IL-GA-FL Part 4 - the Finale

 It was time to wake up for our final full day in the field.  We had to leave Peter’s place in Tallahassee and head north to south-central Georgia for our meeting with the fine folks at the Orianne Society.  But first, we stopped  at a trash site Nathan knew of, where Eastern diamondback rattlesnakes (Crotalus adamanteus) are known from.  The sky was growing darker as we approached the site and by the time we had left the car and committed to walking hundreds of yards into the site, the rain was coming down heavily.  We were drenched, with muddy shoes/boots - and snakeless.  Not a single snake was seen, though I did find a single ground skink (Scinella lateralis).  Getting soaked is okay if a significant find is made, but when you come up short, AND it’s kind of cold, it can make you feel rather dispirited.  On top of that, I ended up walking through a thick patch of stinging nettle - with my sleeves pulled up - and with wet arms.  As I write this (March 14), my arms still bear the nasty wounds inflicted by this horrible plant.  Luckily, we had plans to visit Dirk Stevenson at his home not far away.  Dirk is a legendary ecologist, friendly, funny, and very accommodating.  After a nice conversation, Tom, Nathan and I headed to the Orianne bunkhouse, where we met up with Ben Stegenga and two techs living there at the time.  We discussed herping options, ultimately deciding on a nearby lake where rainbow snakes (Farancia erytrogramma) and mudsnakes are found.

It was a lesson in humility 

We packed into two cars and once again arrived at a lake in the pitch black darkness.  As we all entered the water, Ben spotlighted a very large greater siren (Siren lacertina) and skillfully caught it in his net.  However, the siren outwitted all of us by slithering its way out of the net and back into the water, where it slinked into the dark depths.  After that, we spread out, some remaining at the lake shore and others into a spring-fed floodplain forest.  I hopped back and forth - the call of the floodplain was clear but I also wanted to stick around and wait to see if the siren would return.  Pushing into the dark forest, I walked through shin-deep water, shining for Farancia but with an awareness that other species are found here too.  I found a few common frogs, and someone found a tiny yellowbelly slider (Trachemys scripta).  Maybe thirty minutes into our hunt, I could see two sets of flashlights from near the parking lot move closer and closer toward myself and two others.  I knew they were the conservation officers we passed in their darkened car when we arrived at the lake.  They called us over to explain what we were doing and they were sort of taken aback when we told them we were looking for snakes.  When they asked if we had permits, we told them that we did, but they were not interested in seeing the permits.  They left us to our own devices, but nothing else was found.  We headed back to the bunkhouse when all hell broke loose.  Tom, Nathan, and I were so deprived of sleep over the course of the previous four days that we snapped and laughed in a dizzying display of hysteria.  I’m not going to go into detail but we forged some funny material that night, much to the confusion of the Orianne staff.

A dead/frozen eastern diamondback road casualty

The next morning, we regretfully packed up for our very long (15 hour) trip back to Chicago.  Only one problem - I’ve got a flat tire.  Fortunately, there is a tire shop ten minutes away.  I get the spare on and we drive to the tire shop where my tire is repaired in almost no time.  Great service from a VERY small town shop.  Our very last hurrah is in southern Illinois - one of the flooded farm fields we tried for crawfish frogs several days before.  Still no crawfish frogs, so we completed our trip to Champaign and then to the Chicago area.  I arrived home at 4:00 AM.  My bed never felt so good before.

Par for the course (photo by Nathan)

This guy was badass.

Tom catching up on some well-needed sleep

The trip was loads of fun and netted 44 species of herps, which isn’t bad considering most of our time was spent driving.  The people I met were awesome, and the memories will last a lifetime.

IL-GA-FL Part 3

 March 9th began with an early morning start in Peter’s front yard, where I found a southern ringneck snake (Diadophis punctatus) under a log.  But we had bigger fish to fry that day - soon we were headed to Apalachicola National Forest, an expansive natural area encompassing multiple types of habitat.  Our first stop was a beautiful woodland full of seeps, sand hills, and salamanders.  Once we were out of the car and in the woods, the mosquitoes made it abundantly clear that we were not at the top of the food chain here.  We persisted, pushing through and carefully turning cover as we went.  We found a southern toad (Anaxyrus terrestris) and a narrowmouth toad (Gastrophryne carolinensis) before reaching an area that looked very salamandery.  We ended up finding a number of three-lined salamanders (Eurycea guttolineata), southern two-lined salamanders (Eurycea cirrigera), southeastern slimy salamanders (Plethodon grobmani I think), and Apalachicola dusky salamanders (Desmognathus apalachicolae).  I also spotted a large adult Gulf Coast box turtle (Terrepene carolina) ambling along a seep, and while making my way up a sandy hillside, found a gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) burrow, excavated right into the steep dune.  Since we skipped breakfast that morning, we were building an appetite, one that can only be cured with Waffle House.  So off to WH we went, to further broaden my junk food road diet horizon.

Nathan and I with a very large and old cypress tree

Another perspective 

Seepy woodland

Three-lined salamander

Southern two-lined salamander

Apalachicola dusky salamander

Gopher tortoise burrow on a steep dune

A gentle woodland creature, the Gulf Coast box turtle

Breakfast of...something

Later, we decided to try to cruise some longleaf pine preserves for dusky pygmy rattlesnakes (Sistrurus miliarus).  This habitat is characterized by the dominant vegetation, which is largely longleaf pine and wiregrass.  It is a very flat area, short on relief but teeming with life.  A recent prescribed burn breathed some life into this landscape; the palmettos were bursting with tender new growth and the pine trunks exposed and free of undesired undergrowth.  We didn’t have much luck cruising and so we decided to make a few stops to look for downed pines.  We would split up three ways, each person exploring a different area to improve our chances of finding snakes.  Aside from one green anole (Anolis carolinensis), I didn’t find much.  An hour or so into one of our searches, I met up with Tom, and we were both pretty exhausted.  The temperature was nearing eighty degrees; it was also quite dry.  Remember, we were coming straight after a Chicago winter, so we were not quite acclimated to this sort of weather yet.  In the distance, we heard Nathan shout “Pygmy!”.  Tom and I attempted to answer his shouts with our own, which mostly went unanswered.  Nathan was further away than we expected. But eventually we bushwhacked around an unburned section of briars to where Nathan was standing, where we could see him holding a snake.  I knew he wasn’t holding a rattlesnake - what was he talking about?  As he got closer we could see that he was holding a southern black racer (Coluber constrictor).  As it turned out, the rattlesnake crawled away under a large log nobody was willing to move, much to the appreciation of the snake.  But after the rattlesnake made its escape, Nathan spotted the racer basking in the open.  So while Tom and I were skunked on the rattlesnake, our painful trip through the briar patch was not made in vain.

This is what much of the Florida panhandle looked like before it became what it is today

Southern black racer Nathan caught

We wanted to make our rendezvous with Peter and friend Hari Parasu, so we hopped back in the car and headed toward the paved roads which lead back to Tallahassee.  As the car crunched over the gravel road toward the main highway, Nathan shouted, “Pygmy!” again.  I slammed on my breaks and all three of us jumped out of the car.  Indeed, a pygmy rattlesnake was in the process of crossing the road, so we took some photos and moved the snake off of the road to safety.  Success!  

Dilapidated roadside structures in the south are snake goldmines...

...but not so much when the conditions aren't conducive to thermoregulatory activity.  Nothing was found here.

Back in Tallahassee, Tom, Nathan, Peter, Hari, and I transferred to Peter’s vehicle, which took us to a VERY remote stretch of coastal Florida.  We were hoping to see blue-striped ribbon snakes (Thamnophis sauritus) among other species.  Temperatures were dropping rapidly, though, threatening our chances.  When we didn’t spot a single snake, we decided to turn our attention to the one-toed amphiuma (Amphiuma pholeter).  We netted some roadside ditches and swampy areas to no avail.  It was very dark, and the calling barred owls added to the spooky ambience of our outing.  Before we left, we did end up finding a single banded water snake as well as a young cottonmouth.  The odds seemed to favor amphibians due to the temperatures, so our next stop would be a local spring-fed lake Peter and Hari like.  

Young cottonmouth

Me with banded water snake

We arrived at the lake access point, where a boat launch and small beach had been constructed.  Tom shined a newt in the water, walking along the boat ramp surface.  A southern toad was seen emerging from its sandy spot on the beach, and several leopard frogs were calling.  A pine woods treefrog (Hyla femoralis) was spotted on a tree, and Nathan managed to catch a good-sized bowfin.  Hari and I separated from the others and walked the boardwalk to a large cypress tree that doubles as a launching pad for rope swingers.  By chance, my flashlight beam caught a brightly-colored, serpentine form along the tree’s knees.  It took a moment but eventually I identified the colorful thing as a scarlet kingsnake (Lampropeltis elapsoides).  This is where things get dicey.  In order to catch the snake, I had to take a “leap of faith”, reaching out with one foot to land it on the top of one of the cypress knees in one shot.  Then, I could stabilize myself and reach the snake with one hand while supporting myself against the tree with the other.  I handed Hari my flashlight and quickly made the move.  I managed to catch the snake and get back to the boardwalk without slipping in my muck boots and landing in the drink.  Our excitement was over the top.  This animal was absolutely beautiful, a real jewel.  We all met up and everyone was able to get some photos before the snake was released exactly where it was found minutes later. It was a fine way to end the day.

Southern toad on a beach

Pine woods treefrog in the poison ivy

What the...??

A stunner of a scarlet king!

Check back for the final installment!

IL-GA-FL Part 2

 On the morning of March 8th, we headed south to our next destination - Pigeon Mountain, located along the Cumberland Plateau in northwestern Georgia.  Here, we hoped to find the green salamander (Aneides aeneus) and the Pigeon Mountain salamander (Plethodon petraeus).  The Pigeon Mountain salamander is endemic to this area and found nowhere else on earth.  While Tom searched close to a road, Nathan and I hiked all over the place, ascending and descending steep hillsides, getting wet from water dripping over large rocks, and taking in the stunning scenery.  We didn’t find any greens, but we saw approximately twenty five Pigeon Mountain salamanders, one of which we were able to photograph without causing any stress to the animal.  It is a beautiful salamander, similar in appearance to its cousin the slimy salamander but awash in light browns or oranges along its dorsum, reminiscent of a deep-space cloud nebula.  

Pigeon Mountain outcropping

Waterfall

Nathan and I looking for salamanders behind the falls.  Photo by Tom

Nathan putting some elbow grease into it

Pigeon Mountain salamander

Violet woodsorrel

Violets growing from a crack in the rock face

The three of us convened at the car several hours later, where Nathan and I were surprised to see that Tom had found a southern devil scorpion (Vaejovis carolinianus).  As an enthusiastic scorpiologist, Tom was smiling ear to ear.  

Southern devil scorpion

Tom with scorpion.  This was out makeshift photo staging rock.

We would have stayed much longer but we had business in Tallahassee.  Another long drive (6.5 hours) and we were at the home of Peter Kleinhenz and his finance, who graciously let us stay in their home for two nights.  After a quick greeting with our hosts, Tom, Nathan, and I drove to a nearby lake where a large alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) once stalked Nathan while he searched the shoreline for herps that can’t eat you.  In the pitch black darkness, we pulled into a gravel lot for a boat landing, grabbed our flashlights, and headed toward the riprap-lined shore via an elevated walkway.  This led to a concrete spillway, where others have had some luck in the herp department. We saw some pig frogs (Rana grylio) squatting in the muddy shallows and heard southern leopard frogs calling further out beyond the scope of our flashlights.  While Tom shined the lake from the walkway, Nathan and I began flipping rocks, hoping to find a mudsnake (Farancia abacura).  Within minutes, Nathan found a rather lethargic adult banded water snake (Nerodia fasciata).  From the boardwalk above, Tom wanted to see the snake.  We tried to pass the snake to Tom a la Michaelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” but we couldn’t quite reach his hand.  No problem - I placed the snake in my net and raised the net to Tom.  Eureka!

1:30 AM

Pig frog

While Tom evaluated the Nerodia, Nathan spotted a large, dead mudsnake.  It was partially wedged under a rock and appeared smelled to have been dead for some time.  Nathan was dead-set on collecting this snake for the museum collection (it should be mentioned that all three of us possessed the proper permits for all three states in which we actively herped).  However, his sense of smell was on lunch break or something because while I gagged on the stench of decomposing mudsnake, Nathan had no issue with taking it back to the parking lot.  Eventually he was persuaded to simply collect the head, minimizing the source of the awful smell.  Sealed tight in a container of preservative, we now could resume our search.  Down by the water’s edge, several cottonmouths (Agkistrodon piscivorous), one adult and two young, were seen forging among the emergent vegetation.  The eyeshine of a large alligator nearby kept us on our Ps and Qs as we continued our search.

The spillway presented an obstacle that put me in my place and reminded me that I am no longer in my 20s (or 30s for that matter).  Below the spillway was a narrow metal ledge and wooden supports overhead.  If one were so inclined, one could navigate a shortcut across the spillway by stepping on the ledge and holding on to the support beams overhead.  Below was deep, black water, the kind I really don’t want to be in at this point in my life.  Nathan skillfully made his way across this route to get to the other side of the spillway and encouraged me to do the same.  I sized up this challenge by stepping on the ledge and supporting myself by holding on to the beams.  Wobbly and stiff, my muck boots just didn’t feel right on the ledge.  I trusted my upper body strength but overall I had a bad feeling that I was going to end up in the lake.  The other option was to backtrack and walk to the other side from the boardwalk, and I wanted to conserve my energy.  I waffled for a minute until I decided that it would be in my best interest to just walk around to the other side.  I kind of feel like I’m going to be making more of these kinds of decisions as I’m getting older - and no, it’s not easy to concede to middle age, especially when I feel young and spry much of the time.  Bah!

Just say no

As the night wore on, we remained steadfast in our quest to find Amphiuma.  Nathan spotted one in the water but due to the structure of the rocks was unable to catch it.  Shortly afterward, he shouted that he had found a black swamp snake (Liodytes pygaea).  I turned to look in his direction, and with the snake in one hand, he quickly grabbed at another target - a southeastern five-lined skink (Plestiodon inexpectatus).  Both had been under the same rock.  I rushed over to where he stood and suggested he just release the lizard because we were THRILLED to find Liodytes.  It was a first for both of us, and we celebrated with a high-five.  The black swamp snake is a small, chiefly aquatic natricine native to the southeastern United States.  It is dark brown or black in color with a colorful orange belly.  We took some photos of this animal before releasing it near its original location.  Around 2:00 AM, we decided to call it a night.  On the way back to the car I found a southern cricket frog (Acris gryllus).  It would represent the final herp of the day, as we were in need of some sleep, whether or not we felt tired (I was not).  

Black swamp snake

Young, lean cottonmouth

See part three for more!

IL-GA-FL Part 1

 What started as an idea for a trip to Georgia to help find indigo snakes turned into a multifaceted herpetological affair spanning five states and producing dozens of species.  As fun as it was to seek and find some of the greatest herps the country has to offer, it was even more fun meeting people I’ve known only from social media and hitting the field with a few of them.  Best of all, it was a long - LONG - road trip spent with two of my favorite herp-centric people.  When a nearly three thousand mile trip is over and you still engage in bro-hugs with other participants, that’s a special thing.  

The original indigo snake trip was delayed due to scheduling conflicts beyond our control, but we were committed.  By the time Nathan Kutok, Tom Anton, and I hammered out a plan, it was believed that the timing (early March) would probably not be conducive to prime indigo snake activity (which for the area is January and February).  So instead we decided to simply prioritize some key sites and then from there see what species we could find.  In other words, we were more or less habitat-centric and not as species-centric.  Either way, it would be good to get to some warmer weather.  Upon our departure, the only herps active in the Chicago area were a few early spring breeders such as tiger and blue spotted salamanders (Ambystoma tigrinum and A. laterale).  The local chorus frogs (Pseudacris triseriata) were just beginning to warm up.  Us herp people become really impatient around this time of year!

On March 7th, Tom and I left the Chicago area bound for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to pick up Nathan.  We spent a couple of hours at the INHS herp collection, where Nathan currently works.  It was a treat to be able to look through the specimens on hand and learn of their provenance.  Many Illinois species are well-represented, as are exotic species such as Sphenodon punctatus, the tuatara.  I couldn’t help but request to see the Mercer County record painted turtle (Chrysemys picta).  It was my first county record, from back in 2015.  Never thought a crusty old turtle shell could be a sight for sore eyes.

Regina grahamii collected by Robert Schroder, along with his field notes

The herp collection

Onward toward southern Illinois for our first pit stop.  Our inaugural foray produced many species of herps - mostly amphibians - at a top-notch natural area in Johnson County.  We donned our muck boots and made our way through wet woods in search of salamanders.  The spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer) were in full effect nearby and the ground was hopping with Blanchard’s cricket frogs (Acris blanchardi).  We carefully turned logs as we proceeded toward a relatively steep rock face, finding spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum), smallmouth salamanders (Ambystoma texanum), slimy salamanders (Plethodon glutinosus), a single cave salamander (Eurycea lucifuga) and a single marbled salamander (Ambystoma opacum).  I discovered one of the smallmouth salamanders in the process of eating an earthworm - the log was carefully put back to allow the amphibian to continue its meal.  As we approached the base of a rocky bluff, Nathan found a spring cavefish (Forbesichthys agassizii) quite by accident while searching for amphibian larvae. This is an unusual fish that resides in seeps and springs, and it occurs only where the habitat and water haven’t been disturbed (i.e very few places).  Other notable finds included a five-lined skink (Plestiodon fasciatus) and my first snake of the year, a brown snake (Storeria dekayi).  Nathan and I ascended the bluff a ways and continued searching for herps but we were mostly unsuccessful up there.  The three of us returned to the car and to our next destinations.

Bottomland habitat 

Spotted (above) and marbled salamanders

Smallmouth salamander

Cave salamander

Smallmouth salamander tugging a worm from the soil

Nathan guided us to a nearby flooded man-made pit that served as a breeding site for several species of amphibians.  Upon first glance it was clear that we were late for the spotted salamander breeding party as the pond contained about a dozen or so egg masses.  Some careful netting produced what we think might have been tiger salamander larvae, but as they were very small and the daylight was fading, it was sort of difficult to confirm the identification.  Another nearby man-made pond produced a greater variety of amphibians, including newts (Notophthalmus viridescens) and paedomorphic mole salamanders (Ambystoma talpoideum).  Other finds between the two ponds were adult and larvae southern leopard frogs (Rana sphenocephala) and a single adult female bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana). 

Flooded pit teeming with life

Spotted salamander eggs

Newt

Paedomorphic mole salamander

After dark, we did try to find the elusive crawfish frog (Rana areolatus) across a number of watery areas - ponds, ditches, and flooded agricultural fields.  We determined that we were a bit too early - though it had rained several days prior and the temperatures seemed right, the “perfect storm” had not yet whipped up the fossorial frogs just yet.  That night we ended up spending the night at a friend’s house near Carbondale.  It was the first in a series of short nights caused by late field outings and early departures (the sleep deprivation would lead to euphoric hilarity by our final evening).

Stay tuned for part two!