Florida Scrub Lizards, male foreground, female rear.
The state of Florida has a fair number of endemic herp species. There are Florida sand skinks, Crowned snakes of not one but of 2 species, Florida worm lizard (that, with an example having been found in south Georgia just became non-endemic) and several others. But one that we don’t hear much about is the Florida Scrub Lizard, Sceloporus woodi. Once fairly common in 4 well defined but well separated locales, this little member of the spiny lizard (also known as “swifts”) clan now seems reduced in numbers and may even have been extirpated in some regions.

Having a body length of less than 3 inches (the tail will add another couple of inches), the Scrub Lizard is one of the smaller members of the genus. The Scrub Lizard’s dark lateral stripe makes differentiating it from the Fence Lizard, Sceloporus undulatus, that lacks the stripe, a simple task. This Scrub Lizard, agile and alert, is sexually dimorphic. Adult males lack most dorsal markings between the dark lateral stripes while females have rather prominent dark, wavy, dorsal crossbands.

If startled while basking or foraging on the ground the Scrub Lizard usually darts for the nearest tree and puts a trunk or limb between it and the interloper. Small, alert, and fast—3 requisites for survival in what can be a hostile home range.

The yellow groin differentiates the Pickerel Frog from the Leopard Frogs.Pickerel Frog or Leopard Frog? The shape of the dorsal spots will tell. Or perhaps they won’t. It would be convenient if the dark markings of the Pickerel Frog, Rana palustris, always complied with the description most often attributed to it—squared or rectangular dorsal spots--- but the sad truth is that this is not always so. However, another field marking, that of having a yellow groin and underleg coloring does seem to be a constant. And you can always hope that the frog at which you are looking does have squared dorsal and dorsolateral blotches. Many do.

The Pickerel Frog is rather unique amongst the eastern ranids in that it produces a decidedly noxious skin secretion. The secretion can cause many human tears if the eyes are rubbed before hand washing. The secretion also seems sufficiently repulsive to render the anuran an unsuitable prey item for many snake species.

Overall, this brown spotted 3 ½” long, tan frog is common throughout its divided range. The eastern population ranges westward and southward from eastern Quebec to the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, then southward to northwest Alabama and southeast South Carolina. The western population ranges westward and southward to Western Wisconsin, then to east Texas and South Central Alabama, and Escambia County, FL. Between the two populations is a broad swath of what seems to be Pickerel Frog No Man’s Land.

The snoring call of this frog man be produced when the frog is fully exposed or when it is fully submerged. This frog may be encountered in moist meadows, near or in grassy puddles, bogs, and ponds, and may even enter caves. IOW it may occur wherever you would expect to find a frog and in some places that you might not expect one. They are not hard to find.

BTW, Lithobates is no longer the genus for the eastern ranids. They have been returned to Rana.

Levy County FL Corn Snake
Whether you call them Corn Snakes or Red Rat Snakes, this lithe constrictor is a wonderful and welcome species of the North American herpetofauna. Long before the advent of the Ball Python fury (perhaps 25 years ago), it was the Corn Snake that was the target of snake-keeper’s genetic manipulation. I make no pretense of remembering what color or pattern expression came first, second, or third, but there were soon dozens of choices that went from cheap to far more than I, being kind of a cheapskate, would ever consider paying.

But this blog isn’t about those days or hobbyist derived phases and morphs. Rather it is just to show you that Mother Nature needs no help when evolving beauty. These are 3 rather distinct corn snakes from southern Florida. One, kind of “cinnamony” from Levy County, one precisely marked form from the Everglades, and one, the old time “rosy Rat snake” from one of Florida’s southern Keys. I hope you enjoy seeing these as much as I enjoyed finding them.

"Squeeze" today. After 10 months of rehab he is able to use his legs again and is growing.
This little denizen of marshes, swamps, water carrying ditches, lake and pond edges and occasionally of backyard goldfish ponds ranges northward from Florida’s Key West to southern and central Georgia and extreme southeastern South Carolina. Adult Three-striped Mud Turtles, Kinosternon bauri, are normally 3 to 4 inches long, but may rarely reach 5 inches. Hatchlings are, as I describe them, about 17/25ths the size of a shiny new quarter. In other words, hatchlings are tiny. In fact, so tiny are they, and so close in color to the earthen nest from which they emerge, that unless they are moving it is very easy to step on and kill or debilitate a hatchling.

And that’s exactly what happened to “Squeeze”, a hatchling that had been brought, on the verge of death, crushed, with cattywampus legs, dehydrated, and misshapen, to Florida Wildlife Care. Eventually “Squeeze” wound up with us, and we began a restoration project that I felt sure would fail. It didn’t. But the resurrection took a long time—several months in fact, and on a small scale is still ongoing. It was only 3 weeks ago (Dec 2021) that Squeeze finally began using his (we of course have no idea whether it’s male or female) right front leg. Today, rather than swimming in circles he goes in a straight line—slowly but straight. And he has begun eating ravenously and has grown. Oh, his name? Patti called him that because his life had been so nearly squeezed out of him. But we now have hope, and I’m pretty sure that Squeeze does too. C’mon Squeeze!

After emerging from the forest this 6" long yellowfoot simply crossed the trail and disappeared on the other side.Patti and I were fortunate in being able to spend a good bit of time leading rainforest tours through various areas of the Peruvian rainforest. Depending on what our guests hoped to see we might have been following trails after dark in search of pit vipers, paddling kayaks in hope of seeing crocodile tegus, looking for green forest dragons in treefall areas, or simply meandering along forest pathways to see what we could see. All choices were wonderful, but I think I liked the daytime pathway walks the most. For it was on these we would occasionally meet one of my favorite herps, the Yellow-footed Tortoise, Chelonoidis denticulata.

In fact, it was only on these diurnal walks that we met these pretty chelonians. Sometimes they would be just sitting, legs mostly withdrawn, head and neck extended, soaking up the sunshine. At other times the tortoise might be strolling slowly along path edges nipping at whatever piece of forest vegetation that caught its eye. Sometimes they might only be bustling from one side of the trail to the other, leading us to the old why does a chicken cross the road query.

Despite being closely related to the red-footed tortoise, no variants have been designated for this species. Known to attain a straight measure of 28 inches, this tortoise is classed as the 5th largest land species.