ok, so heres the results, although i by no means got pics of everything interesting we encountered. so we'll start with the inverts first:
some mantises/manti/whatever
weird lil caterpillars
giant wolf spider
myself being stupid while holding a florida bark scorpion
and now some amphibians:
the rampant cuban treefrogs
squirrel treefrogs
on to the reptiles:
racer
rosy rats
our most commonly encountered snake in the keys, the salt marsh mangrove water snake
normal phase
buddy ross in an action shot
red phase
florida cottonmouth
baby
brown water snake
florida scarlet snake
garter
and now just a few of the more notable snake of the trip
first, a mammoth burmese python (we got 2 within maybe 15 minutes)
this big one i am holding we estimated to be roughly 10+ feet in length
a lifer and evidently rare snake in the glades, a beautiful coral
a large DOR dusky pygmy (ive found so few of these, and never in the glades like this one!)
this lil neonate banded water snake wasnt found in florida at all, we decided to swing by our research site in south carolina before making it all the way back home, and good thing too. we got the first record of a snake being out in december. so that was one record we broke, and on top of that, we got a record for the lowest air and road temps for a snake on the road at the research site. needless to say, it made for a nice end to the trip.
this yellow(~75%) x black (~25%) rat intergrade was our first find of the trip, and also came out of south carolina. my first live yellow (mostly, at least) rat snake.
and next, a shot of the ever-present gators...this one with lil babies all around big mama!
and now, for the best of all, lizards!
many brown anoles, some bark anoles, no green anoles
many iguanas out and about. this youngster was all-over lime green with some turquoise speckling around its mouth when we first caught it. pictured are its stressed colors (still very pretty).
then theres a gargantuan resident tokay at one of our aquaintances' house in the keys...this guy is seriously monstrous, im just sad he's always hiding when we show up.
and my all-time favorite find in south florida, the giant day geckos!
and last, but not least, another one of our cooler finds. although i dont condone collection of native wildlife, this guy was tempting me. i dont know if it was an anomaly or what, but we think it was a striped mud turtle. we found it crossing the road. it seemed to be losing most of its pigment with age. i dont know if this is common or not, but it was definitely a cool find. i had a friend tell me that florida law allows collection of mutants, whether or not this turtle would fall in that category i do not know. we snapped our pics, removed it from the road, and let it on its way nonetheless. so here it is.
well, that basically sums it up. it's sad to think it might be another whole year before i make it back, but for any serious herper, id strongly recommend making a nice week-long trip to the keys and everglades at some point. it's just unbelievable, and each trip bring something new and exciting. thats all my pics for now, my friends might get me some pics sometime soon, so i may have some too add. hope everyone enjoys, and sorry for the lack of a dialup warning!
