During breeding or territorial disputes the throat of the male blushes to a brighter orange.
No, this attractive lizardis not extinct. But it has been about 35 years since this species has made an appearance in the American pet trade. But I still get inquiries regarding the lizard even though many of the askers are not old enough to have ever seen it.

As indicated by its common name, this 15 to 18-inch long (including the lengthy tail) is endemic to the lowlands of the Chilean Pacific coastal regions.

Of the family Teiidae, Callopistes maculatus is apparently of ancient lineage and is considered a forerunner of the tegus and other teiids. Dorsally it is multicolored, being bedecked in 4 rows of white-edged black spots on a brown back. Laterally there is a row of more poorly defined black-edged white spots. The gular region of males is orange and is brightest during courtship and aggressive interludes.

Food items include insects, other arthropods, small mammals such as nestling mice and rats, and carrion.

This is an oviparous species but little seems known about the breeding and hatching sequences.

And now to the pix of this pretty lizard.

This is the "Christmas Tree" Eyelashed Palm Pit Viper so favored by hobbyists.
Last week we discussed one of the more rarely seen of the Palm Pit Vipers, the Yellow-blotched, B. aurifer. This week let’s take a brief foray into the world of what is probably the best known and most variable member of the genus, the 2 to 3-foot long Eyelashed Palm Pit Viper, Bothriechis schlegelii. This is a slender snake with a strongly prehensile tail. The supraorbital “eyelashes” are legend. Despite being venomous, the variability of color and patterns and the fact that this snake is hardy attracts many hobbyists to this lowland Central American and northern South American pit viper.

Color? You name it. This snake can vary from the dullest of grays, with or without darker patterning, to the brightest of sunshine yellow, again with or without patterning. The gold-phase is often referred to as the “Orapel,” Spanish meaning gold and glittery. Then there are the greens, gray-greens, dull greens, or a hobbyist favorite, the “Christmas tree phase, this latter being a bright green with reddish patterning. The tiger phase, a golden snake with broad green banding is also a favorite.

This is a humidity loving snake that in its forested habitat may often be found at about face-level along bush and tree-shrouded watercourses. There it quietly waits for prey that includes small arboreal rodents, treefrogs, lizards and birds.

Along with the already mentioned attributes, hobbyists are now taking pride in designing enclosures for this quiet snake as rainforest replicas with living plants, perches, and occasionally with mini-waterfalls. Humidity is good, wetness is not.
I’ll close here by saying that although this is often a “laid back” and quiet species, as with any venomous snake, extreme care should be used when maintenance and or handling becomes necessary.

A profile of the Southeastern Slimy Salamander.
By Dick and Patti Bartlett

Plethodon grobmani, the Southeastern Slimy Salamander, is a creature of pinewoods habitats. It was once fairly common in our neighborhood. Today (2021) following several lengthy droughts and a major attack of pine bark beetles (and the resulting death of old pine stands), this salamander is almost unknown here. At the turn of the century I would go across the street, enter the pinewoods, and in a half hour search say “howdy-do” to about a dozen slimys. Compare that to my occasional searches over the last 10 years when my exact total was one—a single salamander-- and it was not in the best of shape. Of course, as already mentioned, most of the pine trees in that area are gone also, victims of the infestation of pine-bark beetles.

In other locales, where the pine bark beetle plague was less pronounced than here, this white-flecked black salamander remains easily found in pine and mixed woodlands. Like others of this, genus this salamander has no aquatic larval stage. The egg clutch is deposited in or beneath moist fallen pines and development, from the newly deposited eggs, through metamorphosis, to emergence as a miniature of the adults occurs in the egg capsule.