It's that time again! Although, truthfully, over most of Florida anytime is "that" time. That time is vocalization time for one of our most abundant anurans, the Florida leopard frog, Rana (Lithobates) s. sphenocephala.



Unlike the northern leopard frog that wanders so far from water that it is often dubbed the "meadow frog," our Florida form is usually not encountered more than a couple of powerful jumps away from water. But it is not awfully particular about the water source. I see it near swamps, marshes, ponds, lake edges, ditches, canals, even in our little artificial frog and minnow ponds in the backyard.

Oh, and did I mention the little halves of the rain barrels where I grow a few aquatic plants? Yep, they even call from these and are adept at jumping over the 18" walls. In other words, if there is standing water of reasonable quality the leopard frogs are quite apt to be present.

Florida leopard frogs are not bashful about advertising their presence. The chuckles and squeaks of their calls can be heard sporadically during the day and almost incessantly from dusk til midnite. They are most vocal on rainy nights.

The ground color of these profusely spotted frogs may vary from brown to bright green but is often a pale olive. (The frog in the image above is a brighter green than is usual.) All in all they are a pretty and welcome natural addition to our garden herpetofauna.

More photos under the jump...

The Eastern mud snake, Farancia a. abacura, remains quite common throughout its range. Unlike the related riverine rainbow snake that feeds almost exclusively on migratory American eels, the mud snake eats resident elongate salamanders of the genera Amphiuma and Siren, as well as an occasional frog.

Mud snakes are a large snake with occasional females exceeding 6.5 feet in length by a few inches. Males are smaller.



This is a primarily aquatic snake that is found in many swamps and marshes from southeastern Virginia and central Georgia to the southern tip of the Florida peninsula. Throughout much of Alabama and the western panhandle of Florida it intergrades with the western subspecies. Where populous, these snakes may often be seen crossing roads on sultry/rainy nights. Heavy vehicular traffic can wreak havoc at such times.

Mudsnakes are beautifully colored. They are shiny black dorsally and primarily red ventrally. There are regularly placed black blotches along the edges of the belly scales on both sides. The tail is tipped with a conical spine.

Occasional examples are anerythristic, the red being replaced by white. Albinism is known.

When in their range and habitat this is a species that you should take the time to look up.


More photos under the jump...

Based on a small series of specimens that he collected (total of 3 in the late 40s and early 50s), Wilfred T. Neill described the Southern Florida Rainbow Snake, Farancia erytrogramma seminola, in 1964.



Found by Neill in a fairly large (but not always flowing) creek in southern Florida, Neill based his diagnosis on the greater amount of black pigment on the venter and lower sides of this subspecies when compared with the more northerly common rainbow snake. Reportedly an obligate eel-eater, the perceived or actual rarity (this snake was declared extinct by US Fish and Wildlife Service biologists on October 5, 2011) might be due to a reduced number of eels in the waterway.

Despite the edict issued by USFWS, several attempts have been since made by private individual and conservation organizations to find this subspecies. Although all efforts have failed, rewards for verified sightings have been offered and hope that this snake will again be found continues.

More photos under the jump...

A large "highway under construction" sign lay mostly submerged in the South Carolina slough, but the top corner was exposed and propped up by the road shoulder.

Gordy Johnston and I were hoping to find an eastern kingsnake on the grassy shoulder. Of course, we knew when we saw the nearly submerged sign that we would have to check beneath it for a water snake or two. We lifted the sign and the watery mud on which it lay harbored a snake all right, but one that was totally different from what had been expected.



Beneath the sign was a magnificent rainbow snake, Farancia e. erytrogramma. I stared in disbelief at the black and red linear pattern and spine-tipped tail of this beautiful denizen of marshland, riverine, and estuarine habitats, the first rainbow snake I had ever seen.

That first sighting was back in the early 1950s, a time when both the rainbow snakes and their prey-fish, the American eel, were actually common. Now, 60 years later, because of detrimental habitat modifications, both the snake and its food fish are quite uncommon. In fact, there are many field herpers of today who, despite searching diligently through habitat in locales known to have once supported these secretive snakes have failed to find them.

But while the populations of the common rainbow snake have undeniably declined, those of its more newly described southernmore relative, the southern Florida rainbow snake, seem to have been entirely extirpated. But that is another story.

More photos under the jump...

The southeastern two-toed amphiuma and its more westerly three-toed relative were no strangers to me. But it was not for more than three decades after Wilfred T. Neill found and described the one-toed amphiuma, Amphiuma pholeter, in 1950 that I became acquainted with the little salamander.

In fact, it was not until researcher Paul Moler took a bit of time to describe the habitat of this third species that I finally succeeded in finding a few. It was, it turned out, a mud dweller, but rather being an inhabitant of mud-bottomed ponds and ditches as reported in most mentions, the one-toed amphiuma dwelt in the soupy mud of creek side and swampy seepeages. Small wonder my earlier searches had been futile.

Unlike the two and the three-toed amphiumas, both of which attain adult lengths of about 3 feet, the average size of the one-toed amphiuma is between 9 and 12 inches long. It is very slender; has reduced, lidless, eyes; and its legs, each bearing a single digit, are comparatively tiny. What a wonderfully adapted caudatan.

More photos under the jump...

Chickens, at least our ornamental chickens, are not overly bright. They either totally ignore the occasional yellow rat snake that finds its way among them or, if the snake happens to be small, they may gather around to peck at it.

Fortunately they are big chickens and the snakes usually just pass through the coop with no harm occurring to either party. Yellow rat snakes (I'll continue to refer to them as Pantherophis obsoletus quadrivittatus even though they are formally known now as Eastern rat snakes, Pantherophis alleghaniensis) are one of the more common backyard snakes here.

Not only are we alerted to their presence by cackling chickens, but I occasionally turn them up beneath coverboards in the yard, amidst plants in the small greenhouse, and we are made aware of those in the big oaks (including ones hiding in clumps of Spanish moss) by the hordes of busybody birds that gather to harass them.

As yellow rat snakes go, the adults of the local ones are not particularly pretty, being of a decided yellow-green hue. They bear four broad and distinct dark lines. The juveniles lack the striping and are strongly blotched. Since we live in an area that has plenty of cotton rats and cotton mice, the rat snakes we do see always look well fed. It's a pleasure to be able to coexist peacefully with these interesting colubrines.

More photos under the jump...

Something was wrong.

I had let our little blind cocker spaniel out to bask in the driveway, but instead of relaxing she was slowly walking the perimeter of my parked car, sniffing and snuffling intently.

I watched her for a minute or two, then, knowing this was not normal behavior for her, decided to investigate. As I neared the car I could hear a soft buzzing that grew louder as I approached. I'd heard the sound often enough over the years to recognize it as the buzzing of a rattlesnake.

I called the dog to me, put her in the house, grabbed a snake hook and bucket from the closet, knelt to determine the actual position of the snake (an Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake, Crotalus adamanteus) and gently hooked it into the open.



A gravid, 3.5-foot long female, she coiled again, continued her lazy buzzing and showed no display of hostility even when coaxed into the bucket lying next to her.

This was a lucky snake. She had somehow crossed the busy thoroughfare of four lanes that separated our yard from Paynes Prairie, chosen a yard where she was welcomed, not reviled, in which to rest, and would now be taken a little deeper into the Prairie and released.

She was the third live rattler to come visiting over the years and would have been the sixth if the three found dead on the separating roadway had made the journey safely.

More photos under the jump...

Throughout the range of the striped newt, Notophthalmus perstriatus, which extends northward from northern central Florida to northeastern Georgia, this salamander has a strangely localized, enigmatic, distribution.



Within its known range, this newt may be found in one pothole pond and be absent from several others nearby. Or, conversely, populations may exist in most ponds but not in one or two others that to humans, at least, seem identical. It has become apparent to researchers that what to them seems eminently suitable habitat is considered otherwise by newt populations.

Some populations of striped newts are predominantly paedomorphic, the salamanders becoming sexually mature while still gilled larvae.



We are so accustomed to learning of reduced amphibian numbers that when today both Glenn Bartolotti and Kevin Enge announced that the latter researcher had found a new population of striped newts in Osceola County, Florida, the news was very welcome. Of considerable interest is the fact that this population extends the previously suspected southern range limits of the newt well to the southeast. We can only hope that other discrete populations exist and are awaiting discovery.

The common kingsnake, Lampropeltis getula, was once a species that consisted of at least seven subspecies that, when considered as a group, ranged from coast to coast, from New Jersey to Florida in the east and from southern Oregon to the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula in the west.

These kingsnakes, although present in somewhat lessened numbers in places, still do this but now, based upon genetics rather than appearance and upon the disdain that geneticists have for trinomials, their nomenclature has changed. From old to new (if you choose to apply them, which I do not, LOL:

Old Nomenclature	Common Name	New Nomenclature
Lampropeltis getula californiae	California Kingsnake	Lampropeltis californiae
Lampropeltis getula brooksi	South Florida King	Lampropeltis getula
Lampropeltis getula floridana	Peninsula King	Lampropeltis getula
Lampropeltis getula holbrooki	Speckled King	Lampropeltis holbrooki *
Lampropeltis getula getula	Eastern King	Lampropeltis getula
Lampropeltis getula nigra	Eastern Black King	Lampropeltis nigra
Lampropeltis getula nigrita	Mexican Black King	Lampropeltis californiae
Lampropeltis getula splendida	Desert King	Lampropeltis splendida

*(but only west of the Mississippi River. Identically patterned individuals from east of the Mississippi are now L. nigra)

Formerly Brook's King, L. g. brooksi. Now Eastern King, L. getula:



More photos under the jump...

For decades they were contained in the cosmopolitan skink genus Eumeces, but with the advent of genetic assessments they are now Plestiodon. But the specific name of laticeps has remained intact. They are the largest of the three East Coast five-lined skinks, surpassing the common five-line, P. fasciatus, and the southeastern five-line, P. inexpectatus, in both length and body mass.

The body color of adult males, marginally the larger gender, is a beautiful stripeless fawn brown. When adult they may attain an overall length of 12 inches.

The somewhat smaller females tend to retain at least vestiges of the striping. During the spring and early summer breeding season the temporal region of the head of the adult males broadens and the entire head turns fire orange.



Hatchlings and juveniles are vividly striped and have a blue tail. The blue tail coloring of the hatchlings is intense but it pales as the lizard grows.



In late summer and autumn the orange head color of the adult male fades, the temporal broadening is lessened, and by the time it accesses its winter hibernating locale it would hardly be recognizable as the same lizard.

They hatched! I'm talking about my marginated tortoise hatchlings.

The eggs had incubated for 61 days at 88.2F before the first signs of pipping became apparent. Here's one two hours after pipping:



Four eggs out of the clutch of 10 had "chalked" (an external opacity of the egg shell that is usually associated with egg-fertility) within only a day or two of deposition, and now one of them was actually hatching.



Fortunately, the remaining three chalked eggs also hatched within the next two days. Here's one at two days after hatching:



I was rather excited about the event, for it was not only the first time I had hatched marginated tortoises, Testudo marginata, but in so doing I had laid to rest the long held tenet that a period of hibernation was necessary to successfully breed this species.

You see, because they are maintained outside year round in Florida and provided with heated winter quarters (accessible when the tortoises choose to use them), my breeders underwent no period of dormancy. Yet viable eggs were produced and healthy babies hatched.

While marginated tortoises are certainly capable of undergoing lengthy periods of hibernation, it would seem that this period of dormancy is not an actual necessity for breeding success.

About 50 miles west of my home, I leave the range of the common Eastern garter snake, Thamnophis s. sirtalis, and enter the realm of the blue-striped garter snake, Thamnophis sirtalis similis.

In actuality, garter snakes with blue striping may be found in some numbers throughout the Florida populations. But along the Gulf Coast of the state, from Hernando to Wakulla counties, the vast majority of the garter snakes have blue strips and bluish overtones. And the ribbon snakes are also bluish.



The intensity of the blue striping varies from pale to rich blue, while the interstitial skin and other bluish overtones are a bit lighter.



I have seen these garter snakes by day actively searching pond and ditch edges for the frogs of which their diet largely consists. But overall they seem more active at dusk as the setting sun adds its long red rays to nature's palette.

Ever since I had learned of the existence of the mountain skink, Plestiodon callicephalus, I had wanted to see the lizard in situ.

There was just a special something about the blue in the tail of this skink that brought it to the top of my "I-wanna-see" list.



But when I asked Randy Babb to show me one of these skinks in situ, I had no idea it was going to involve a 20-mile power walk across sere desert beneath a blazing sun (about 140F ground temp!).

Or at least it seemed that hot and far to me, a Floridian who's unused to desert conditions. Of course, when Randy (a desert fox) relates the tale, it was a slow one mile walk on a moderately warm day along a cool path on the banks of a lake. How can his memory be so faulty? .

But at the end we saw not only one but several of the beautiful skinks. Mission accomplished. Thanks, Randy.

More photos under the jump...

As have the ranges of several other amphibians in Florida, the range of the rusty mud salamander, Pseudotriton montanus floridanus, seems to have shrunk noticeably.

Once found as far south as the Orlando area, those populations as well as others on the peninsula now seem extirpated. Although I may be overlooking some populations, to be even reasonably assured of finding this southernmost of the mud salamanders one must now travel northwestward to the panhandle counties.



Jake Scott and I recently did just that. We sought and found a suitable locale that was about four hours distant. Almost as soon as we entered the swampy habitat, we walked by a big log. Thinking it was simply too large to roll, we continued along.

We turned logs and debris for the next three hours -- zilch on the target salamanders. On the way back out, the last log we saw was that one we hadn't turned on the way in. We decided it was going to be turned, and it actually was a simple matter to do so (proving that appearances can indeed be deceiving).

Jake had found a lifer. Although it was the only mud salamander found on that day, it alone made the lengthy trip a success.

More photos under the jump...

About 30 years ago I purchased a half dozen of these alert and attractive little turtles, Geoemyda spengleri, for about 20 dollars each.



I bred this taxon for many years, but finally allowed myself to be talked out of them by a friend. It was a divestiture that I have regretted over the years, so recently I began thinking of restarting the project. But after pricing the little guys at today's market price of 500 to 700 dollars each, the probability of this occurring now seems minimal.

I am sure glad that I had the opportunity to work with this alert and intelligent little (carapace length of about 4.25 inches) Asian species.

More photos under the jump...

March was still a few days distant, but there was already a sizable hole in the ice on the sunniest side of the pond.

This was unusual February weather for the Connecticut Valley. The late January thaw, complete with days of heavy rain, had done a pretty good job of reducing and weakening the ice cover. Following the thaw the weather had been milder than usual -- not warm, mind you, but sunny and mild enough to allow the sun to etch out a tiny hole that iced over every night and then got just a bit bigger every sunny day.

Although it would probably refreeze solidly before the actual spring meltoff, for the time being it had developed an opening 2 or 3 feet in diameter. The surrounding ice had a heavy scattering of last season’s oak and maple leaves. Dark in color, they helped accumulate the little heat given out by the February sun. I was not the only one who had noticed the breach.

One day, while birding, I happened to walk closer to the pond than normal and noticed a movement on the leaves near the opening. I stopped, stared, and was surprised to see an Eastern Painted Turtle, Chrysemys picta picta, just as it dropped through the hole into the icy water.



I wasn't too surprised that the turtle was awake and alert, for I had seen the species swimming beneath the ice on other frigid ponds. But this was the first (and only!) time I had seen one making an effort to bask on a February day.

More photos under the jump...

I re-learned today, after reading of the failure by several researchers to find white-lipped frogs, Leptodactylus fragilis, how lucky I had been to see the species in Texas.



I had actually heard the two-syllabled calls of this little anuran on a dozen occasions, but had seen it only two or three times.

White-lipped frogs spend much of their time in burrows from one to several inches deep, or in other places of seclusion that are usually close to shallow depressions that fill quickly during rains. They vocalize and breed while in these burrows. The eggs are kept moist by frothy glandular secretions produced by the breeding frogs and if climatic conditions cooperate, seasonal rains flood the low-lying depressions and then free the tadpoles.

More photos under the jump...

I was so intent on determining what was in the beak of the loggerhead shrike that just missed my windshield that I almost ran over the three-plus foot Western diamondback, Crotalus atrox.



I was rolling south out of Marfa, Tex., at a pretty good clip when the shrike decided to defy death and swooped through at hood ornament level.

As I braked, I noted the bird had a tiny snake, slender about 9 inches long, in its beak. I went down the road a bit, U-turned, returned, and U-turned again. The shrike had perched on a barbed wire fence and was still holding the limp snake. I slowed and still carrying the snake the shrike departed. So much for a possible identification.

After checking the mirrors (no cars in sight), I glanced into the "shrike field" again and started pulling out. Something on the ground just in front of the car moved, and I slammed on the brakes.

I got out to the agitated cadence from a telltale rattle. My front left tire was about a half an inch away from a stretched out 3-and-a-half foot Western diamondback. He had crawled out of the grasses while I was meditating unsuccessfully on the shrike-prey.

I watched for a moment and the snake started forward again. Since it seemed evident that it intended to cross the four-lane, sometimes busy, roadway I hooked the snake into a bucket, covered the bucket, carried the snake across the road, and turned it loose.

I wished it bon voyage and it wasted no time disappearing into the roadside vegetation.

More photos under the jump...

At the dead end of a dirt road, a road that can be little more than a trail in some spots, a road across which all manner of desert creatures from gilas to javelinas and cougars cross, there is a desert spring.

If you stand on the nearest shore (the south) of this wonderful landmark, Quitobaquito Spring by name, and toss a rock back over your shoulder, it will land in Mexico.

Around the shores of the spring are venerable desert willows and an assortment of rushes and other emergents that provide cover for one of the nation's most beautiful fishes, the tiny Quitobaquito pupfish.



You'll also see the ]very ordinary appearing, but subspecifically different, kinosternid turtle, Kinosternon sonoriensis longifemorale, the Sonoyta mud turtle.



Changing times, and for various reasons the road to Quitobaquito is now closed to casual vehicular traffic. It is my understanding that Organ Pipe now offers occasional guided tours to the spring. For details check with OP headquarters, and consider a tour along this roadway where you can still enjoy the incredible beauty of the Sonoran Desert.

Another photo under the jump...

Meet the little grass frog (aka the least treefrog, and actually a chorus frog), Pseudacris ocularis.

They are the tiniest of the tiny, are a slender half-inch long and egg-laden females a whopping five-eighths of an inch.



Somewhere in Florida the tinkling vocalizations of this Liliputian chorus frog may be heard during every month of the year. Further north (it ranges widely along the coastal plain to the vicinity of Virginia's Great Dismal Swamp) it is a bit more seasonal, seeking seclusion during the coldest weather or during periods of extended drouth.

Although variable, this frog is usually of some shade of tan, often lighter on the sides and darker on the back and between the eyes. The dorsal and lateral colors are usually separated by a very thin dark line. It has a dark mask and this may continue rearward as a partial or complete brown lateral line.

Look or listen for this frog along the grassy/weedy shallow edges of ponds, marshes or swamps as well as in seasonally flooded roadside ditches.

More photos under the jump...

It was a beautiful sunny day in northern California. Kenny and I turned eastward and headed for the locale of our target of the morning, Plethodon stormi, the Siskiyou Mountains Salamander.

Five minutes later we were beneath a cloud cover that became increasingly dense as we proceeded eastward. A few minutes later it had begun to rain and a few minutes after that the rain had become snow. Snow.



At the time, Kenny was living in Texas. He was used to snow. But I was then (as now) an old, fat, Floridian. I seldom acknowledge the existence of snow and am even more loathe to have it falling on me. But I had driven 2500 miles to see this salamander (among others) so I wasn't about to be deterred by the vagaries of Mother Nature without at least making an attempt to see our goal.

By the time we had gotten to our final turnoff the ground was very white and the conifers were postcard picturesque. The stream (which had nothing to do with the salamander except as a landmark) burbled, bubbled, and rushed between newly whitened banks.

A north wind whistled. The beautiful sunny day had been left far behind. But now at the salamander's habitat we began pawing through the snow to access the rocks, beneath which the caudatans dwelt. Man, those rocks were cold.

Within minutes both Kenny and I were complaining about numb fingers. But we persisted until we succeeded in finding a juvenile.



Photos were taken, the day was declared a success, the car's heater was turned on full blast, and we headed for lower -- and hopefully snowless -- altitudes.

Photo of adult salamader under the jump...

It was a dark and stormy night and...

Well, actually it was dark, especially on the trail that wound beneath the towering rainforest trees. And it had stormed (but earlier that day). The forest floor was still drenched and the trees continued to drip the earlier rainfall from the canopy leaves.



With just over a day left before we were to leave the rainforest. all participants were determined to make the most of the remaining time. It had been dark for hours, but many herpers were again out on the trails, some herping along the edges of the reservoir and a few (me included in these latter efforts) trying to catch up on picture taking.

Finally all had straggled in, wet, muddy, butwith a few more herp finds to their already impressive lists. But after a few minutes Matt Cage and Mike Pingleton, trip leaders both, decided to take "just one more" hike. Off they went, down the long trail towards the river. Forty five minutes later, Matt was coming back across the compound clearing hollering, "Bushmaster, big bushmaster. Mike's keeping it on the trail, but we need help."

Needless to say, they got the help they wanted, the 6+ foot long, three-quarters grown bushmaster was safely and gently bagged, and was brought back to camp for all to photograph.



Following the photo session during which everyone had to take "just one more picture" (about 20 times each), the beautiful snake, a heavy-bodied female, was returned to the exact spot where she had been found, and released.

Another photo under the jump...

Finally! Back about eight years ago I bought five hatchling marginated tortoises from Mark and Kim Bell.

They were pretty babies, and since first seeing this taxon about 40 years ago at Arsene Eglis' facility, I had always intended to work with them (a 40-year hiatus between the initial decision and the actuality isn't too bad, is it?).

The babies thrived, growing quickly, and it took only a three years before I was able tio determine the genders -- four males and one female (4.1 in herp parlance).



Fast forward to 2012. The tortoises were now each a bit over a foot in length. I had placed two males in new homes, retaining the biggest and most boisterous for what I hoped would become a mini-breeding program. The possibility that this would become fact was shown when in late 2012 the female laid her first eggs. The clutch was small and the eggs were infertile.

But then a year later, in September of 2013, again the female began searching for a nesting spot.



Once finding a suitable spot, the nesting was fast and 10 eggs were laid.



Now for the long wait!

Although it is quietly hued, the little Hispaniolan cat-eyed snake, Hypsirhynchus ferox, is both attractive and interesting.


Inhabiting a wide range of habitats from xeric to mesic, this terrestrial snake seems to prefer areas where low escarpments and boulders are prominent. Preferentially a lizard eater, juvenile snakes eat geckos, anoles and the young of larger lizards. Adults feed upon larger whiptails and curlytailed lizards.



This snake occasionally attains a length of 30 inches (rarely an inch or two longer, often a few inches shorter). It is slender and can move quickly.

The Hispaniolan cat-eyed snake is only rarely available in the American pet trade. It is an easily maintained oviparous snake, but I have not been able to find mention of breeding success.

Although they were long considered a subspecies of the European four-lined rat snake, the Bulgariian rat snake is now considered a full species.

My Bulgarian rat snakes are just about three years old now, and three-and-a-half feet in length. I expect they will eventually attain a length of five feet.



I haven’t tried to push the growth of these rather heavy bodied snakes and they are, apparently, a normally slow growing taxon. Of the twospecies of the genus Elaphe, in Europe, the Bulgarian (also called the Eastern European or blotched rat snake E. sauromates) is the less colorful and undergoes the fewest ontogenetic color and pattern changes. In fact, when discussed, it is often said that this species retains its juvenile color and pattern, this being numerous dark olive gray to charcoal blotches against a ground color of straw yellow to olive. The head bears a dark "V," point forward. It is an attractive snake but is in no way flamboyant.

They are nervous snakes (and were especially so as hatchlings), but in the time I have had them neither male nor female have made any effort to bite. Neither are they confident enough of my occasional overtures to accept thawed mice from my hands. But both eat readily when each is gently moved to its own five gallon bucket containing the proffered meal, this now consisting of two extra large mice given at seven to 10 day intervals.

Bulgarian rat snakes have a reputation for being difficult to breed in captivity even when offered a three to four month period of hibernation. Although I am not altogether sure the snakes are quite big enough, I hope next spring, that if they are sexually mature, to to prove this wrong. The hibernaculum is ready and waiting and the snakes seem suitably heavy and very healthy. Wish us luck with this.

More photos under the jump...

Marfa, Tex., is about 1,400 miles from my home. So there and back is 2,800 miles, plus 500 or so miles for road-hunting side excusions. That adds up to around 3,400 miles total.

I had two questions before I left. One, would my little 4-cylinder 1996 Toyota RAV survive the trip, and two, would I survive the trip?

Guess what? The car and I both made it -- both a bit worse for the wear, but the entire trip was accomplished in three-and-a-half long days (and nights).

Why did I want to go to Marfa? Merely to see and photo desert box turtles, Terrapene ornata luteola. A decade earlier, Kenny Wray and I had traveled a roadway near Marfa during a rainstorm and had encountered numbers of desert box turtles. I had wondered over the subsequent years whether they were still present, and hoped to find out.



I crossed the Pecos River, the dividing line between the ornate box turtle (to the east) and the more westerly desert subspecies I sought. Only a couple of hundred miles were now between me and my destination. Three hours later I rolled in to Marfa, to be greeted at motel check-in by darkening and lowering clouds. Moments later, back on the road, I was enveloped in the first of several hellacious thunder storms containing road-obliterating rain.

The road I chose to drive was already awash, and the temperature was about 65 F. There were also acres of shallow standing water on the bordering prairie (now pastures) through which the roadway ran. A half mile up the road, there in the downpour, sat an adult female box turtle. Two miles further was another. Then on my return, I saw a beautiful male. Three more female box turtles followed, two on the second run and one on my final run of the day.

The next day, during more severe thunderstorms and temperatures in the low to mid-60s, 1.12 additional box turtles were found. Some were drinking from roadedge puddles, others were foraging for insects in the tall roadedge grasses. At about 5 PM, the sun broke through the heavy storm clouds. By dark the roads were again nearly dry and what water had been standing on the prairie had soaked completely in.

It was dark, I was cold, wet, hungry, and happy to have learned that this box turtle population still seemed secure. A night’s sleep, an attempt to see the eerie “Marfa Lights” (they were very active) and I’d be heading back to Florida before dawn.

More photos under the jump...

I can’t remember in what book I first saw a picture (a colored drawing, not a photo) of a European four-lined rat snake, but I do remember that I was still in elementary school when I learned of this snake.

The picture was of a large adult --pale body, the namesake striping dark and precisely defined. I thought the snake, although quietly colored, was a thing of beauty. And somehow, through a subsequent lifetime that has involved herps, invertebrates, fish, birds, and mammals, whenever rat snakes were discussed, at some point in the conversation a vision of this species, Elaphe quatuorlineata, has always popped up.

Despite the memories, it was actually about 65 years after seeing the drawing that I first saw this taxon in life -- in 2011, to be exact. After having tried and failed to acquire a pair of this European beauty over the years, I finally succeeded in getting three hatchling males from a German breeder.

As with many of our American rat snakes, the hatchling four-lines were very strongly blotched and gave no indication of the future lineate pattern. Today, the snakes are about three-and-a-half feet long, and the juvenile blotches are much less evident, the stripes are easily visible.



I have been promised a captive-hatched female from the German breeder in the spring of 2014 and am anxiously awaiting its arrival.

More photos under the jump...

The ornate box turtle, Terrapene ornata ornata, is the more easterly and northerly of the two Western box turtle subspecies. It ranges in suitable habitats (and disjunct populations) from northwestern Indiana to southeastern Wyoming and then southward to the Pecos and Rio Grande Rivers of Texas and eastward into southwestern Louisiana.

The easternmost range of the desert box turtle, T. o. luteola, begins at the Pecos River of Texas From there it ranges westward to southeastern Arizona and southward to northern Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico.

Of the two, the ornate is usually the darker, the more contrastingly marked, and, having nine or fewer radiations on costal scute number two, the less busily patterned.



From the desert box turtle side of the slate, at adulthood this latter usually has a muddier colored carapacial ground color, the light markings are less precise, and the busier pattern consists of ten or more radiations on carapacial scute number two.



Intergradation is well documented in a wide swath on both sides of the Pecos. Males of both subspecies have red irides. The irides of females are white.

Both subspecies of the western box turtle are strongly insectivorous, seemingly with a preference fof orthopterans (grasshoppers and crickets).

Desert box turtles often hunt down their orthopteran prey by walking slowly along the edges of roadways where the grasses are tall and the grasshoppers plentiful. I have watched them sidle along an inch away from and angled 30 to 45 degrees toward the overhanging road-edge grasses. A quick dart of the head and a grasshopper "bit the dust." The turtles seemed quite at home with this strategy and very successful in catching the insects.

I have also observed western box turtles (both subspecies) eating roadkill (lizards, anurans, rodents, lagomorphs, and spiders). It seems that olfactory senses play some part in finding dead items, for on one occasion I watched an insect-hunting female pivot suddenly while in insect-hunting mode and run almost 18 inches onto the pavement to consume a recently killed spadefoot.

Sadly, as seen by occasional box turtles that have themselves been traffic victims at other roadkill, eating roadkill places the turtles at considerable danger from traffic.

I don’t remember exactly how large these were when I got them. Seems that a carapace length of 2 or 2-and-a-half inches would be about right. Today, after five years with us, they measure in at about 10-and-a-half inches, and they’re still growing.

"They" are a pair of Asian giant wood turtles, Heosemys grandis. And I decided to get them because of fond memories of Henry.

Henry was the largest (straight measure carapace length of 16-and-a-half inches) and bulkiest Asian giant wood turtle I had ever seen. He was also the most arboreally inclined. And before I realized his arboreal inclinations, he escaped the large outside turtle pen twice.

At first I thought he had merely climbed the fence. Many "wood" turtles of several species are adept at this. I thwarted this possibility by nailing a several inch overhang all along the top of the fencing. But then Henry disappeared again. Some apartment-dwelling neighbors found Henry several days later nestled on the second floor in a corner of the stairwell. Thankfully he was returned. Whether he climbed or was carried was never actually determined. But we think he climbed.

Why do we think that? Simply because several months later, Henry disappeared again. We tried and tried to find him, but failed. Then one day he reappeared in the yard. Hmmmm, I thought, someone had found him and brought him home. A couple of days later Henry disappeared again. And we were just about to discontinue the search when a shaking in the center of a clump of Areca palms in the turtle yard drew my attention. And when I finally looked up, there sat Henry. He had found a half dozen trunks growing closely enough to enable him to wedge his shell between them and inch his way upward. There he sat, looking as if he belonged, about 15 feet above the surface of the mounded palm cluster. And over the years, until one of the palms died and it was no longer possible for him to climb, Henry would periodically return to his tree house.

The giant wood turtles I have now don’t seem to have any arboreal tendencies at all. But neither do we have clumped Areca palms growing in the pen nor are the turtles yet fully adult. Time, I guess, will tell.

More photos under the jump...

The color of the tiny, endangered Harlequin Mantella, Mantella cowani, makes it a perfect candidate for the alternative name of "Halloween Mantella."



Once sporadically imported for the American (and other) pet trade, it has been several years since it was last available. This frog occurs in high altitude forests and seasonally in wet grasslands in eastern central Madagascar.

As is often the case with localized herp species from areas that are difficult to access, very little is know with certainty about the biology and life history of the inch-long Harlequin Mantella. It is apparently diurnal. The clicking vocalizations of this frog have been heard from shallow stream edges and damp rock crevices. The fewer than 50 eggs are laid in protected damp leaf litter and mosses but the life of the tadpoles remains unknown.

Although no longer legally collected for the pet trade, continuing deforestation and other habitat modifications seemingly remain very real threats to the long-term existence of this remarkably beautiful, Liliputian anuran.

More photos under the jump...