Gotta love this stunning pair of Chondros in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user NYCMedic ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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Happy Wednesday from this pair of Crowned Bullfrogs (Hoplobatrachus occipitalis) in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Slaytonp ! Yes they are “wrestling” otherwise known as amplexus. Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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Love the color variation that this mottled Mexican Redtail Indigo (Drymarchon m. rubidus) has in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user alanB ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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Saturday may have been World Lizard Day, but to is EVERY day is a lizard day. This Utila Island Iguana is just chilling in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user s4sainz . Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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This is the “Christmas Tree” Eyelashed Palm Pit Viper so favored by hobbyists.
Last week we discussed one of the more rarely seen of the Palm Pit Vipers, the Yellow-blotched, B. aurifer. This week let’s take a brief foray into the world of what is probably the best known and most variable member of the genus, the 2 to 3-foot long Eyelashed Palm Pit Viper, Bothriechis schlegelii. This is a slender snake with a strongly prehensile tail. The supraorbital “eyelashes” are legend. Despite being venomous, the variability of color and patterns and the fact that this snake is hardy attracts many hobbyists to this lowland Central American and northern South American pit viper.
Color? You name it. This snake can vary from the dullest of grays, with or without darker patterning, to the brightest of sunshine yellow, again with or without patterning. The gold-phase is often referred to as the “Orapel,” Spanish meaning gold and glittery. Then there are the greens, gray-greens, dull greens, or a hobbyist favorite, the “Christmas tree phase, this latter being a bright green with reddish patterning. The tiger phase, a golden snake with broad green banding is also a favorite.
This is a humidity loving snake that in its forested habitat may often be found at about face-level along bush and tree-shrouded watercourses. There it quietly waits for prey that includes small arboreal rodents, treefrogs, lizards and birds.
Along with the already mentioned attributes, hobbyists are now taking pride in designing enclosures for this quiet snake as rainforest replicas with living plants, perches, and occasionally with mini-waterfalls. Humidity is good, wetness is not.
I’ll close here by saying that although this is often a “laid back” and quiet species, as with any venomous snake, extreme care should be used when maintenance and or handling becomes necessary. Continue reading “The Eyelashed Palm Pit Viper” …read more
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The photo may be a bit blurry, but there is no mistaking that is a gravid Masssasauga in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user LetsConservate24 in the field! We can only imagine the excitement at this find! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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This Milk snake is just hanging out our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user gerryg . Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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What wonderful color contrast in this hatchling Mud Snake in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Godfrey ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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What an adorable little tree frog in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user redjiboia ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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Yellow-blotched Palm Pit Vipers remain comparatively uncommon in collections.
This montane, arboreal, venomous beauty, ranges from the state of Chiapas, Mexico to northern Guatemala. Like is congenerics, it is small (to about 30 inches) and slender in build. The tail is strongly prehensile. As with most snakes, both the common and the scientific name may be misleading. Although most examples are leaf-green with prominent black edging around the yellowish dorsal blotches and black facial markings, and some have black-edged green blotches that are nearly the same as the body in color. Others may be uniform green, lacking both dorsal and facial black patterning. Black, variably distinct, irregular vertebral striping may connect the dorsal blotches. If present this marking is often most discernable anteriorly. The belly of adults is usually marginally lighter than the dorsum and neonates are a pale green with the expected dark markings. Captives readily accept mice and it is expected that in the wild the diet may include small rodents, mouse opossums, and, for neonate vipers treefrogs and lizards.
The Yellow-blotched Palm Pit Viper, Bothriechis aurifer, considered by biologists to be a “vulnerable species,” is not frequently imported and is currently uncommon in both zoo and private collections.
Seemingly little is known, or at least has been published about the venom of this pit viper. I’ll close here by saying that as with any venomous snake, extreme care should be used when handling. Continue reading “The Yellow-blotched Palm Pit Viper” …read more
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This isn’t our forefathers Af Rock! This beautiful patternless African Rock shines in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user MEIER21288 ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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Happy Rattlesnake Friday! How stunning is the red on this Speckled Rattlesnake, uploaded by kingsnake.com user outonalimbo ! This Speck was found in Arizona. Be sure to tell them you liked it here! As always on Friday, we celebrate all of our venomous reptiles for their contribution to the world.
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Happy Rattlesnake Friday! How stunning is the red on this Speckled Rattlesnake (Crotalus mitchellii pyrrhus), uploaded by kingsnake.com user lichanura ! This Speck was found in Arizona. Be sure to tell them you liked it here! As always on Friday, we celebrate all of our venomous reptiles for their contribution to the world.
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There is so much to love about Colubrids, so why not celebrate them with a big ole pile of beauty in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user xtranch ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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What wonderful field find in Mexico of this Lyre Snake our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user Chuck_Ch ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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What a sassy lil Tokay in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user mattcrum! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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What a wee lil Kinyongia tenue , commonly known as a Flap-nose Chameleon in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user pardalisberlin! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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Happy Rattlesnake Friday! How stunning is the red on this Speckled Rattlesnake (Crotalus mitchellii pyrrhus), uploaded by kingsnake.com user lichanura ! This Speck was found in Arizona. Be sure to tell them you liked it here! As always on Friday, we celebrate all of our venomous reptiles for their contribution to the world.
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These Uroplatus pietschmanni in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user mcamo3 ,show us what amazing masters of camoflague they truly are! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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This variable kingsnake is on fire in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Rod_McLeod. Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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Love is in the air with this pair of Gran Canaria giant lizards (Gallotia stehlini) in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user John-C . Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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Awesome feeding shot of a chameleon in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user 1Sun s! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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A profile of the Southeastern Slimy Salamander.
By Dick and Patti Bartlett
Plethodon grobmani, the Southeastern Slimy Salamander, is a creature of pinewoods habitats. It was once fairly common in our neighborhood. Today (2021) following several lengthy droughts and a major attack of pine bark beetles (and the resulting death of old pine stands), this salamander is almost unknown here. At the turn of the century I would go across the street, enter the pinewoods, and in a half hour search say “howdy-do” to about a dozen slimys. Compare that to my occasional searches over the last 10 years when my exact total was one—a single salamander– and it was not in the best of shape. Of course, as already mentioned, most of the pine trees in that area are gone also, victims of the infestation of pine-bark beetles.
In other locales, where the pine bark beetle plague was less pronounced than here, this white-flecked black salamander remains easily found in pine and mixed woodlands. Like others of this, genus this salamander has no aquatic larval stage. The egg clutch is deposited in or beneath moist fallen pines and development, from the newly deposited eggs, through metamorphosis, to emergence as a miniature of the adults occurs in the egg capsule.
Continue reading “Comments on the Southeastern Slimy Salamander” …read more
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Happy Rattlesnake Friday! How stunning is the red on this Speckled Rattlesnake (Crotalus mitchellii pyrrhus), uploaded by kingsnake.com user lichanura ! This Speck was found in Arizona. Be sure to tell them you liked it here! As always on Friday, we celebrate all of our venomous reptiles for their contribution to the world.
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Take a few moments today to follow the lead of this Giant Day Gecko in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user crazyrhacos and give yourself some time to relax! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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What a wonderful headshot of a Desert Iguana in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user dvl s! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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What a beautiful Cuban Knight Anole in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user StPierre68 simply could not be any cuter! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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Tick Tock. The week passes quickly but today is easier starting with the smile of a Nile Croc in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user CDieter! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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A Yellow Rat Snake from Central Florida .
By Dick and Patti Bartlett
Despite their need for papers and what the geneticists claim, I continue to follow the Linnaeus method and recognize subspecies. To that end, this is now and has been almost forever the Yellow Rat Snake, Pantherophis obsoleta quadrivittata. There are 4 other subspecies, including the nominate form, the northeastern Black Rat Snake, in this species group.
It is at the southeastern edge of its range that the Black Rat Snake slips gently into the yellow race. First the southernmost Black Rat Snakes assume a dorsolateral pattern of stripes and a greenish hue and as the greenish rats continue further south they become the traditional and long recognized yellow subspecies. But way south, down near Lake Okeechobee, when the Everglades was truly a river of grass, before the rice fields, the sugarcane, the sodfields, before the maze of drainage canals and Brazilian pepper, the yellow rat snake lost all but a vestige of stripes, assumed a deep orange color, and became the Everglades rat snake. Human influx = habitat destruction. And despite the efforts of the state, if such efforts, are actually real, habitat destruction continues, seemingly almost unabated.
But now back to comments regarding the yellow rat snake. They are real, and they continue to exist, perhaps in reduced numbers, over most if not all, of their long-described range. They remain rather common in our neighborhood, but houses are now quickly replacing the woodlands here. I can only hope for the best. Long live the Yellow Rat Snake.
Continue reading “Eastern Rat Snake No. Yellow Rat Snake, Yes” …read more
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Happy Rattlesnake Friday and World Snake Day! Is there any more iconic snake than a Western Diamondback? Poised and ready in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user Terry Cox is no exception! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
We celebrate #RattlesnakeFriday to celebrate the wonderful venomous species that contribute to making our world greater and also use it as a way to support conservation efforts to protect these species worldwide!
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Our Herp Photo of the Day shows and amazing look inside the egg of a Russian Tortoise to be, uploaded by kingsnake.com user tortusjack!
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That’s a whole lotta bull. Bullsnake that is! Loving the colors on the one here in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user orchidspider has never missed a meal! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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So precious! We love hatchling photos, like this awakening Gecko in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user SA! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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Sometimes you need to look outside the box! This stunning Sunbeam Snake may not be the most colorful on first glance, but as you can see in our Herp Photo of the Day, they are a truly beautiful snake, uploaded by kingsnake.com user mecdwell! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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This Gladiator Treefrog was sitting quietly in a low shrub.
By Dick and Patti Bartlett
This big brown(ish) treefrog is, at an adult length of 5 inches, one of the largest hylids from Amazonas to Panama. Although both genders attain this length, males often are marginally the larger. The unveined orangish eyes help differentiate this common treefrog from other large species. The sides and dorsum bear dark markings that may be prominent or almost invisible. All four feet are webbed.
The Giant Gladiator Treefrog (Hyla (Boana) boans), is commonly seen in riveredge/streamedge shrubs and low trees, and less commonly on the moist shoreline.
The name of Gladiator was given for males at their breeding sites will grapple in territorial battles. These scraps are made the more serious due to the fact that the males have sharp, bony, thumb excrescences. It is usually the bigger male that wins.
Nesting depressions may be either natural small shore-edge puddles or a depression dug by the male. There is usually at least a small water-holding connection to the nearby permanent water source. It is through this that the tadpoles reach the permanent water in which they grow and metamorphose.
Continue reading “The Giant Gladiator Treefrog” …read more
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Happy Rattlesnake Friday! All venomous snakes need our support, and this stunning Olmec Pit Viper (Atropoides olmec) in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user PeteSnakeCharmer is no exception! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
We celebrate #RattlesnakeFriday to celebrate the wonderful venomous species that contribute to making our world greater and also use it as a way to support conservation efforts to protect these species worldwide!
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Does a kingsnake really need an intro for our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user trevid ? Nope, but hey nice grayband. Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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One little, two little, three little Bearded Dragons in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user dedragons ! It’s three for Thursday! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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Poised and watching, what a stunning Mangrove in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user ptahtoo! Be sure to tell them you liked it here.
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Grumpy Toad is judging you in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user galen ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!
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