South Carolina 2021

Having family in the coastal plain region of South Carolina is quite advantageous if you've got a strong interest in amphibians and reptiles, because the area's herp diversity is among the best in the country.  Made famous by herpetological luminaries such as Carl Kauffeld, the region's array of ecosystems hold an impressive number of species.  It had been awhile since our last trip there, so I was pretty excited to get down there.

Our first stop was a hotel in Myrtle Beach.  Since we were bringing our daughter for the first time, we wanted to make sure we got some beach and pool time.  As far as I'm concerned, the beach was great but the pools weren't...my daughter felt the opposite.  At the hotel, I managed to find some of the more common urban lizards such as green anoles and southeastern five-lined skinks.  My young nephews had a particularly good time catching these, and they got really good at it after a few hours.  

A green anole (Anolis carolinensis) & skink (Plestiodon fasciatus or inexpectatus) found on the hotel property

Vibrant young Plestiodon

                A side trip to the Brookgreen Gardens resulted in a few turtle sightings as well as lizards and an alligator or two.  There is a children's play area built on a sandy rise that was home to several racerunners.  These are pretty hard to catch by hand but I tried anyway, looking sort of eccentric in the process.  A nice lady we had struck up a conversation with, and her two kids must have thought I was nuts. The park is incredible - full of big old live oaks draped in Spanish moss.  

An evasive racerunner (Aspidoscelis sexlineatus)

During the early morning hours of July 8, Hurricane Elsa, by now in a reasonably weakened state, hit Myrtle Beach.  We were awakened by the most obnoxious emergency notification alarms on our phones and so we got up to check out the storm from our beachfront deck.  The water was rough and some of the pool chairs were blown around, but that was about the extent of it all.  Within a couple hours we had packed up and were headed to the aquarium, then directly to Florence.

Late that evening, my nephews asked if we could go out and look for some herps.  I took the three boys and we simply walked the subdivision with flashlights.  We didn't find anything rare or mind blowing, but the kids were super excited to see toads and all sorts of insects and spiders.  We did find some DORs, including a narrowmouth toad and a plainbelly watersnake. 

A beautiful southern toad (Anaxyrus terrestris)

The next day, I met up with Dr. Jeff Camper, professor of biology at Francis Marion University, for a little herping adventure nearby where has some established cover board arrays.  Jeff is another Chicago-area native who is pretty familiar with many of the Chicago region's natural areas, yet has been our east for some time and has become an expert on South Carolina herpetology.  In fact, he is the author of the excellent The Reptiles of South Carolina (2019).  The area we explored was mostly upland sand hills dominated by longleaf pine.  It was hot and very dry, poor conditions for herping South Carolina in July.  But we did it anyway.  Getting to spend time with Jeff was time well spent.  I learned a lot about the region's ecology during our outing and that alone made the trip worthwhile.

Hiking to the board array

I liked the contrast between these flowers (some species of Tradescantia?) and the rusty old piece of corrugated metal

Some skink eggs found under a wooden board

One of two southeastern crowned snakes (Tantilla coronata) we found while flipping cover.

Most surprising, considering the dry heat, was this marbled salamander (Ambystoma opacum)

This book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in South Carolina reptiles

I promised my daughter and nephews we'd look for alligators at a swamp so we ended up visiting the same Carolina bay I visited with my wife six years ago.  On that day six years ago, it was over 100 degrees yet we found a plethora of herps.  This time, somewhat milder and not a good day for herps (go figure).  We (barely) spotted an alligator or two, one or two flashes of skink, and a few shy carpenter frogs.  The kids got bored.  No alligators sitting out exposed, no canebreaks, nothing impressive.  However, the place is as beautiful as ever.

Carolina bay, nearly devoid of herps during our visit but a wonderful place regardless

                

Carpenter frog (Rana virgatipes)

                

Overall, the trip was really good.  I think the next trip to SC will be in April - almost guaranteed improvement.

A young mantis 

                

My first ever velvet ant (Dasymutilla occidentalis).  It was moving very quickly, so it was difficult to get a good shot.  I had to stop the car and exit to take these photos - glad I did!