Once thought to be restricted to southernmore locales, Cope's gray treefrog is now known to occur pretty much over the entire range of the gray treefrogs. This is Hyla chrysoscelis.
Two genetic terms, diploid and tetraploid come into play when discussing these 2 lookalike species, the Gray treefrog, Hyla versicolor and Cope’s gray treefrog, Hyla chrysoscelis. At one time it was thought the the two could be identified by range and/or call with versicolor being the more northerly and having the more slowly trilled, more pleasing (=musical) call. These are now known to be invalid criteria. A friend has found versicolor as far south as Tallahassee, FL and others have found chrysoscelis as far north as Michigan and Massachusetts.

So, exactly how do you separate these 2 common treefrogs? Well, unless you have a genetics lab available you do so inexactly. With a lab, chromosome count can be determined. The gray treefrog is tetraploid, having twice the number of chromosomes as the diploid Cope’s gray treefrog. Without the lab you’ll have to extrapolate and hypothesize, determining the findings of previous researchers for the frogs from a given locale, then comparing whether the calls are pleasant and rather slowly trilled or harsh and rapidly pulsed (almost like a rivetgun)—and of course this latter will only work on the males—the females are silent. And I still find that gray treefrogs are the more common in the northerly climes while Cope’s gray treefrogs are more common in the south.

So you should now be able to at least guess at the identification of the treefrog you are listening to or watching. And of course the name, “gray”, is definitive, right. Nope. While they are often gray, they might actually be a pretty green through shades of gray to almost white. But in all phases they do have a white marking beneath each eye and extensive orange in the groin region.

Have fun.

Most of the western slender glass lizards that we found were between 16 and 22 inches in total length.
Last summer Jake and I spent a few days in Kansas looking for western massasaugas and Plains hog-nosed snakes. We succeeded admirably on the rattler (learning in the process that the Kansas examples are as fast as the proverbial greased lightning and very quick to take fright) but failed on the hoggy.

But while we were busily failing on Heterodon we began taking note of the number of western slender glass lizards, Ophisaurus a. attenuatus that we saw. Not only were the anguids present but they were present in numbers, and in huge numbers at that. As the sun was dipping low in the west or, if you prefer, as the earth was spinning rapidly eastward, we would see first one, then another, then 3 or 4 more, all subadults, of this pretty, prominently striped, lizard. By the time we acknowledged failure with the hognose each night we would have seen 10 to 20 glass lizards. While the western slender glass lizard was no stranger to me, at no other place had I seen them in such numbers.

And of at least as much interest as the mere presence of the lizards was the fact that almost all had a full, original tail. Kansas! For me the state itself and remembrances of western slender glass lizards will be forever intertwined.

I actually successfully bred this male South Florida mole king with a smaller female--both commercially obtained.
Dratted snake! How many times—how many years—how many pure thoughts—does it take to find a live one? I’ve tried over and over and over again— and then tried again--alone and with Jake. Sum total? Zero alive!

Other friends have found this elusive snake, and acquaintances have found even more. But my total--1, found years ago as road jerky over near Okeechobee City. And that doesn’t count in my book. So, other than a tale of failure, what is the story here?

Well, here it is in shortened format: After Price described this snake (Price, R.M. 1987. Disjunct occurrence of mole snakes in Peninsular Florida, and the description of a new subspecies of Lampropeltis calligaster. Bull. Chicago Herpetol. Soc. 22 (9): 148) the “lamprophiles of which I am not one, began flocking to South Florida (shades of L. alterna!) looking hard for the mole king.

Some succeeded, many (me included) failed. But I did continue to look occasionally, and did so throughout the described range of the subspecies. It was early on that I found the DOR and began to note that even though infrequently seen the snake was collected by others for the pet trade. So, wanting to actually see one in the wild, I began looking a little more frequently. I found garter snakes, water snakes and rat snakes galore, and even an occasional Florida king, but not a single mole king. I got so used to failure that when friends found one, I sulked. Yes, I sulked, and I’m not even fond of kingsnakes of any flavor. But I’m even less fond of perpetual failure.

So I stopped looking, and did so just in time, because the genetic wizards have just elevated it from subspecies status to a full species, and there’s no sense in wasting more time looking for a subspecies when I could be wasting it looking for a full species!

OK, Jake. No more procrastination. It’s time to find one of these durn things. South Florida, here we come!