The tortoise, a foot long African spurred tortoise, Geochelone (Centrochelys) sulcata, had been dropped in the tortoise yard. In the morning we had no African spurred tortoise and didn't really want one, then in the afternoon we had one. Spontaneous turtle and tortoise acquisition had happened to us before, but this was our first unaccounted for spurred tortoise.



We weren't really surprised. Over the years, a fair number of feral examples of this big Sub-Saharan tortoise had been found in North Central Florida. But because of its burrowing proclivities it was a species that we didn't particularly want.

Yet here it was and it appeared to be in good condition, so we decided to let it stay for a while. It ate and it grew. 18 inches came and went. It ate more and it grew more. 24 inches! And it wanted more and more food. But at least it wasn't burrowing. It spent the nights in a big heated (when needed) tortoise house.

Then one day it didn't come out of the house to forage. Well, it (and we) were entitled to a day off. It didn't emerge the next day either. On the 3rd day it emerged wearing a huge pyramid of soil on its carapace.

Uh oh.

Time to check, but something intervened and several additional days went by. To check we had to move the big tortoise house and that was always a chore. When we moved the house, I deeply regretted that we had waited. The interior of the tortoise house was almost filled with the dirt from an immense burrow that went far back beneath the foundation of our house. Left to its own devices, it looked like the tortoise was headed for Sydney, Australia and our house wouldn't be far behind. The sulcata was unreachable. I'd have to await his next emergence, temporarily cage him, then check the burrow and somehow remove smaller tortoises that were assuredly utilizing this haven.

It took some doing, but a day later the big sulcata was surprised while eating, two smaller tortoises were removed from the burrow, and the hole was refilled. And our house still sits solidly on its foundation - I think. Did I mention that we no longer have any sulcata?

About a half a mile from our house there is a small drainage culvert that channels water from a small neighborhood lake and wetland, beneath a busy highway, and into the Paynes Prairie basin. Various herps at various times utilize this culvert to assuage their various needs. Patti and I occasionally visit the canal just to see what creatures happen to be present at different times.



Sometimes we're surprised, sometimes we're not. When the water is flowing strongly it may attain a depth of about a foot. More normally it is 8 inches or less deep. Sometimes the culvert is totally dry and during droughts it may remain dry for weeks or even months on end.

But when times are good and the water is gurgling through this tiny culvert, I am provided with as good a chance at seeing a greater siren, Siren lacertina, or a two-toed amphiuma, Amphiuma means, as any other locale I know. One night when Mike and I stopped by we were happy to see hundreds of bluefin killifish. A Florida banded water snake or two is not an unusual find.

Patti made what was probably the most unexpected and most memorable find . We were passing the culvert one night and decided to check it out. Patti, being much more nimble than I, clambered down the slope to the culvert to see what wonders of nature awaited her scrutiny. Headlight gleaming, she peered into the culvert, made an immediate exclamation and scurried back up the slope.

"What's the hurry?" I asked. "

"Look over the edge," Patti said.

I did and leaning as far forward as I dared I could barely see the tip of a rounded black object.

She had come nose to nose with a 10 foot alligator, Alligator mississippiensis, that was sheltering quietly in the culvert.

We both decided that we had enough of herping for the evening.

Florida is home, at least in small part, to seven species of water snakes of the genus Nerodia.



One species, the Mississippi green water snake barely enters the state on extreme western tip of the panhandle. The midland water snake, a subspecies of the northern water snake, is found from the central panhandle to the western tip. Two subspecies of plain-bellied water snakes (the yellow-bellied and the red-bellied) are also panhandle species.

One or another of the three subspecies of the salt marsh snakes may be found along almost all of Florida's extensive coastline, but are absent from St. Augustine northward on the Atlantic Coast. Two of the three subspecies of the southern water snake, the Florida and the southern, occur in suitable habitats throughout the state (save for the Florida Keys).

The southern subspecies is restricted in distribution primarily to the state's panhandle. Except for a small area in northeastern Florida you may happen across the Florida green water snake. But of them all, the seventh species, the brown water snake, Nerodia taxispilota, is the only one to occur throughout all of mainland Florida (the possible exception being a narrow strip along the state's extreme environmental nightmare, the southeastern coastline).

All too often, the brown water snake is mistaken for a cottonmouth ("water moccasin"). This is sad; other than each having a feisty disposition, the two are not even vaguely similar. Having a heavy body and a verified length in excess of five and a half feet, the brown is one of the larger water snakes. The three rows of dark brown markings are usually square in shape and unless the snake is unusually dark or the pattern is obscured by a patina of mud, the markings are evident throughout the snake's life.

The brown water snake utilizes a variety of habitats: canals, swamps, and rivers among them. The snake may often ascend several feet above the water surface to seek a basking spot in an overhanging tree.

Dan and I had been dipping for dwarf siren and then road hunting for several hours. At 4:00PM, we found ourselves on a sand road south of the "Big Lake" (Lake Okeechobee) and we were about ready to call it a day. Dan had to drive back to Miami and I to Gainesville. Fair distances, both.

We were on what we decided would be our last drive of the day along the long dirt road. The drive northward had been uneventful and we were almost to the end of our southward return.

Snake!



A fair-sized, heavy-bodied snake was crawling slowly onto the road. From a distance we had thought it to be a cottonmouth. No great prize, but when herping is slow any and all herps are a welcome sighting. As we neared and the snake crawled farther on to the road it became apparent that it wasn't a cottonmouth - it was an eastern hog-nose.

This made what had been a rather blah day a really nice one. But it was about to get even better. As we photographed the female that was now almost across the road, an adult male crawled out of the edging grasses about 6 inches from where we first saw the female.

Bingo. Breeding time! And then from about 20 feet farther down road a second male was sighted. Dan and I spent considerable time taking photos and when we left we were both smiling.

Letters (remember the days when correspondence was via written letters?) were zipping back and forth from Tampa to Karachi. Jerry mentioned having just collected a "nice" half grown whiskered viper (also known as the McMahon's or leaf-nosed viper), Eristicophis mcmahoni from Balochistan.



Since he was going to ship me a couple of hundred leopard geckos in a week, he was wondering whether I might want the snake as well. My answer was "yes, you bet I want it." About two weeks later, I was settling a whiskered viper into a sandy terrarium. And to say I was enamored with the beast would be a monumental understatement.

Whiskered vipers are not colorful but what they lack in that respect is more than made up for by their impressively defensive attitude. Until recently, when I decided to not keep "hots" any longer, whenever possible I had an Eristicophis or two in the collection. Although I have never succeeded in breeding this taxon, I have found them hardy and very responsive - the kind of snake that will meet you at the top of its terrarium to accept food from long forceps.

If startled this snake will inflate its body and exhale loudly and/or assume an "S" position and rub the scales together producing a very audible rasping sound.

Like many desert or savannah snakes, the whiskered viper is an ambush hunter that sinks all but its eyes and nostrils just below the surface of loose sand. From this position they are able to strike and envenomate their prey of unwary lizards or rodents .

Males, the smaller sex, are adult at less than a foot and a half. Females may near thirty inches in length but are usually only about two feet long.

"Corn snake!"

"Where?"

"My side about 3 feet off the road"



I slammed on the brakes and Jake, piling out of the car, ran back about 40 feet and stooped to pick up a 30" long corn that I would never have seen. Young eyes are good! And Jake's eyes, having the image of a snake burned time again on the retina are super in seeing off-the-road serpents.

Actually, neither Jake nor I had any particular need for a corn snake, Pantherophis guttatus guttatus. We just happened to be in Levy County hoping to hear ornate chorus frogs (a species that is becoming difficult to find). Having arrived an hour or so before dusk, and since temperatures were still fairly warm, we decided to roadhunt for a while before heading for the swamps and marshes.

So far we had seen 2 crossing garter snakes of the blue-striped variety, a cottonmouth, and now this corn snake. We always enjoy taking photos, so a few minutes were spent doing so.

The corn snakes of western Levy County are rather distinctive, very pretty, and well worth photographing. The ground color is cinnamon, the saddles are crimson and are accentuated fore, aft, and on the sides by a few black scales that are themselves preceded by a variable number of white scales.

Did we need them? No. But they are just too pretty to pass by without at least a second glance. We could only hope that the hunt for chorus frogs would be this successful.

The road we were on could almost have been called "Pygmy Rattler Road."



Actually there were many other herp species found on it, but it was a road that almost never failed to disclose from one to several dusky pygmy rattlesnakes that would vary in size from neonates (in season) to adults of 16 to 20 inch length. In other words, it was indeed a pygmy road.

It is the dusky pygmy rattlesnake, Sistrurus miliarius barbouri, that is found in our area (North Central Florida). They have a curious and rather spotty distribution: common in one area, virtually unknown only a few miles distant, and then common again in another nearby locale.

When startled and on the move they most often dart quickly for cover. However, if approached while in a basking coil they, as often as not, will coil more tightly, twitch their head and sometimes the entire body nervously, and rattle (for all the good this latter action does).

The rattle of even an adult pygmy is so small that unless your hearing is exceptional, you will often not hear the sound produced. If you still insist on bothering them they will strike, rapidly and accurately. Although the venom is not usually fatal to a healthy adult, a bite will be sufficiently painful (even with prompt medical intervention) to have you wondering why you were dumb or careless enough to be within striking range of this feisty little pit viper.

Always show them due respect!

The peeps were deafening. We were standing on the edge of a rain-filled drainage ditch that paralleled a busy North Central Florida highway.



The rain, a deluge a few minutes earlier continued to fall in a fine but steady sprinkle. Rather than frightening and silencing the singers, the sounds of the streaming traffic, rubber on the wet roadway, seemed to stimulate the peeping chorus.

Jake and I, headlamps aglow, moved stealthily to the water's edge. There were so many chorusers that we found it was almost impossible to home in on one set of peeps and follow it to the source. In fact, we soon found that it was much easier and more productive to simply scan the emergent grasses.

By doing that one after the other, we found the callers - each a tiny, one inch long toad sitting with forequarters propped above water by forefeet firmly planted on a blade or two of grass. Periodically a chorusing male would balloon a proportionately immense sausage-shaped vocal sac and voice a series of loud chick-like peeps. Between peeps, the vocal sacs would deflate a bit then re-balloon as another peep was produced.

Because of lingering drought conditions, it had been years since we had happened upon a population of oak toads, Bufo quercicus, this large. This tiny toad is North America's smallest toad species and the only one that has an easy to identify shrill peeping voice.

The question now was, could we get photos without the still-falling rain shorting the cameras out? Before electronics, never had these potential problems ruled the world!

Jim and I had been bouncing along a seldom used forest road, our destination still miles ahead. We were heading for a once flooded meadow from which, until the lengthy drought, carpenter frogs had been known to call. But our drive had been intercepted by loud toooonks coming from a woodland pond that we were passing.



Herpers, like birders, learn and respond to the sounds of nature, and there was no mistaking these sounds. The calls - toooonk, toooonk, toooonk, a pause and then another series of toooonks - were those of our largest native east coast hylid, the barking treefrog, Hyla gratiosa.

I should mention that at times barking treefrogs actually do produce a sound that could be likened to a grating bark. The barks are often produced when the frogs are high above ground and are celebrating a period of high humidity or, especially, are welcoming the approach of a summer storm.

But on a night like this - a glorious, breezeless, warm, late spring night, devoid of moonlight and replete with hordes of very thirsty mosquitoes - the toooonks indicated that the frogs were all in the breeding pond. We parked, listened, and determined there were several dozen barkers in the chorus. Although loudest, they were outnumbered by pine woods and green treefrogs, as well as by cricket frogs. Cameras were readied and we edged through the brambles towards the pond...

But what about the carpenter frogs?

We'll be making another trip. Maybe we won't be diverted the next time.

I can still remember turning the big flagstone that was out by the day lily bed and seeing my very first snake.



I was probably 6 or 7 and had already turned a lot of stones in my short lifetime. I found toads and stag beetles and star-nosed moles - enough things so that I spent a goodly amount of time flipping rocks and debris and marveling at the creatures that called such places home.

But a snake? And in my own backyard at that. Even when the little snake inflated itself and began an almost inaudible hissing, my parents declared it harmless and left the snake and me to our own devices.

That was my introduction to the species then called the DeKay's snake and now known as the northern brown snake, Storeria dekayi dekayi. Notice the species name, dekayi, is spelled with a "k" and not a "c." It is named for early New York naturalist, James Edward DeKay, not for any lack of serpentine structural integrity.

Although a gigantic specimen of just over 19 inches has been documented, most northern brown snakes are adult at 10 to 12 inches. The dietary preference is earthworms but an occasional cutworm or other insect may be accepted. This tiny snake, a relative of the larger garter and water snakes, gives birth to live young. Literature proclaims a litter may number from 3 to 31, but 5 to 12 seems the norm.

From Maine to Ontario and Florida to Texas, you may encounter the little turtle known vernacularly as the "stinkpot" and more formerly as the common musk turtle, Sternotherus odoratus.



The names, both common and scientific, are derived from the odorous secretions produced by the two musk glands: one on each side of the plastron where the skin meets the shell bridge.

Although primarily aquatic, this little blackish turtle with the striped face, pointed nose, and elongate but high domed carapace may choose at times to wander far from its watery home.

Although musk and mud turtles are closely related, the small plastron of the musk turtles easily separates them from muds which all have a large plastron. Throughout most of its range the common musk is the only species of musk turtle to be found. Although the intensity and integrity of the yellow may vary, it is the only musk turtle to have a yellow striped face.

Hatchlings, so small they can sit comfortably on a quarter and have a roughened carapace, while the upper shell of the adults is usually very smooth.

Common musks are usually quite inexpensive and are very hardy and long-lived as captives. If you have an opportunity to get a baby you will find it an easily kept and responsive pet.

Which amphibian is so slender and attenuate that it looks like a hefty nightcrawler, has two tiny eyes, four legs that are so short and slender that they are easily overlooked, and only one toe on each foot?



If you guessed that it is an amphiuma, you were right on target.

It is the third and least known of the amphiuma species, a foot long nocturnal caudatan, the one-toed amphiuma, Amphiuma pholeter, that lives out its life in deep beds of soupy mud of slurry-like consistency. Although it was described in 1964, it has been only for the last two decades that this taxon has become known to many.

Many of its habitats are on posted private land or in state parks that require permits carry on a search. Found in Florida's Big Bend counties, the Florida panhandle, extreme southwestern Georgia, southern Alabama, and southeastern Mississippi, the one-toed amphiuma is a Gulf Coast specialty and one that I am always happy to see.

It was several decades ago, when most of Florida's caves were open to human intrusion, that I first met Florida's little blind salamander.



A friend took me to cave (that I then thought huge) in Calhoun County. It was by far the biggest cave I had ever been in, and soon after entering I was not at all sure that I really wanted to be there. But I had been told that it was a prime locale for the little Georgia blind salamander, Haideotriton wallacei, a ghostly pale neotenic species that I badly wanted to see.

After I entered I stood contemplating the all surround darkness and probably would have continued standing had not one of my companions (they were all spelunkers familiar with the cave) called from far ahead "Dick, there's one here. In fact, there's two. I'm going to turn my light out so I don't spook them."

I chose an area that looked like it would be easy to walk along and moved as quickly as possible towards the disembodied voice. Fortunately there were no forks or hidden chambers and soon I could see Ed standing quietly awaiting my arrival.

And I got to see the little plethodontid.

Today, although these salamanders have now been found in many additional underground sites, the closures of many locales to human intrusion has made it more difficult for field herpers and hobbyists to see them.

I'm glad that I had several opportunities.

I sat in the yard this morning watching the ducks swim in their little pool and the dogs play rambunctiously over the expanse of the yard. It was a sunny 75 degrees Fahrenheit and very comfortable overall. Then came the blue jays. Within moments there were 8 or 10 of them, all screaming at the top of their lungs.



Then came an American crow, and then another. Cawing and gurgling they joined the screaming jays. At first I thought this to be an owl response, but even with binoculars I could see neither an owl nor a hawk. But then I noticed the birds seemed to be looking down and finally, in a leafy limb-end bower, I made out a sinuosity of form - a snake. It was small, probably only 3 feet long or perhaps even a bit smaller.

As I watched, it began moving downward and it was apparent that it was a yellow rat. The snake's movement prompted the jays to find a new upper level of volume to their cacophonous calls. The snake didn't seem to care. I stood and moved towards the tree and the crows, more nervous than the jays, departed.

The snake continued downward until less than 20 feet separated us. The jays, with a final look of disdain, flew away. The rat snake got to the lowest limb, moved in towards the trunk and the last I saw it was coiling slowly, largely secluded between the trunk and an immense grape vine that clambered up the tree.

I walked away thinking this was a lucky snake. Perhaps it was because I was so close that the frenzied calls of the jays and crows hadn't summoned a red-shouldered hawk. Had one of these herp-eating buteos arrived the ending for this tale and the snake would probably have been just that: a literal ending.

The distribution of the Escambia map turtle, Graptemys ernsti, long thought to be a variant of the Alabama map turtle, is restricted to parts of the Choctawhatchee, Escambia, Yellow, and Shoal rivers and tributaries in western Florida and adjoining Alabama.



The Escambia map turtle is quite similar in appearance and habits to the more easterly Barbour's map turtle and the more westerly Alabama map turtles.

As with other map turtles, there is marked sexual dimorphism in this species. Females attain an adult carapace length of 9 to 11 inches and males are less than half that size. Like several other map turtle species, females develop an immense head and the diet of the adult shifts from the insects of the juveniles to the snails, clams, and mussels of the adult. Males eat insects throughout their lives.

At 14 to 20 years of age the females attain sexual maturity. Males, as noted, smaller and less bulky, may begin breeding when only 3 to 6 years old. Females nest from late spring through midsummer. From 3 to 6 nests are produced, more or less at 3 week intervals and produce an average of four nests containing 5 to 13 eggs.

"Got one, Patti."

"Good. A copperhead?"

"No. A crayfish."

"Oh."

I didn't know why she sounded so disillusioned. After all, it was wanting to see a crayfish, the firebacked crayfish to be exact, that had drawn us to the Apalachicola National Forest. The copperhead (a southern copperhead, Agkistrodon c. contortrix) was to have been a secondary prize.



But now, with the beautiful crayfish--one of several species, the natural color of which is similar to a well-boiled Maine lobster, found and photographed, it was copperhead time.

Our plan was to follow and check both leaf-strewn, sun-patched, banks of the meandering ravine-stream in hopes of seeing one of these well-camouflaged snakes.

That was our plan. But the copperheads had plans of their own. Their plans, it seemed, contrary to the norm, were to make things as easy as possible for we bumbling humans.

And their plan superseded ours. Barely 2 steps out of the stream we found the first copperhead stretched across one of the few open patches. And although we only needed one for photos, about 10 steps farther, lying quietly in a tight coil, was a second copperhead. Success.

Our next stop would be on the Chipola River in hopes of finding a map turtle. But that's another story.

Florida has two species of naturally occurring map turtles, both riverine species. Both are wary. Very wary.



Since they are possessed of excellent eyesight, a hopeful observer is more apt to see only the ripples left behind a plunging map turtle than a view of the turtle itself. One of these species is the beautiful, dimorphic, Barbour's map, Graptemys barbouri. These map turtles are inhabitants of Florida's Apalachicola, Chipola, and Choctawatchee, Alabama's Pea and Flint, and Georgia's Chattahoochee and Flint river systems. In Georgia, the ranges of the Barbour's and the Escambia map turtles abut or overlap, and hybridization is known.

But, if you're both cautious and lucky, you may actually see one of these brownish gray, saw-backed, map turtles basking quietly on a protruding snag. Sometimes you'll catch them perched well above the water level on what would seem to be an impossibly thin branch. The broad, well developed, head markings vary from creamy-yellow to lime green and cover most of the temporal area.

Females of this species are adult at ten to twelve inches in length and probably first breed when they are between twelve and twenty years of age. Adult females develop enlarged heads and feed primarily on snails, clams, and mussels, both native and introduced. Males, narrow-headed, are adult at four to five inches in length, breed at four to six years of age, and like the juveniles feed largely on insects.

Barbour's maps are protected or of regulated take throughout their tri-state range.

Pierson, Kenny, and I had been out on Florida's western panhandle searching for brook, dusky, and dwarf salamanders. We had done okay and were now working our way back eastward stopping here and there to roll logs and dip our nets in whatever water was available.

We spent a lot of time sorting through aquatic vegetation, finding the tadpoles of various frogs, a few siren and amphiuma, a glossy crayfish snake or two, and in one net-full of vegetation, a neonate cottonmouth.



The finding of a cottonmouth in Florida is seldom worthy of comment for, although many snake species are somewhat harder to find than they once were, cottonmouths remain abundant.

When neonates, most are quite brilliantly colored in oranges, tans, and browns. But this baby, an intergrade between the eastern cottonmouth, Agkistrodon p. piscivorous, and the Florida subspecies, A. p. conanti, was clad in oranges that at some places bordered on red, bright tans, and deep browns, and was much prettier than most neonate cottonmouths.

In fact, I have not yet seen another that equals it.

Although I had encountered Couch's spadefoots, Scaphiopus couchii, pretty much throughout their range in the United States, I had never happened across a breeding congress such as I was then listening to in southern Sonora, Mexico.



Created by the seasonal rains (known as "monsoons"), a newly flooded playa stretched ahead of us in the darkness as far as the beams of our flashlights could penetrate. Spadefoots in the hundreds, probably actually in the low thousands, sat at the edges, floated in the shallows, and continued to access the still enlarging puddle from all sides.

Fortunately it was late and only an occasional vehicle traveled the busy road next to which we were parked. Most of the frogs and toads that attempted to cross made the trip safely.

The incessant bleats of the Couch's spadefoots dominated the chorus, but the quacks, trills, peeps, and burps of other anuran taxa were impossible to ignore.

Couch's spadefoots are little (two to two and a half inch) yellowish "toads" that often have overtones of army green or brown. Like other spadefoots, they have a single heel spade. But in the case of the Couch's spadefoot, the spade tends to be elongated and sickle-shaped rather the the "teardrop" shape of other species.

Unlike the true toads, all spadefoots have vertically elliptical pupils, a definite giveaway.

By sundown the towering cumulus were clouding the southwestern sky. Only a few minutes later the clouds were nearer, thunder was rumbling incessantly and bolts of lightning were spearing the heavens. We started eastward then decided to leave the pavement and drive along a sandy desert road. Good choice. A big boa, Boa constrictor ssp., had started to cross.



Although small for a boa (5 to 7 feet) and of dark coloration, this heavy-bodied snake was among our target species on this trip.

Brad and I were in southern Sonora, Mexico. The last time I had been there, about 4 years earlier, this northwestern Mexican state was in the midst of a several year drought and herp movement had been at a minimum. At that time, after seeing only a few leopard frogs and spiny-tailed iguanas, I quickly headed straight back to the border and spent a few days in Arizona before heading home.

But this time, not only was there promise of rain, there was ample evidence that the seasonal monsoons had arrived in the form of dampened earth, replete roadside ponds, chorusing anurans and the boa then on the road before us.

That evening it had poured for well over an hour and the herp activity was spectacular. Before returning to our motel we had seen and photographed more than 20 species. Among these were 4 boas of fair size.

What a difference the rains made.

It had been another 109 degree day in Texas's Big Bend. Not only had the day been hot, but a couple of hours after sundown the heat of the day was still palpable. As it approached 11:00PM, the thermometer was still registering 99 degrees Fahrenheit. But at least at 50 miles per hour we had a breeze on these mountain roads.

On this, our last night in the Big Bend region, we were varying our tactics. We'd drive a while, then check a couple of roadcuts, then drive some more. By midnight the temperature had plummeted - to 97 degrees Fahrenheit. Pocket mice and kangaroo rats skittered and hopped across the roadway. My search for a Texas lyre snake continued, but showed little promise of fulfillment. I worked one side of a roadcut. Jake worked the other. I found a female black widow with egg cases, Jake found a...



Well, I didn't know exactly what Jake found until well after the fact. In a kidding manner, Jake had mentioned finding an iconic gray-banded kingsnake, Lampropeltis alterna, at the end of the cut but I hadn't seen it. Although he continued to kid, I somehow failed to take him seriously - and he still hadn't shown me the snake!

He did flash his light at me a few times, just before I returned empty-handed to the car. I thought he just wanted to be picked up. So that's what I did. I picked him up and we made another run out the road and back. It was still a roasting night and even at 2:30AM the only snakes we saw were a few western diamondbacks and a single juvenile Mohave.

The next day during the long drive home we compared notes and Jake made a comment or two about gray-banded kingsnakes. The comments went right over my head. In only a matter of hours we were unloading Jake at his house and he was grinning all the while like a Cheshire Cat!

At the end he made some comment like, "Whoops. I forgot that bag in back of my seat. Could you get it and check it for me?" I could and did. Gray-banded kingsnake. A big one. A beauty of the gray banded phase. I was the last to know. Hoodwinked! Jake was laughing so hard at my amazement that he could hardly stand.

Our trip had been even better than I had known.

More photos below...

Successful though our trip to the Big Bend region of West Texas had been, Jake still didn't have an opportunity to hunt roadcuts for the fabled gray-banded kingsnake. Of course, since this was Jake's first trip to the "Bend" he was interested in photographing nearly anything he could and would see, be it a black widow or a crevice lizard.



But I was being a bit more selective. Having, over the years, found more than my share of gray-bands, I was primarily interested in finding a Texas lyre snake, a dweller of the rocky deserts and roadcuts that eluded me for the more than 60 years I sought it.

Guess what? It eluded me again just as the gray-band had so far eluded Jake. In fact, I was beginning to wonder whether we should be road-hunting rather than walking the cuts. Were we just wasting our time by walking? So far all we had seen was heavy traffic. But my outlook quickly changed when Jake, suddenly brought up short in mid-stride, stated "Milksnake" and asked "What kind is out here?"

My mind stopped working when I heard milksnake. I knew that the subspecies would be the beautiful New Mexico milk, Lampropeltis triangulum celaenops, a snake I had found elsewhere in its range but never in the Big Bend.

As I turned and hustled towards Jake I saw him bend and pick up a wriggling candycane, one of the prettiest New Mexican milks I have yet seen. I just couldn't imagine this subspecies getting much brighter than the example Jake was holding. When you check out the 3 accompanying pictures, I think you'll agree.

Our walk had suddenly taken on a far more favorable aspect.

More photos below...

The fat shiner swam the 6' length of the 125 gallon aquarium in less than a second. It disappeared from this earth about 5 seconds later.

First I was watching it and thinking how gracefully it sped through and around the waterlogged snags. And even knowing the fish's purpose in the tank, I was unprepared for the speed and dexterity of that strike by the nearest tentacled snake, Erpeton tentaculatum.



The strike wasn't unexpected. I had been keeping and breeding tentacled snakes for several years. In fact, the only difference was that I had more than doubled the size of the shiners proffered. What had been unexpected was the speed - mere seconds were involved - with which the snake caught and swallowed the prey.

For those of you not familiar with the tentacled snake, it is a fully aquatic homolopsine species that occurs widely over Southeast Asia. It attains a length of two to two and a half feet and inhabits quiet, often silted waters. The genus contains only a single species with two distinctly different patterns, a blotched and a striped.

It is a live-bearing species. The "tentacles" (actually two short rostral projections), are sensory and seemingly assist the snake in locating their piscine prey in waters having limited visibility.

More photos below...

"Stop!"

Seems like Jake hollers "stop" a lot when we're on the road. I haven't figured out whether that's because I'm always looking in the wrong places or because of my failing vision. Probably a little of both.

"That was a 'horny toad.' A baby horny toad!" Jake continued.



I was already backing up and sure enough, barely on the pavement, at grass edge, was a juvenile Texas horned lizard, Phrynosoma cornutum. And just behind it was another.

The stretch of road we were on was a bit north from the Rio Grande in western Texas. Over the years, I consistently found adult Texas horned lizards along this roadway. Although this strong and consistent population indicated that I was seeing a viable and reproducing population, until this trip I had not actually seen any juvenile examples.

But now, with two tiny post-hatchlings on the roadside there was no longer any question of whether or not the population was breeding.

Thanks, Jake.

More photos below...

"Stop!" Jake hollered. There's a turtle on that rock. It's a slider! Oh and there's a couple of others swimming around the rocks."



We were on a curve on a narrow section of road on a bluff overlooking the Rio Grande. The road shoulder was only a couple of feet wide and even though traffic was light, I was nervous about stopping. I slowed, eased forward, and just as I was about to suggest that Jake hop out with his camera and I would find a parking spot and walk back, the shoulder widened slightly and I was able to stop safely.

Both Jake and I were happy about this opportunity, for earlier, as we had begun to focus on a distant slider at another pull-off, the turtle had dropped from its basking snag into the silted water and was gone.

These, on the other hand, rather than having already basked and warmed were just hauling out of the river to begin a new basking sequence. Hopefully, this would provide us a second opportunity for photos. And it did.

Adults of the Big Bend slider, Trachemys gaigeae, are rather small, attaining a length of only 6 to 8 inches. This taxon has 2 discrete red spots behind each eye and an extensive dark figure on the plastron.

Its range in the USA is discontinuous in the Rio Grande (and some tributaries and nearby waterholes) from the Big Bend of Texas to central New Mexico.

Since this is a long ways from our homes we were happy to be afforded the photo ops offered by the cooperative turtles. We may try to upgrade next year, but for now consider these pictures more than adequate.



More photos below...

Two subspecies of bark anoles, Anolis distichus, once were identifiable in south Florida. These were the brown to gray Florida bark anole, A. d. floridana, and the green bark anole, A. d. dominicensis.



Wherever and whenever the two came together, they readily interbred until the characteristics of the bark anoles in Florida were so muddled that in most cases the subspecies were no longer readily identifiable. The resulting intergrades were (and are) most like the Florida subspecies with an occasional individual being a pasty greenish-gray.

Then in August 2014, a friend posted some pictures of bark anoles he recently found and his comments regarding their color changing abilities were of interest. He said that most in this small population were on mossy barked trees and although typically dark colored, when feeding on the small ants of which their diet largely consists, a few temporarily assumed a decided green coloration.

I asked for and received 2 males that he collected when they were at their greenest (these were returned and released back into the colony), but in the week that I had them - skewed by capture and captivity - this is what I learned:

More than 99% of the time the lizards were dark brown. In fact, as far as I know, one never assumed green of any shade. But on one night, and only on that night, while sleeping, one of the bark anoles did assume a green color.

At dusk that night it was dark brown.

At midnight it was still dark brown.

At 2:00AM it was light brown.

At 2:30AM it was bright green.

At 2:38AM, after I took a couple of pictures, disturbing the lizard only with the flash, it was again a very dark brown.

To the best of my knowledge it never again, while captive, assumed the green color.

If the color is this fleeting in the wild, it is no wonder we don't see many green colored bark anoles in south Florida.

I hate the picture in a cage, but it's a lot better than having no record at all. Now it's time to head for Miami and try for photos of the lizards in situ.

More photos below...

Ohhhhhh, OK. You can call it the Rio Grande if you choose.

In fact, that is usually what I call this heavily silted river which is the border between Texas and several Mexican states. Jake and I were observing the river in the Big Bend region of West Texas. What caught our attention was a sizable, distant, emergent snag on which 2 turtle species, a soft-shell and a slider, were quietly basking in the August sunshine.



Air temperature, already 100 degrees Fahrenheit, would rise another several degrees before the setting of Sol would allow temperatures to first stabilize and then begin a slow--a very, very slow--drop. This was, after all, the Chihuahuan Desert.

There was a wide spot in the river and the snag on which the turtles rested was far enough away to tax the maximums of our cameras and lenses. There seemed no way to get closer. Jake was particularly concerned for both species were "lifers" for him.

Despite the distance, the slider dropped into the river and was immediately lost to sight as we positioned ourselves. That was frustrating. But the soft-shell, the Texas subspecies of the spiny soft-shell, Apalone spinifera emoryi, seemed to make itself more comfortable. It sat quietly, moving only its head and neck, as we snapped photo after photo. Out of the many snapshots several proved usable. It was a well spent half hour.

Now to find the slider again.

More photos below...

Jake and I have just returned from 10 days in the Big Bend region of West Texas. This was Jake's first sojourn to the area and my first return in about 20 years. We had a great time and are already plotting next year's visit. We talked in some detail about locales and targets (both herps and birds) and had a fair idea of what we hoped to find.



Jake's list was simple. He wanted to see and photograph at least one of everything. We didn't even come close! My list of half a dozen herp and 2 bird species was a bit more specific. It was topped with the Chihuahuan lyre snake, Trimorphodon vilkinsonii, (on this we failed) and ended with a colorful male of the Southwestern earless lizard, Cophosaurus texanus scitulus, (on this we succeeded).

At a length that occasionally exceeds 7 inches, the Southwestern earless lizard is marginally the largest of the earless clan in the United States. When suitably warmed, it is also the most colorful. During the breeding season, the pinks, greens, blues and black of the dominant males must be seen to be truly appreciated.

Should you be traveling in southeastern Arizona, southern New Mexico, or western Texas, be sure to look them up. And have your camera ready. You'll certainly want a photo.

More photos below...

It was more than 10 years ago that I found my first Everglades Burmese python, Python molurus bivitattus. A little over 7 feet in length, the snake was crawling slowly across the roadway and rather than trying to escape when we neared, it simply coiled slightly and stopped crawling. At no time did it display the slightest hostile behavior.



About a year and a half later, I found a second example. Like the first, although larger, this one showed no hostility causing me to ask myself "what is with these pythons?"

Another 2 years passed and I found a third python, a 5 footer, that was a little feisty - but only a little.

In August of 2011, I found a fresh DOR hatchling, still well within the Everglades, but outside the boundaries of the National Park.

And then in 2014, a friend and I found a 10 footer: an underweight male that was far more interested in avoiding us than in confrontation.

5 pythons in over ten years found during more than 25 Everglades sojourns that had pythons as at least one of the target species. That's not very many. Admittedly these were only road sightings and well over 1,500 of the big snakes have been documented, removed, and euthanized.

I didn't hike through choice python habitat, which according to experts is nearly anyplace you chose to hike. As most recent trips drew to a close without the sighting of even one python, I couldn't help but think of the great and much lauded FWC sponsored python hunt of 2013. This fiasco, dubbed a success by the "experts," turned up only 68 pythons which was the cumulative result achieved by almost 1,600 hunters over a period of nearly a month.

Over the last 10 years, I have seen several Burmese pythons in Florida's Everglades. Except for a single DOR hatchling, those I have seen were between 5 and 12 feet in length. Whether you call this unfortunate or fortunate, it is a fact. Although there is no question that pythons should not exist in Florida, since they are here due stupidity or accident I am glad that I have had the opportunity to make their acquaintance.

More photos below...

Whether you know it by the American name of rhinoceros viper or the name of river jack that is commonly heard elsewhere, Bitis nascicornis is a magnificent snake that deserves the utmost respect.



It is easily determined whence came the American name, for this stocky viper has several pairs of moderately to greatly elongated scales on its nose. Although it can swim, the name of river jack seems a bit inaccurate. Rather than being actually a riverine species, the snake is known to be an inhabitant of the forests and rarely of the woodlands of West and Central Africa.

Those in some populations are among the world's most beautiful snakes while others are dull (especially the old adults) and of muddy appearance. Those from the northeastern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (often referred to as the Ituri Forest or Ituri Rainforest) are often very brightly colored. This snake has a dangerously potent venom that is primarily haemotoxic but that also contains neurotoxins.

A live-bearing species, female rhino vipers may have from 10 to 36 babies. Normal adult length for this very heavy bodied viper is 25 to 36 inches with the females attaining a larger size than the males.

Despite its lethal potential this snake, popular with hobbyists, remains occasionally available at rather affordable prices.