubate her clutch of eggs. I found her on her clutch on 27 April 2015, but I think she laid her clutch 2 days before while I was out gathering native snake data. I kept her in a 28 quart box inside a rack system with 11 inch heat tape mounted on the back wall of the rack and maintained by a Ranco thermometer.

She placed her clutch right up against the tape in the back of the box, and stayed coiled on her clutch, not accepting any meals during the entire process. The clutch began to hatch on 22 June 2015. I found this interesting because I have had clutches hatch much more quickly when incubating with artificial incubation. Sure enough, the babies from this clutch proved to be strong feeders and continue to thrive. I also got a pretty even split of males and females in this clutch. It was fun, I had a good time doing it, and got some nice healthy babies when the process was completed.

The effects of a global economic slowdown are finally trickling down to all of us lowly snake hunters. The prices paid for commodities are in steep decline, and this includes all metals, including the scrap tin loved so much by reptile collectors. I have been getting anecdotal reports about local metal scrappers being offered less than the cost of a tank of gas for entire truckloads of metals that weigh several tons.

Sadly, much of the damage has already been done as tens of thousands of metal pieces have already been stolen and scrapped. This snake hunter is taking great joy in hearing about how upset these metal thieves become when they find out they are not getting paid enough money after spending an entire day destroying prime snake collecting habitat and stealing from people like myself. Perhaps we will all have a chance to rebuild our old sites and it is my hope that the market in base metals does not recover for decades to come! If things go our way we will be finding downed barns with metal to lay out for years to come!

Among those who search for reptiles in North America, there has always been great interest in Eastern Hognose Snakes, Heterodon platirhinos. They are beautiful, variable, display unique behaviors, have an interesting natural history, and are unlike all the other snakes we find locally.

Getting a nice picture of a wild Eastern Hognose Snake can be very difficult because they will roll over on their back and play dead when they feel threatened, and once they go into this routine it is not only hard to make them stop, but they also seem to never look as good once they play dead. During their defensive process they tend to disgorge their belly contents and also stop filling up with air to hiss which makes them look thin and deflated. Take my advice and try to get your pictures of this species before they feel too disturbed and roll over on their backs.

Neophytes will quickly reach down and pick up snakes as soon as they are discovered. When a specimen is discovered the best thing to do is to try to get pictures immediately. When I am on Hognose hunting grounds I carry my camera with me, sometimes it is even already turned on. If the snake tries to escape use a stick or branch to move the animal but whatever you do, DO NOT TOUCH IT WITH YOUR HAND! For whatever reason, these snakes are less disturbed by the feel of natural materials but the feel of your hand will often cause them to play dead upon contact. THINK when you find one of these snakes! Calm down and be patient. Do not give up. Instead, just focus on keeping the snake calm. They will often turn their heads sideways just before they flip on their backs, so if you see them doing this back off a little bit. If they do flip over you can put the snake in a bag for 20 minutes and then carefully dump it out and try again, but even if this works the snake will not look as good as it did the moment you found it. I hope this information proves useful and I wish everyone good luck in finding and getting nice pictures of these spectacular snakes!

This amazing looking cultivar is a Super Genetic Banded Paradox Albino Ball Python (Python regius). I had the honor of hatching the first example of this new morph earlier in 2015. People who know me and follow my posts here, on my site, and on social media are aware that I have been hatching a whole lot of Paradox Ball Pythons, especially Paradox Albinos. Friends joke that I must be putting something in my water, but the fact is that after many years and much effort I have hopefully made an advance in how to produce Paradox Ball Pythons.

The Paradox Gene is not fully understood and I am not trying to claim that I fully understand it. What I am saying is that results speak for themselves and that it took more than luck for me to produce Paradox Albinos and other Paradox Ball Python Morphs every year for the past 5! I expect to hatch more in 2016 barring thermostat or incubator malfunctions!

Isn’t this Jungle Carpet Python crazy looking?! It is one of a kind and a Super Form from what the Ball Python Crowd refers to as a, “Dinker Project.”

I noticed that the mother of this snake looked just a bit odd when it was a baby. I bought her, bred her, and then bred one of her male offspring back into her to get a super form of the co-dominant gene that she carried. I know a lot of kingsnake.com users attend Reptile Shows so I will share my story about buying the mother of this snake.

All morning long I was busy at this show vending at my table and I was unable to make a round until around lunch time. When I arrived at one of the better Carpet Python vendor tables there was a crowd standing around looking at a baby JCP in a deli cup marked $350.00. They were all commenting under their breath about the little snake, but for me there was no discussion. I peeled off the cash, handed it to the vendor, and then picked up the cup with the snake.

All the guys said, "WHOA!! I was thinking about buying that” . The vendor looked at me and said, “That snake will turn out to look normal and so will all the babies.” I made two replies. To the crowd I responded, “You can keep thinking about buying it, but I just bought it.” To the vendor I said, loud enough for all to hear, “If this $350 female JCP turns out to be normal I will more than break even selling her normal babies.” There are lessons to be learned in all of this but don’t ask me what they are. I am just trying to have fun and I am relegated to but one of these crazy looking JCP after about 10 years of effort.

Finding examples of the Scarlet Kingsnake (Lampropeltis triangulum elapsoides) in Kentucky can be quite difficult. On a scale of 1-10 I give them a solid 7.5, perhaps lower if you live in or close to a county where they occur. As for myself, I have to drive over 3 hours each way to be in the game.

The easiest way to locate this species in my area is to road cruise for them. I can run that drill, but I prefer to utilize and deploy artificial cover, and by doing so I, along with my colleague Phil Peak, was able to locate a sexed pair under metal this year. A cast shed from the male was under the metal and the female was just preparing to shed as you can see in the photo of both snakes. These snakes were found in mid to late April and we believe that they were preparing to mate or less-likely had already bred. There is always a reason or series of reasons why snakes are found when and in the way in which they are located. Interpreting this information is something I find interesting as it helps to increase the number of snakes I find in the future!

I want to welcome everyone to my first kingsnake.com blog and want to thank Jeff B and everyone else here for the opportunity. I plan to have both captive and field-oriented posts that will focus on snakes but will also include lizards, frogs, salamanders, turtles, and crocs! Because this is my first effort here, I wanted to kick things off with a kingsnake!