Saw this large fellow in Idaho this week.
NFR Got any Herp pictures?
- Thread starter Matt B
- Start date
Non-fishing related
Saw this large fellow in Idaho this week.
Also chytrid fungus is a major threat with potential to affect all our native amphibian species, and has been noted as an increasing issue in Washington State.
Uptonogood
PNW raised
That rhyme is frowned upon by experts due to some color variations. I still use it. The coral snake has a small mouth and it’s hard to get bitten by one. They are also very secretive, I’ve never seen a live one and only one dead one in a jar and I’ve spent 30+ years and many hundred hours out in coral snake habitat. By the way, Florida has 44 native snake species and only six venomous snake species. There is an average of300 venomous snake bites yearly with zero fatalities. The last fatal one I know was a child helping his grandfather in their garden, he was bitten by a timber rattlesnake. That bite happened 12 years ago. Virtually all venomous snake bites occur from folks either trying to kill, move or “Here, hold my beer and watch this” situations.
They are real cool. If catch them in the open they coil up and look like a pile of poop....
tkww
Life of the Party
Absolutely beautiful. Great shot.Norhern rubber boa in Cle Elum....first one I've ever seen.
Paige
Wishing I was fishing the Sauk
The Reptile Zoo in Monroe is closing in October.
www.king5.com
Landmark 'Reptile Zoo' to close citing economic impacts
The Reptile Zoo in Monroe faces closure unless rescued from financial challenges exacerbated by the pandemic.
www.king5.com
t_law
Steelhead
Dang, such a bummer, that place was super cool(and I hate snakes). I remember his Dad, the reptile man, coming to give presentations when I was in school way back when. Took my oldest son there, who is now 15, on his 4th birthday and he's had the reptile bug ever since. He's been taking a college level on-line herp course over the summer, what a nerd!, and I was eaves dropping on him during the first lecture and all the students were going around introducing themselves and he says "hey I'm so-and-so and I'm 15...blah, blah, blah" and the professor said "wait, what? Are you serious?", pretty funny. Hope the owner attempts a go-fund-me or something, would like to see that place stick around.The Reptile Zoo in Monroe is closing in October.
Landmark 'Reptile Zoo' to close citing economic impacts
The Reptile Zoo in Monroe faces closure unless rescued from financial challenges exacerbated by the pandemic.
I’ve been finding these in my yard this year. We’ve lived here for thirteen years and this is new. The adjacent designated open space with the maturing native plants they installed years ago may be paying off. A new beaver dam a couple of hundred yards away has also appeared. It’s good to see.
At a PugetSound Beach
Two Agamids from a recent trip to Southeast Asia, one very common, the other much less so.
The Oriental Garden Lizard (Calotes versicolor) is a Pan-Asian species that is found from forests to urban areas, and is an introduced pest in some countries, including the United States, having established itself in Florida in the 1970s -- Steve will know more. I found this one, together with at least 5 others, running around the grounds of a 5-star resort by the beach.
Still, quite an attractive lizard, especially when the male is in its breeding colors -- like their cousins the Chameleons, Agamids can change color at will, and both have fused, non-replaceable teeth on the jaws, making them the only two families in the infraorder Acrodonta (literally "highest teeth" from the Greek).
Incidentally, Tuataras also have acrodont teeth, but are not in the family Acrodonta, they're the sole surviving species of the order Rhynchocephalia, i.e., they're not actually lizards (Order Squamata), although they look like one. Don't you just love scientific classification?
This next one, the Peninsular Horned Lizard, has a lovely, and rather threatening, scientific name: Acanthosaura armata (literally "Armed Thorn-Lizard" from the Greek and Latin). Its range is restricted to the forests of the Malay Peninsula (Malaysia and Southern Thailand), Sumatra and a few of the Anambas islands in the South China Sea.
This one was eyeballing me at an elevation of 2,600' in dense old growth secondary forest, and sat obligingly while I took its photo.
Thanks for looking,
Kenneth
The Oriental Garden Lizard (Calotes versicolor) is a Pan-Asian species that is found from forests to urban areas, and is an introduced pest in some countries, including the United States, having established itself in Florida in the 1970s -- Steve will know more. I found this one, together with at least 5 others, running around the grounds of a 5-star resort by the beach.
Still, quite an attractive lizard, especially when the male is in its breeding colors -- like their cousins the Chameleons, Agamids can change color at will, and both have fused, non-replaceable teeth on the jaws, making them the only two families in the infraorder Acrodonta (literally "highest teeth" from the Greek).
Incidentally, Tuataras also have acrodont teeth, but are not in the family Acrodonta, they're the sole surviving species of the order Rhynchocephalia, i.e., they're not actually lizards (Order Squamata), although they look like one. Don't you just love scientific classification?
This next one, the Peninsular Horned Lizard, has a lovely, and rather threatening, scientific name: Acanthosaura armata (literally "Armed Thorn-Lizard" from the Greek and Latin). Its range is restricted to the forests of the Malay Peninsula (Malaysia and Southern Thailand), Sumatra and a few of the Anambas islands in the South China Sea.
This one was eyeballing me at an elevation of 2,600' in dense old growth secondary forest, and sat obligingly while I took its photo.
Thanks for looking,
Kenneth
On my hike today, there we're lots of these guys
At some points they were so thick on the trail it was like playing inverse frogger
At some points they were so thick on the trail it was like playing inverse frogger
Looks like Western Toad, right? Always good to see thriving native amphibians. Those are vulnerable to chytrid fungus and considered by WDFW to be a “Species of Greatest Conservation Need.”
No idea, they were really small, about the size of a cherry tomato
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The introduction of the American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus) from eastern North America to the West Coast have been a catastrophe for many native aquatic species. As opportunistic predators, adults will consume almost any animals that can fit in their mouth. While the biologists at Nisqually NWR have had some success in reducing bullfrog populations from the Black Lake section of the refuge, bullfrogs are still quite common in the Nisqually section. This metamorphosing bullfrog tadpole was basking with several other bullfrog tadpoles in the entrance pond.
I frequently see adult bullfrogs in the canals along the Twin Barns loop at Nisqually NWR. So, I was surprised to find this Northern red-legged frog (Rana aurora) in one of the canals earlier this week.
This is the first time that I have seen this species here. While this frog species is secure in Western Washington, populations farther north and south are in decline.
Bullfrogs (and other predators like bitterns, great blue herons, and garter snakes) don’t appear to have much of an impact on the abundance of Pacific tree frogs at Nisqually.
Now, the tree frogs may be climbing onto the stems and leaves of invasive Himalayan blackberries to avoid bullfrogs hunting in and around the canals.
But not all the tree frogs have received the crypsis memo…
Steve
I frequently see adult bullfrogs in the canals along the Twin Barns loop at Nisqually NWR. So, I was surprised to find this Northern red-legged frog (Rana aurora) in one of the canals earlier this week.
This is the first time that I have seen this species here. While this frog species is secure in Western Washington, populations farther north and south are in decline.
Bullfrogs (and other predators like bitterns, great blue herons, and garter snakes) don’t appear to have much of an impact on the abundance of Pacific tree frogs at Nisqually.
Now, the tree frogs may be climbing onto the stems and leaves of invasive Himalayan blackberries to avoid bullfrogs hunting in and around the canals.
But not all the tree frogs have received the crypsis memo…
Steve
Came home today and almost stepped on the little guy, he jumped out of the way just in time.
