A Florida black pine snake--almost!
Two of Florida’s forestlands are located on the Panhandle, a 3 or 4 hour drive from my home. The closer of the 2 is the Apalachicola National Forest, more than 550,000 acres of pine and mixed forestlands with stands of hardwoods along the creeks and rivers. West of the Apalach (as it is fondly called) by some 100 miles is the Blackwater River State Forest. This is an expanse of 190,000 acres of uplands, lowlands and in-between-lands, that are home to an impressive array of herp-life, not the least interesting being the Florida pine snake, Pituophis melanoleucus mugitus. On the east side of the forest the Florida pines are of very typical appearance. This means that they are pale snakes—they have a pale, chalk white ground color, and the tannish blotches, widely separated posteriorly but almost contiguous anteriorly, can vary from nearly indistinct to reasonably well-defined. This coloration doesn’t usually vary much throughout this snake’s entire range of from southeastern South Carolina to Mobile Bay and throughout most of the northern 4/5 of the Florida Peninsula. In western Escambia County, Florida though, pine snakes that are obvious intergrades between the Florida and the black have been found. These are big (to over 8 feet in length!) and both ground color and blotch color are variably suffused with melanin. The result is that these hulking snakes are distinctly different in appearance than either of the parent species, but are decidedly dark enough in color to be unexpected on the Florida side of Mobile Bay.

Although neither the Florida nor the intergrade pine snakes are commonly seen throughout most of the year, in the spring when males are surface-active and trailing females, seeing a pine snake is a distinct possibility.

In my opinion anurans don't get much prettier than the Pine Barrens treefrog.While I’m way out in western Florida, there are two treefrogs that I always try to see and photograph. One is widespread and abundant, one is localized, rather uncommon, and protected. The abundant one, the bird-voiced treefrog, Hyla avivoca, is attractive, but many other species are prettier. However, none have the wonderful ululating vocalizations that characterize the bird-voiced treefrog. This cool-gray to green treefrog attains a length of about 1½-inches and is a denizen of the great southern river-swamps. Typically, a large, irregular, dark dorsal marking is present and the limbs are dark banded. A light spot is present beneath each eye. The groin is pale yellow to pale green. Pretty? Well, kind of. But its mellow summer-night tremolo, especially persistent when conditions are overcast or stormy, pleases the ear far more than this treefrog’s color pleases the eye.

However, it is the opposite with the Pine Barrens treefrog, Hyla andersoni. There are few other anurans that can equal the Pine Barrens treefrog in color, but a lot of others equal or surpass its vocalizations. Although the Pine Barrens treefrog can and does change colors, when at its prettiest it has a bright apple-green back, a belly that shades from plum anteriorly (males have darker throats) to bright orange posteriorly and in the groin, and these two colors are separated by a broad, light-edged, plum stripe that runs from nose to groin and beyond. The plum coloration is also present on the feet and the rear of the forearms. But that this frog is primarily eye-candy (to humans) is apparent when you hear its aria of repeated nasal “quonks” that sound somewhat similar to the unmusical calls of a badly stressed goose.

Unlike the widespread bird-voiced treefrog, the Pine Barrens treefrog is present in small colonies in very precise, isolated, patches of acidic, steephead habitat, formations that are quite uncommon if Florida. It is also present in extreme southcentral Alabama, both Carolinas, and the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.

Today a Peninsula intergrade kingsnake, back then a Florida kingsnake--names change but the snakes don't care.

Just the mention of innertubes will probably bring a quizzical expression to the faces of many of today’s young motorists. But there was a time when innertubes were a part of everyday life—an integral part whether your vehicle was a semi, a bus, a car, a motorcycle, or a bicycle. And even if you were a non-motorized but avid herper, it is probable that you soon recognized blown-out innertubes lying on roadside as being every bit as good, and possibly even better cool weather herp habitat than the sheet tin so eagerly sought by herpers today. Certainly we recognized their value back in the early ‘50s when Gordy and I began our herping escapades from New England southward. What? Why? How?

Unintended though it may have been, Gordy was my herping mentor. He was a teacher who I met while I was in junior high school and because of similar interest in herps we soon became fast friends. After making a few herping trips together from the northland with friends such as Dennie Miller & Peter Lindsey) to the fabled Pine Barrens of New Jersey (where we met Asa Pittman) and to Okeetee (where we met Carl Kauffeld, Zig Leszynski, Bob Zappalorti, Manny Rubio, and others) we decided that the next step in our herping education would be Christmas trips to Sunny Florida. We could barely imagine leaving snowy, frigid, Massachusetts and arriving a day later in the palm shrouded balminess of South Florida (where we eventually met Ralph Demers, Warren Prince, Rhea Warren, Dade Thornton, John Truitt, the Weeds, and dozens of other herpers). But I think it might have been Frank Weed, Jr. or Rhea Warren who introduced us to the wonders of innertubes.

Back in those days US 27 was a 2 lane road, lined tightly with huge Australian pines, Brazilian pepper, and undergrowth. Sod farms and Sugarcane were just getting a foothold. The Everglades still remained on the west side of the road up to Okeelanta. Pump houses, fallen billboards, and abandoned shacks – all rat snake hotels - were scattered helter-skelter. Amidst the shady undergrowth lay dozens of blown out innertubes and on cool sunny winter days those innertubes housed, both in and under, garter snakes, rat snakes (most of which were “true” Everglades rats), kingsnakes (of both the big peninsula species and the smaller scarlet kings, kingsnakes, and more kingsnakes.

When you hear “old timers” like John Truitt, Ron Sayers, Jerry Fine, or me talk about “those good old days,” the reason is simple. Those WERE the good old days!

The first herp of the night, a young red diamond rattler.
Home was now about 2500 miles behind me and I was headed for a mountain grade that I had found on previous trips to be a wonderfully productive herping venue as well as incredibly scenic. And did I mention that because of typically high speed California traffic on a 2 lane roadway typified by many tight hairpin curves, it was also just a bit on the dangerous side, AND, and this was the most important part, along those dangerous curves, edged tightly by towering cliff-faces this road became the home of the coveted Coleonyx switaki, the Peninsula banded or Switak’s banded gecko. It was almost dusk now, but finally after my cross-country speedathon, my destination was less than an hour away.

And then I was making the final righthand turn…

Once on the mountain grade, one of the first reptiles seen was a juvenile red diamond rattlesnake, Crotalus r.ruber. At this inland location these snakes are not as brightly colored as many coastal populations, but they are nonetheless an impressive and welcome find. Although adults may exceed a heavy-bodied 5-feet in length, the one now before me was only about 2-feet long. I stopped, moved the snake to the side of the road, took a few pictures, and continued on.

Still on the descent I saw a California lyre snake, Trimorphodon lyrophanes, a California night snake, Hypsiglena o. nuchalata. Desert banded geckos, Coleonyx v. variegatus, and Peninsula leaf-toed geckos, Phyllodactylus nocticolus. It was already a banner night.

At the bottom, at the far side of the town, the moving sands on roadside produced several very active Colorado Desert shovel-nosed snakes, Chionactis occipitalis annulata, as well as an adult female Colorado Desert sidewinder, Crotalus cerastes laterorepens, the latter basking quietly on the still-warm pavement. It was a large, obviously gravid, and very feisty female. She struck several times in displeasure as I moved her onto the sand. Once on the move she looped across several yards of sand then stopped and coiled against the base of a creosote bush.

Back to the top then down to the bottom seeing zero herps. But then things picked up again. Up and down, up and down. Every banded gecko caused an abrupt slowing. Could it be, I wondered—could it be? I glanced at the clock. It was 0310 in the morning. The moon had disappeared from sight behind the towering cliff almost an hour ago. I decided to make one more run then head for the motel (that was still more than an hour’s drive away).

I drove down to a pulloff, turned around and headed up-grade for the last time. Whoops! Was that a lizard that I had just driven by? It was 0317 AM.There was no traffic so I backed up a bit and—yes it was a lizard. I parked, hopped out, crossed the road, and stared in disbelief at the lizard in my light.

After a decade of looking and more than 10s of thousands miles of driving, I had finally found the coveted Baja gecko. Fatigue was forgotten as I took picture after picture of the lizard. Knowing full well that I may never see another I bracketed, availed myself of several lenses, and went through a full set of batteries in the flash unit. Certainly I thought, as I walked to the car, some of those pictures should be satisfactory. Dawn was breaking as I drove into the motel. A full day’s sleep would be welcome.

What it all boiled down to was the fact that I needed a photo of a Tucson shovel-nosed snake, Chionactis occipitalis klauberi. But boiled down even further was the fact that aftter failing on several lengthy trips to find one it was time to seek expert help. So I dialed up Arizona herp Guru, Randy Babb. And Lady Luck was with me, Randy agreed to take me afield in search of my elusive and increasingly enigmatic goal.

For reasons not yet fully determined this, the Tucson shovel-nosed snake, the southeasternmost subspecies of the genus, had become difficult to find over the years. Since comparatively few people have much interest in the small burrowing snakes, few people seemed aware of the population reductions. And of those that were aware, no one could venture a reason, But where you could once find two or three examples on a good night, you were now lucky to be able to see one a year and often saw none. Randy hadn’t returned to his study site, hundreds of acres in a wildlife management area and the paved road that bisected this expanse, in several years, but the weather seemed perfect so we began our search. Randy. Andy Holycross and Charlie Painter came by Randy’s to visit and photograph herps, and got recruited into the search. Since Andy happened to be looking at the genetics of the genus, recruitment wasn’t too difficult.

We elected to only roadhunt, and drove for hours on each of three nights. For our efforts the combined number of shovel-noses found was 2 thoroughly crushed DORs and 1 that had seemingly been hit but that was still alive and was very photographable. It wasn’t what I had hoped for, but it at least filled a photograph gap. Interestingly, we saw no variable sand snakes, Chilomeniscus stramineus (those north of the border are not too variable, being off-white below, pinkish-orange above, and having a regular series of prominent black dorsal saddles), while roadhunting Randy’s site. Randy was a little perplexed by this lack, for sand snakes, once as common as the shovel-noses, now seemed equally uncommon. Whether it is just our sampling technique (we might have been a month to late for the peak movement of these snakes) or whether there is an actual downturn in the populations of these two snakes remains to be seen.

60+ years ago, when I saw my first eastern kingsnake in New Jersey, I could hardly believe my luck.
Today, some 60 years hence, I can still remember coming southward with Gordy to central New Jersey from Massachusetts on a spring morning and finding big, beautiful, white-chained, black eastern kingsnakes, Lampropeltis getula getula, as they searched and prodded for turtle eggs along the edges of sloughs and marshes. They weren’t numerous there, but it only took the finding of one or two to make a success of the whole trip. Then I can remember other trips when we went further south to the Low Country of southeastern South Carolina and found so many eastern kingsnakes that both my Gordy and I were utterly dismayed. I feel quite certain that although the eastern kingsnakes are still in these areas, they are now less common than in those long ago days.

The memory of Dennie Miller showing Gordy Johnston and me dozens and dozens of eastern black kingsnakes, L. g. nigra, under roadside trash in Arkansas remains indelibly imprinted somewhere in some memory niche. The shiny black snakes were of sullen disposition and sparsely patterned with a vaguely discernible chain pattern and a peppering of light scales on their sides.

And Ron Sayers and I used to shake our heads in disbelief at the vast numbers of speckled kingsnakes, L. g. holbrooki, (their bright yellow pepper-spots fairly glistening against their intense black body color) that we would see beneath debris on the sides of Louisiana levees as we made our periodic herping trips to and from Old Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. These were the good days

When Gordy Johnston and I finally expanded our herping horizons as far south as Florida we found eastern kings common on Paynes Prairie (there have been only two kingsnakes found anywhere near Paynes Prairie in the last two decades! The reason for the decline is unknown.). The Paynes Prairie kings looked a bit different than the eastern kings from further north, but they were still very recognizable.

We left the eastern kingsnake phenotype behind as we traveled further southward on the Florida peninsula. Near Lake Okeechobee we found ourselves amidst hordes of the brown and cream kingsnakes then known as Florida kingsnakes. Today they are recognized as the Florida Peninsula intergrade kingsnake, L. g. getula x L. g. floridana, and are thought of by most as snakes of the sodfields and sugarcane.

Back then there were few sodfields, but sugarcane was taking hold and peanuts were a staple. The irrigation canals were being dug, leopard frogs were moving in, water snakes followed them, and indigos and kings trailed the waters. Of course, there were rodents in the fields, additional fodder for the snakes that dwelt in these habitats. But best of all, the main north-south road, US27, was edged on both sides by Australian pines, beneath which blown out tire innertubes lay helter-skelter and in these the kings sought refuge on cold days. Additionally, there were many outcroppings of jumbled oolitic limestone, grown over with recumbent blackberries and other vines, that were also replete with the kingsnakes. It was almost impossible not to find a fair number of them.

And today (2019), although the various chain kings seem harder to find in the wild, eastern, speckled, black, and intergrade kings with genes yet unsullied, continue to be readily available in herpetoculture. Certainly there are albinos and other morphs, but many with normal genes have not yet been overlooked. I guess that once a hobbyist favorite, always a hobbyist favorite. At least I hope so.