When I began my search for the beautiful Amazonian fringed leaf frog, it was nestled in the genus Agalychnis (pronounced Ag-ah-lick-ness) along with the more familiar red-eyed and blue-sided leaf frogs of Central America. By the time I had actually found it -- or it had found me -- the Amazonian fringed leaf frog and a more northerly relative lacking fringes had been reassigned to the bitypic genus Cruziohyla. It's full name was (and is) Cruziohyla craspedopus.



For years on every trip to Madre Selva Biological Preserve (on Peru's Rio Orosa, a tributary of the mighty Amazon) on night walks I had heard in one locale, from high in the canopy, the "burping" calls that I thought were those of the Amazon fringed leaf frog. But winter or summer, rain or clear, the frog was never seen.

And then one summer afternoon while I was photographing a few herps that had been found earlier, Rick (an entomologist) returned from a walk handed me a bag and said, "Devon said you'd want to see this." And he was so right. The bag contained one of the eagerly-sought leaf frogs.

After the whys and wherefores had been asked and answered, I learned that the frog had been found resting on a broad-leafed understory plant at the point in the trail where I had so often heard the calls that had so interested me.

And why had it so interested me? One look at the accompanying photos should answer that question.

More photos under the jump...

Somewhere, somehow, and I don't remember where or why, the first species of rat snake that I can remember seeing was a colored drawing in a book.

I seem to remember that the picture was simply captioned "Four-lined Rat Snake." and although other information was probably provided, I don't remember what this may have been. But I do know that I came away from that introduction with a firmly entrenched mind-picture of what a four-lined rat snake was supposed to look like. And as it turned out, for an American herper, it was an erroneous mind-picture.

Years later, after meeting a fair number of our "four-lined rat snakes" (as the yellow rat snake, Pantherophis obsoletus quadrivittata, was once known), I realized that there was a fly in the ointment. Our four-line was decidedly different than the one in memory.



Why was this, I wondered? With a few library visits I found out.

There was our American four-lined rat snake (then being ever increasingly referred to as a yellow rat), and there was a European four-lined rat snake, Elaphe quatuorlineata, and it was this latter I had first seen depicted.

OK. Now I could at least put names with faces (so to speak), and this made me feel a bit better. Following the advent of the Internet, finding pictures of the European species became a snap. But it was not until 2010 that I actually had a European four-line in hand. And that one, a hatchling, certainly did not look like the picture in the old book.

But by the time it was 3 years old, ontogenetic changes had changed the strongly blotched baby to the striped (lined) snake that had initially confused me so. It was a long wait but the end result well worth the time.

More photos under the jump...

Ninety days came and went. Three of the four eggs still looked good (one was infertile), but I was getting anxious now. Ninety days seemed to be the "magic duration" that it took most eggs of our various tortoise species to hatch, and these were showing no signs of pipping yet.

I guess I was more anxious than I normally am because the eggs were Indian star tortoises, Geochelone elegans, a species I had not bred before and about which I knew comparatively little.



The breeders had come from a friend who, after receiving them as hatchlings, had kept them for 13 years in Michigan. Deciding the beautiful tortoises needed different facilities, he passed them on to me.

Stars are more delicate than most species with which I work, but at least I could (and did) get them outside for most of the year, and the tortoises seemed to show their appreciation by breeding often and producing fertile eggs.

One hundred days of incubation came and went. My anxiety was turning to despair. Were the eggs really good or was I misreading the signs? 104 days. Bingo. One egg began pipping. 36 hours later a beautiful hatchling emerged.

At 108 days the second hatchling pipped, and at 112 days the third pipped. A few days following their emergence each hatchling was eating well. I was a happy camper.

More photos under the jump...

Gordy, Dennie and I were in southern Arizona. The three of us and all of the gear we thought would be needed for a 2-week trip were jammed into Gordy's little VW Bug. We had left Tucson behind an were now traveling westward on the narrow strip of pavement then known as the Ajo (pronounced Ah-ho) Road.



Now a major thoroughfare, in those long-ago days the road was seldom traveled and, on suitable nights, a herping Mecca, being crossed and recrossed by a wonderful array of reptiles.

We drove slowly, stopping to look at a glossy snake, a shovel-nosed snake, a banded gecko, a great plains toad, a Colorado River (now Sonoran Desert) toad. This was the good life for enthusiastic young herpers.

Then we came crossed a tiny creek and came into the Tohono O'odham (then Papago) Nation town of Sells. That it had recently rained was made apparent by the presence of a few puddles and a slight overflowing of the creek above its grassy banks. And from those now partially submerged emergent grasses along the freshened creek came a small but persistent chorus of "buzzing peeeents."

It took only a few minutes for us to locate several of the sources, beautiful inch and a half long green, black, and white toads. We had just met our first Sonoran Green Toads, Bufo (Anaxyrus) retiformis, arguably the most beautiful bufonid of the United States, and one that I still look up on every Arizona sojurn.

More photos under the jump...

It was back in the late 50s when, motoring down Route 27 in Hialeah, I heard a coarse, rattling call that I didn't recognize.

The rattle seemed to come from various areas along the shores of a roadside canal. Bird? Unlikely. It sounded more like an amphibian call. And after I pulled over and accessed the canal, an amphibian is exactly what it proved to be -- a cane (giant or marine) toad, Bufo (Chaunus ) marinus.



Today, after 60 years of introduction, the cane toad is rather generally distributed over most of Florida's southern peninsula. It is native to the southern Rio Grande Valley of Texas, and from there ranges naturally southward through much of Latin America.

In a failed attempt to control the sugarcane beetle, the cane toad has been introduced to and established in Australia. Although of admirable intent, the introduced toads failed at the intended objective and are now considered a totally unwanted, invasive species.

The very visible parotoid glands of this toad are comparatively immense and produce a virulent mixture of toxins. Despite this, it is often offered in the pet trade and makes a rather complacent, hardy captive. Just be sure to wash your hands well after handling the creature.

More photos under the jump...

Unlike the abundant eastern newts of the genus Notophthalmus, the black-spotted newt, Notophthalmus meridionalis, of southeastern Texas is among the rarest of American salamanders.



Because of the harsh habitat in which this very pretty 4-inch long salamander has evolved, it is largely restricted to the few permanent ponds within its range, and seldom strays more than a few feet from the water. This newt is aptly named, having many relatively large black spots both on the olive-green dorsum and rich orange venter.

The only black-spotted newts I have seen in the wild were found in the 1960s. Gordy and I stopped to listen to some frogs calling from a small, lilypad covered, roadside pond and there at pond-edge we saw a half dozen newts as well. Since then a few additional examples have been seen by field researchers, but I have not been among the lucky ones.

Despite its rarity in the wild, the black-spotted newt is bred successfully by several zoological parks. Many hundreds are in captivity and several wild populations have been augmented by the release of captive raised examples.

More photos under the jump...

Rather than herping, on the one morning I had decided to try to find an elegant trogon, I found not one, not two, but three beautiful northern black-tailed rattlesnakes, Crotalus molossus molossus.



I also finally saw the trogon. It sat low in a trailside tree that itself sat behind a number of grass-rimmed boulders. I slowed, tried to focus on the bird, but having only a 100 mm macro lens with me was dissatisfied with the image.

I slowed and edged between the rocks while watching the bird intently. Just one more step -- just one more was all it would take. I lifted the camera to my eye, prepared to take that final step, and a rattler buzzed from almost beneath my feet. I jumped, the camera dropped, and the trogon flew.

Whoever it was that coined the phrase "birding and herping don't mix" was sure on target that day. But after carefully retrieving my camera and determining all was well with it, I at least got pix of the black-tail.

The bird? Unbeknown, but it's probably still in panicked flight!

More photos under the jump...

Northern Pacific rattlesnakes, Crotalus oreganus oreganus, are variably colored and patterned. All are attractive in a "rattlesnakey" sort of way, but seldom do I see one that I think to be more noteworthy that the last.

But this belief was changed when on a herping trip to the Pacific Coast a friend showed me one of his favorite captive "Norpac" rattlers.



At a glimpse I could easily see why it was his favorite, and neither before nor since have I seen what I consider its equal.

More photos under the jump...

Feeding day for the snakes had rolled around once more and I had just one more hungry mouth to feed. This was my male Everglades rat snake, Pantherophis obsoletus rossalleni.

Now three years old, this pretty snake has been a sporadic feeder since hatching. Sometimes he will eat two or more times consecutively, but as often as not he will refuse the offered food at least once out of every two times.

This was a day he didn't choose to eat. But, as always, I left him in the feeding bucket with his thawed mouse hoping he'd change hismind (he didn't).

But at one time, when checking him, I neglected to relock the bucket. The result was, as might be expected, that when I checked the next time, the snake was gone.

The "critter" room is pretty well escape-proof but try as we might, neither Patti nor I could find a trace of that snake.

As it turned out, we really shouldn't have worried. The next afternoon, as the sun warmed the room's southern wall, I was cleaning a few cages when I glanced up and there, emerging from behind one picture, his anterior already draped over another, was the missing rat snake.



All was well with the world again. Now if I can only remember to lock things when it's necessary...