Rainy, clear, muggy, rainy, clear, rain, clear -- it was yoyo weather all day yesterday. Jake and I headed north a few miles and the high humidity and intermittent rain induced mile after mile of amphibian choruses.

Green treefrogs, Hyla cinerea, squirrel treefrogs, Hyla squirella, pine woods treefrogs, Hyla femoralis, oak toads, Bufo quercicus, and little grass frogs, Pseudacris ocularis honked, churred, ratcheted, peeped, and twittered.

Even a couple of rat snakes had attempted to cross, but were fatally intercepted by vehicles.

So we planned on making an amphibian evening of the jaunt. But then the breezes shifted, the high humidity and low pressure almost instantly replaced by cooler winds, high pressure, cleared skies, low humidity and a temperature drop.

An hour after hearing the immense choruses the marshes were almost silent. Ours proved to be a dry run.

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Do you remember a day before kingsnake.com?

I do, and I don't even have to think very hard to do so.

Not only was there no kingsnake.com, there were no computers, either. I can remember those long ago days when my herp interest was fueled by monthly price lists brought to us by the now-struggling USPS.

One of the first companies I can remember was Quivira Specialties. Owned by Charles E. and May D. Burt, it was from this Topeka, KS, wonderland that I purchased my first Texas horned lizard (85c), green anole (65c), neonate boa constrictor ($4.65), Mexican jumping beans (I don't remember the cost), and dozens of other natural history-related items. And all were delivered to me for pennies via the USPS!

Over the years other companies came and then disappeared, leaving in their wake collections of orange, pink, tan, fluorescent green, and bright blue catalogs that listed herps and are now considered collector's items.

But back to Quivira for a moment. Besides their price lists, Quivira Specialties left another legacy. For the last 50+ years Italian wall lizards, Podarcis muralis, and Western (European) green lizards, Lacerta bilineata, escaped and established, have bred in Topeka. To this day the former can be easily found and, although you'll have to work harder to find them, pockets of the beautiful green lizards continue to exist.

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Failure. Yep, failure. It looked for a while as if my Caatinga horned frogs, Ceratophrys joazierensis, had decided to breed.

The male vocalized extensively, the female allowed amplexus, and then a super cold front rolled in and even with heaters on the room cooled, the frogs separated, moved over to an area of deep sphagnum, burrowed down, and formed cocoons!

That was in mid-January and now, in late April, the perpetually warmer weather has roused them. Having ended their prolonged fast, both frogs are again avidly accepting nightcrawlers.

The other night Grumpy, the male, emitted a few half-heared vocalizations. I'm thinking that its almost time to reactivate the rain chamber. Almost -- but not quite yet.

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Oink, oink, oink! Gordy and I had just left Frank Weed's home and had been told by Frank Jr. that we should beware the large number of adult feral hogs in the area.

Then I heard it: Oink, oink, oink! Not knowing exactly what a feral hog sounded like, I stopped in my tracks.

We were walking the marsh edge along Route 84 a bit east of Andytown, FL. Unless you're darn near as old as I, I'll bet you don't remember either that marsh OR Andytown. But in those days there was no Interstate, Routes 27 and 84 were only two lanes wide, and Andytown existed (if only consisting of a general store perched on the not too busy southeast corner of 27 and 84). And there were billboards -- the old-timey ones with a wooden superstructure that were loved while still standing by rat snakes, corn snakes, and skinks and sought as cover by a host of other herp species when they collapsed. In other words, we were in "herp central."

But it was kingsnakes, not rat snakes, that we were hoping to see as we walked the swamp edge along Route 84. Banded water snakes were abundant and finally I saw a king. Success. I bent down to pick the snake up and from just a few feet away in emergent vegetation came a series of "oinks." Oh me!

I hastily looked around for something sturdy to climb knowing in my mind that I was about to be besieged by a herd of ravening hogs. Imagine my humiliation when I found later that day that I had almost been treed by a pig frog, Rana grylio.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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...

The lament from an old country song ,"You slip through my fingers just like quicksilver," describes the most unusual-appearing of the American skinks perfectly.



Long placed in the monotypic genus Neoseps, the Florida sand skink is now known as Plestiodon reynoldsi. This fossorial skink is highly specialized for a life of burrowing in the sugar-sand locales (often low dunes) of central Florida.

Although four limbs are present, they are tiny. The forefeet bear only a single toe each and the slightly larger rear limbs bear two toes each.



The eyes are small and the lower eyelids each have a transparent "window." Despite the very real limb-size reduction, this silvery 3-1/2 to 5 inch long lizard is alert, remarkably agile, and very difficult to hold.

Whether found by accident or as the result of a concerted effort its response to the light is immediate and decisive: it dives headfirst into the sugar-sand and within a fraction of a second has disappeared into the substrate for which it is so very well-adapted -- and named.

Along the side of the road that had traversed the driest-appearing of desert lands, a small sign proclaimed the presence of a spring.

A widened parking spot beckoned us to stop for a few moments and stretch our legs. We found the little spring, and, while limbering up from the long drive, checked the area over carefully for herps and birds to photograph.

We found little, but as it turned out, a most impressive find found us. We were standing next to a treefall when a fleeting movement among the broken limbs caught our eye. Whatever had made the motion had disappeared again and we had no idea of what the perpetrator was.

That we decided to stand quietly for a few more minutes proved a wise decision. After about five minutes we noted more motion, this about 3 feet away from the initial occurrence. And as we watched a shiny tan lizard head pushed above the twigs and a beady eye watched us intently.



We remained as motionless as possible and a minute or two later the lizard felt secure enough to emerge a little further. Following an elapse of another several minutes the lizard was finally lying fully in a patch of sun. And a rarely seen lizard it was. By accident we had happened into the habitat of the beautiful Panamint alligator Lizard, Elgaria panamintina, just as one lizard had become active for the day.

And to make the sighting even more memorable, the lizard appeared to be a gravid female! Now that's luck!

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A half dozen intrepid explorers walked a narrow forest trail on Madre Selva Preserve in Amazonian Peru, each apparently stepping over a patch of leaves on the trail. They walked a few hundred yards beyond, then turned and retraced their steps.

As they neared the bit of leaf cover on the return trek, the head of a small snake was seen protruding from beneath the leaves. Carefully collecting the snake, they brought with them to the field station the only pygmy black-backed coral snake, Leptomicrurus scutiventris, we have yet seen there.

The snake was photographed and released exactly where it had been found -- note that a single ring of yellow on the head and one or two rings of orange on the tail are the normal pattern for this snake:



This species attains a length of about 18 inches but is usually smaller. Remaining is the question of whether this tiny elapine snake is actually rare or merely secretive? But for those of you who believe the red to yellow rhyme (red to yellow, kill a fellow; red to black, venom lack) infallible, take note. This is just one of the many neotropical coral snakes to which the familiar ditty does not apply.

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There are times that things are not at all as they initially seem. For example, there was that night when I was moving slowly from bridge to bridge along a small creek on Madre Selva Preserve in Amazonian Per looking intently for aquatic coral snakes. Usually common, this coral was proving difficult to find on this trip.

While I was studying the bottom of a shallow pool, a large fallen leaf began moving slowly away. My interest quickly changed from coral snake to the "moving leaf." The water was silted and the moving object was further obscured by fallen leaves. But it took only a few moments for recognition to occur.

Well-camouflaged though it was, I was looking at a common Suriname toad, Pipa pipa. And that one sighting had turned what had been a rather slow herping trek into a memorable stroll.



Suriname toad facts:

This anuran is a member of the family Pipidae, the tongueless frogs.

The eyes are small and lidless.

The fingers are tipped with tactile skin flanges and prey is literally shoveled into the tongueless mouth with the forefeet.

After a complex breeding sequence the eggs are placed on the female's back and are soon covered by skin.

The eggs undergo full development while being carried by the female. At hatching the toadlets are fully metamorphosed miniatures of the adult.

This species is fully aquatic.

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For several years I traveled the USA extensively from border to border and from coast to coast, gathering photos and bits of information for our planned herpetological field guides. Always, at some point during my western jaunts, the blunt-nosed leopard lizard, Gambelia sila, came to mind.



This lizard was, I knew, a very localized federally endangered California endemic, and to have even a chance at seeing it I would have to travel to one of several areas where it still existed. So on one hot summer day I decided to visit the almost perpetually dry Carrizo Plains in search of the lizard.

By the time I arrived at this amazing and vast arid region and had bypassed the sentinel burrowing owls, had marveled at a Northern Pacific rattlesnake coiled tightly in the shade of a roadside creosote bush, and stopped to look at a Botta's pocket gopher as it trundled along, it was early afternoon. The sun beat down from a cloudless sky and the heat was so intense that I doubted I would succeed in my quest.

Actually, I had no trouble at all. As I drove slowly along, I startled a small whiptail that darted up and over the low berm. Deciding that I wanted to photograph the lizard if possible, I bolted from the car, the lizard camera in hand. The whiptail stopped for a moment beneath a creosote bush, began to move off again but was almost instantly seized by a large lizard that had appeared as if by magic at the mouth of a burrow.

The aggressor was a blunt-nosed leopard lizard, the very lizard that had drawn me to the Carrizo Plains. Success!

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"Dick," Ken said,"I've decided to part with my puff adder (Bitis arietans). Would you want it?"



I knew this to be a beautiful snake that was in perfect health so, although I had no experience with anything more sinister than a northern copperhead, after an impassioned plea to my mother (I was still living at home then), the answer was yes, yes indeed, I did want the snake.

And thus began the first of my many experiences with the variable and hardy puff adder. I had read of their proclivity for burrowing and within a few days I had watched this heavy bodied snake shuffle its way beneath leafy litter and well down into its sandy substrate. I had learned that it was an accomplished ambush predator, the venom of which could kill a food rodent within seconds. I was certain that it was not a snake that would want to run afoul of. I watched it strike forward from a lateral "S," and I found that it could strike quickly and accurately to either side and occasionally for a few inches straight up.

That was my first puff adder, but certainly not my last. And from that snake my interest burgeoned to the numerous congenerics, to Gaboon vipers, rhinoceros vipers, horned adders, and more, all subjects of future posts!

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"What kind of snake have you not seen that you would like most to see?"

The question was posed by Sandy, a first time participant in our herp-tours to the Peruvian Amazon. I thought for a moment and then replied, "Bothriopsis bilineata smaragdinus, the Western two-lined forest pit viper."



Where would you expect to see it?" Sandy then asked.

My prompt answer was "Somewhere along the trail we will be on tonight." Then no more was said on the subject.

That afternoon it rained a bit, promising a hot and humid night walk along a wet trail. In other words, a rather typical rainforest walk was the evening agenda.

Darkness comes quickly on the equator. By the time we finished supper, the velveteen darkness had enveloped us. Flashlights were activated, spare batteries were pocketed, and we were outward bound on a 2-mile long circular trail. The trail was slippery, muddy in spots, and we moved slowly, stopping to look at a treefrog, a planarian, a tailless whip scorpion, or a sleeping lizard every few feet.

Finally at the half way point we stopped for a "breather." Our guides forged on ahead to ascertain that the trail was not obscured by a treefall or other such natural impediment. A few of us stood talking, and then Sandy quietly asked, "Is this one of the snakes you wanted to see?"

Next to the path, at shoulder height, she had found a neonate Bothriopsis! And before we left the area the group had found three more. Sandy definitely got the "attagirl" award on that trip.

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The blunt-headed tree snake, Imantodes cenchoa, is occasionally found coiled quietly in an orchid or bromeliad during the hours of daylight. But after darkness has fallen, this pencil-thin, 3-foot-long rear-fanged snake uncoils, and slowly and quietly, but actively, joins the ranks of nocturnal predators.



Its slender build -- proportionately as slender as many of the vine snakes -- enables the blunt-head to access and forage through the slenderest of twigs, sites often preferred by sleeping anoles and geckos, both favored prey of this common opisthoglyphid (rear-fanged) snake species.

Most of our sightings of this interesting little snake have occurred in the Peruvian Amazon. Here, in this snake's stronghold, we have rarely not seen at least one on our nocturnal herping walks and have on some of the best nights seen up to ten of the bug-eyed, brown saddled arborealists. They never fail to evoke positive comments from the viewers.

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It was a late March evening, and Jake and I were out looking for spotted skunks to photograph.

Our locale was south-central Florida, and we were driving slowly along a white sand road, stopping here and there to photo some bird or an ever-changing sunset. Darkness was gathering, and by the time we turned and retraced our path, owls were active.

As we got to a short stretch of road that was bordered on both sides by marshland, Florida banded water snakes, Nerodia fasciata pictiventris, began crossing. Most were yearlings, some were quite thin, but others were of robust build.



Many were somberly patterned with dark bands against a somewhat lighter ground color but a few bore pretty, dark edged bands of red against a paler gray ground.

And then there was the one that was of noticeably brighter color than the others and, as always, it was the one that got away while, fumbling in the darkness, I failed to get the camera activated.

As quickly as it had begun, the crossing event was over. Although we drove that short stretch of road several more times that night we saw only one other water snake. And although we smelled them, we saw no spotted skunks at all. Right time, right place for the snakes and exactly the opposite for little black and white mephitines.

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Everybody knows Kermit. You know, Kermit, the bug-eyed green frog who is Miss Piggy's paramour?

Well, take a look at the pix of the common polkadot treefrog, Hyla (Hypsiboas) punctatus, an Amazonian species, and see if you don't note a strong resemblance?



The Polkadot Treefrog is one of the most common of the many Amazonian anurans. It is also one of the most variable, undergoing routine day to night color changes. This little hylid is normally green by day with either yellow or red polkadots and red by night with at least vestiges of darker red dots. A thin red dorsolateral line is present on each side no matter the ground color.

Males are the smaller sex and are adult at about 1 and three-quarter inches. Occasional females may attain 2 and a half inches in length.

This treefrog may call by both day and night from the security of floating or emergent vegetation. Floating rafts of water hyacinths or water lettuce provide ideal habitat.

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Of the many wonderful lizards in the rainforest of the Peruvian Amazon region, the persistently arboreal Amazon monkey anole, Polychrus marmoratus, is one that we are always very happy to find.



It is not an uncommon lizard, but it is so well camouflaged that it can be difficult to see. Although diurnal, as most of the related anoles are, rather than moving about in bursts of speed as the anoles are wont to do, when the monkey anole moves it is in a stealthy, hand-over-hand method reminiscent of the movement of true chameleons.



But with that said, the monkey anole is just as apt to sit quietly and depend upon its camouflage to avoid detection. The color is of some shade of green (occasionally bluish green) and there are broad paler bands that are edged in black. This medium sized lizard attains an adult size of about 14 inches, but the semi-prehensile tail accounts for two-thirds of that length.

I still recall the first adult Amazon forest dragon, Enyalioides laticeps, that I ever encountered. Well after darkness had fallen, we were slowly walking on a forest trail. Lightning had been spearing the heavens for some time and the rumble of thunder was drawing closer.

Not yet familiar with the vagaries of rainforest storms, I wondered at the sudden rustling sounds in the canopy high overhead. "Rain," I was told, "the storm is here."

I learned that night that the trickle-down effect of even a hard rainfall can take a few minutes to penetrate the canopy, but penetrate it did, and within seconds we were all soaked. We decided to continue outward for another few minutes, then reverse and return to camp.

For some reason I wandered from the path and was "bush-whacking" when on a head-high limb I spied a lizard. It was about a foot long, bright green, and --and it looked like an immature green water dragon! What, I asked myself, could this be?

It took only a bit of research to learn the identity of the lizard. Despite the similarity in appearance, rather than being in the family Agamidae like the water dragon, the forest dragon is a member of the family Hoplocercidae.

On subsequent trips I found the Amazon forest dragon to be a common lizard that was frequently encountered sleeping soundly at night on trees and vines a few feet above the ground. It varied in color from green to a reticulated brown and green. It is now an eagerly sought target species on every tour.

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In contrast to the emerald tree boa, which is orange as a baby and green as an adult, the rusty whipsnake, Chironius scurrulus, reverses the scenario.

Hatchlings of this forest speedster are leaf green, blending well with the rainforest verdure:



The adults, which may attain a length of 7 feet, are predominantly a beautiful burnished rusty orange but may have a varied number of scattered charcoal scales.

The juveniles seem to feed primarily on hylid frogs and possibly lizards, while the adults eat amphibians, fish, lizards, and perhaps small mammals. We usually encounter the juveniles in shrubs along creek edged forest trails and the adults along the larger rivers.

This is a nonvenomous snake but it will not hesitate to strike and bite if carelessly restrained.

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Green snakes can be hard to find against the verdure of the forest canopy. This has definitely been the case with this taxon, the emerald palm snake, Philodryas viridissimus.



In 20 years of searching, I have not had one in hand and have only see a single sleeping example that I thought to be of this species. It was high in a tree and sped into the darkness (probably unhappily so, since they seem to be diurnal) when I tried to climb the tree.



This beautiful snake is adult at 3 feet in length. It feeds on lizards, frogs, nestling birds and small mammals. An opisthoglyphid species, it has enlarged rear teeth, a relatively potent venom, and is not hesitant to bite if carelessly restrained. Both gender are deep green above, a bit lighter ventrally, and have a white to pale green chin and throat. Males have a blue face.

What is green, gray, or red, with or without vestiges of bands, and is usually found in quiet Amazonian shallows?



If you guessed the velvety swamp snake, Liophis typhlus, you were right. But the chances are you didn't guess this, for it is a seldom heard of, although common, semiaquatic snake. The majority of this species that we have found have been at riveredge or crossing forest trails on rainy nights.

When startled, the snake may bite or flatten and expand their neck in cobra-hood style. Several individuals have regurgitated frogs or frogs' eggs when captured.

To date, we have found far more green examples that red or gray, but all colors are seen with some regularity. Time to head south again and add to the memories.

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To us, the emerald tree boa of the Amazon Basin, Corallus batesii, is a fictional species.



Well, actually, we all know that it exists. It is just that it doesn't exist for us -- at least in situ.

For more than 20 years we have sought this beauty. For the same number of years it has evaded our every effort. It has been found one river upstream and one river downstream. It has been found on tributaries across the Amazon. But on the Rio Orosa, the small tributary on which Madre Selva Biological Preserve is located, we have not been able to find a single individual of this magnificent arboreal boid.

We have searched by day and by night, in wet weather and in comparative dryness, on sunny days, rainy days, cloudy nights and clear nights. And we'll keep trying. You've heard of the shot heard around the world? Well, when we succeed in finding this snake, be it big or small, a white marked forest green adult or a similarly marked but orange neonate, it will be our victory cry that is heard around the world.

More photos under the jump...

With its Pinocchio nose and leaf green dorsumm the green vine snake, Oxybelis fulgidus, is an eagerly sought species on each of our Peruvian rainforest tours.



We occasionally see this interesting diurnal snake while it is active during the day. However, most are found while they are sleeping, coiled loosely in a palm or tree crotch.

At 5.5 feet in total length, this pretty rear-fanged snake is also of proportionately greater girth than its congeners. A narrow white line separates the forest green dorsal and lateral color from the somewhat lighter belly.

Lizards, frogs, nestling birds and tiny mammals such as mice and mouse opossums are eaten.

More photos under the jump...