A typical mole salamander, tigers spend most of their life underground.
Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day! Those are 10 words you'll probably never hear Jake or me say. We like amphibians, amphibians like moisture, therefore we welcome rain with the proverbial open arms. Not that we actually have much choice anyway. But on 14 December a wonderful frontal system decided we needed moistening. It pulled into the region on silent feet (meaning very little thunder and lightning) at 0200 hrs and slowly moved over us for the next 30 hrs, dumping as it passed up to 4" of water. So on the evening of 15Dec we went amphibian-ing. We were hoping to see and photo (our cameras love hard rain---not!) at least 3 target species--southern chorus frogs, ornate chorus frogs (more on these 2 anurans in later blogs), and tiger salamanders. We went, we looked, we succeeded--and that was noteworthy because we had failed on earlier occasions. The wonderful eastern tiger salamander, Ambystoma tigrinum, is the largest terrestrial caudatan in the east. Although it has an immense range, occurring from Long Island, New York to Northwest Minnesota, southward to East Texas and Northwest Florida, over much of this range it is of local distribution and the suitable habitats, containing the ephemeral ponds preferred as breeding sites, are being reduced by drought and construction on an almost daily basis. The reduction of the needed habitats, combined with commercial collecting for biological supply houses and the pet trade, can have disastrous and long term results on this species.

Besides the above mentioned problem, increased vehicular traffic has made access to their breeding ponds more hazardous, and in some cases nearly impossible, for tiger salamanders. Speaking for the Florida situation, recent observations seem to indicate that the breeding populations are now comprised of fewer adults, making each remaining individual of paramount importance to the continued success of the increasingly vulnerable populations.

If any of their variable colors could be considered normal, it is this phase with the mossy green ground color.
I have always been enamored of arboreal vipers, be they of the America’s, Africa, or Asia. I was so infatuated with them that at one time Patti and I kept and bred, or at least tried to breed, 30+ species. But, truth be known, although I found all of interest and beautiful, over the years two of my favorites became and remained, 2 of the more commonly seen Central and South American species, the 2-lined forest pit vipers, Bothriopsis bilineatus, and the eyelashed pit piper, Bothriechis schlegelii. Why these 2? I just don’t know. But even between the two I favored one over the other, this being the eylashed species.

Perhaps it was the ease with which this variably colored snake could be housed, fed, and bred. Or perhaps it was the overall hardiness. Then again, I guess that it could have been the remarkable and entirely natural variability of color. You like ‘em green, the eyelashed viper comes in several naturally occurring phases that vary from a dusky forest green to pale green. If you like something different and don’t mind searching a little, you will likely be able to find an orange –red, a yellow-orange, a bright yellow (the latter is known as the “oropel” phase), or a yellow with greenish or dusky bands (the “tiger” phase).

It was many years after I had acquired my first trip of eyelashed vipers that Patti and I had an opportunity to meet this snake in the wild. We went to Costa Rica. Patti called it a Honeymoon. I called it a herping trip. On the first afternoon, after walking a rainforest trail and marveling at poison frogs and minute geckos, as we walked back to our hotel I glance at a small banana tree that edged the path and stopped dead in my tracks. I was looking at a small grayish B. schlegelii! I hadn’t even known they came in that color.

Since then I have seen a few others in the field. Admittedly, not many, but among those seen have been an oropel and one of mossy green. What wonderful snakes!

This snake has an interesting defensive display during which it opens its mouth widely and faces the perceived threat. The snake will bite if threatened and envenomation has resulted in human death.