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At first glance, I fearfully began to yank Amos away from the snake that he found and sniffed curiously. Upon further inspection, I discovered that (1) it was dead, and (2) it was a harmless juvenile milk snake. I wonder if anyone has trained dogs to track herps for fieldwork…
I was able to see a captive desert tortoise, but these road signs indicating tortoise crossings were just a tease.
The third species in Sceloporus for me. While common at the Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area, it didn’t appear that they were in breeding season, since I didn’t see any colorful males.
For the first time in the wild, I came across an Eastern Box Turtle Terrapene carolina carolina at Cascade Springs Nature Preserve. I, of course, have a pet box turtle (Rocky) adopted from the Leff’s at Kent State University (who had adopted it from a former graduate student… who had taken it in from a middle school student of hers, I believe), but I had never encountered a wild one. While it was exciting, and I did get to see it exposed out of the shell, Amos was with me and scared the turtle into hiding, so I couldn’t get a descent shot.
A couple of juvenile Northern Fence Lizards Sceloporus undulatus from The Obed. Although these occur in Ohio, I had never encountered any and was quite excited to see these in Tennessee. The fence lizard is one of only a few non-skink lizards in Tennnessee, including a whiptail Aspidoscelis sexlineatus and an anole. If all that matters is locality, this is a Lake Erie Watersnake (Nerodia sipedon insularum) caught on the shore near Put-In-Bay, South Bass Island. However, N. s. insularum tends to have less pronounced patterning and an overall darker color than the mainland sub-species (sipedon), and this individual seems to fit that description. Interbreeding does occur, so it could even be a ‘hybrid’. Perhaps only genotyping will allow certainty…
This Polychrotid is a non-native to Costa Rica but is extremely common in parts of the Caribbean coast. It’s native to various Caribbean islands, such as Puerto Rico and Hispanola, and this one was caught outside Cahuita. The males not only develop a large, colorful dewlap, but also a crested tail, giving it the species epithet cristatellus. It’s fairly large and relatively distinctive in shape, similar to Norops capito.
This stream anole is frequently encountered in Reserva Biológica Alberto Manuel Brenes, and Boa and I found it at Hitoy Cerere.
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