You would certainly know what the poors do.
The Great Outdoors
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This is cool. Believe it or not you don't see green tree frogs very often in South Florida (possibly central Florida as well). They've largely been replaced by (larger) Cuban tree frogs.
There's a ton here in North East Arkansas. But we are after big bull frogs for my our son to play with tomorrow.
Finding him a jumper?
Do you live in Calaveras County?
A hhhhhhwhat?
We have a bunch of these guys around. They are loud as fuck right now.
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@Grateful Dude remember the territorial displays I told you male green anoles use? Here's a good pic of an encounter that I saw on iNaturalist:
Besides the obvious dewlap ("throat fan" for noobs) extension, notice the crest on each lizard's head and notice the way each male has puffed his body full of air to appear bigger. There are likely a few females in that area as it's the height of breeding season.
And despite what it looks like, they may not end up fighting. Research has shown that males will display longer in an attempt to avoid physical conflict (as it can lead to serious injury).
Females, on the other hand, use fewer displays and are a lot quicker to resort to physical violence. This is likely because the risk of serious injury is lower in lizards that lack one-punch KO power and scream hi-ya when they punch or kick the fucking air.
I’ve seen them use the dewlap, but not sure I’ve ever noticed the inflated body. Cool little critters, I like having them around my yard.
View attachment 35648
Besides the obvious dewlap ("throat fan" for noobs) extension, notice the crest on each lizard's head and notice the way each male has puffed his body full of air to appear bigger. There are likely a few females in that area as it's the height of breeding season.
And despite what it looks like, they may not end up fighting. Research has shown that males will display longer in an attempt to avoid physical conflict (as it can lead to serious injury).
Females, on the other hand, use fewer displays and are a lot quicker to resort to physical violence. This is likely because the risk of serious injury is lower in lizards that lack one-punch KO power and scream hi-ya when they punch or kick the fucking air.
also:
I didn’t get a picture because it happened so quick, but I saw a coral snake the other day. Pretty decent size for a coral, was approaching 2 feet. Slithered across a footpath right in front of me and then disappeared into the rock talus. they’re around, but I don’t actually see them all that often.
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Red on yellow kills a fellow, red on black friend of Jack.
I'm not sure how toxic their venom is, but I don't fuck around with venomous snakes in general. I have zero interest in finding out. I'm way more worried about water moccasins/cottonmouths than alligators when I'm forced to step into bodies of fresh water when I go fishing.
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The most popular youth sport in the midwest for 140 consecutive years.
For those that aren’t familiar, it’s really easy to misidentify as a king or milk snake. This one was confirmed coral by the herpetologist I was with.
their venom can be bad, but like other snakes, it’s hard to predict how different people will react to it.
I know an older biologist that got bit by a coral. He collected it, but the snake got him through the snake bag as he was tying shut. He ended up in the hospital for several days. Said the pain was pretty bad. I can’t remember exactly, but the venom messed with his blood pressure and heart rate or something along those lines. Due to his age (mid 70s), the doctors were really worried about that which prolonged his hospital stay until it all stabilized. Like a true scientist, he documented the whole thing and wrote a little paper about it lol. I saw him present about that at one of our annual conservation symposiums, I’ll see if I can get my hands on the paper (I should have it on the flash drive they hand out with all the presentations).
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Lol I imagine him writhing in pain in a hospital bed while dictating his symptoms for a research assistant to document.
At approximately 18:50 post-envenomation, acute nerve pain has gone from moderate to severe OWWWWW FUCK! Hospital staff providing morphine sulfate (SC/IM) 5-10 mg every 4 hours ad libitum for pain OHHHHH FUCKING SHIT!!
To your other point, I also don’t like to deal with venomous snakes. Im actually pretty fearful of them. I can handle killing them, but I don’t ever try to collect or handle. I don’t worry about corals that much because sightings are rare. I mostly see diamondback rattlers and cottonmouths. Both of those tend to be a lot more aggressive than corals. Occasionally see copperheads, but like corals it’s pretty rare.
back in the day, and after far too many close calls, I killed a number of rattlers. They really like to hang out in the caves we do work in. Made me feel more comfortable to know it was gone rather than seeing it again the next day. If it was somewhere I could shoo it away I would, but it fucking sucks being in a cave with them. These days I work with two really good herpetologists that don’t mind handling them at all (they actually kind of get hard for it lol). So I don’t kill them them hardly ever anymore, and these guys are perfectly happy to collect them in a bin while we do our work and then we will release. I’ve been struck in the snake chaps a few times....talk about almost shitting your pants!
Haha, that’s actually pretty close to how he presented his data to us. Now that I’m thinking about this again I recall him telling us about some breath test they kept making him do. He figured out a way to trick them so he could go home. Partially because he just didn’t want to be in the hospital anymore, but also so he could get his data on paper. Wild dude lol
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@Grateful Dude you'll like this. Of all the shitty invasive reptiles we have in Florida, a gem like this one appears:View: https://www.instagram.com/p/COqHMNFMOZz/?igshid=1kn8vrnphlmc1
Called the Allison's Anole (Anolis allisoni), it is in the same clade as our green anoles and it appears to be able to successfully interbreed with greens, as one of the three known populations is seeing the usual blue coloration pattern in males start to fade. Herpetologists suspect this is due to interbreeding with native green anoles.
As you can see it is morphologically very similar to green anoles, with the obvious difference being its blue coloration in males. Females of this species are practically identical to female green anoles.
Like the Cuban green anole (Anolis porcatus), allisoni is slightly larger than American green anoles and, thus, better able to defend itself against invasive brown anoles.
We caught a chicken snake. Our son liked that better than the frogs. What a weirdo.
Whoa that’s pretty cool looking. Is that another released/escaped pet type of colonization that took?
View: https://www.instagram.com/p/COqHMNFMOZz/?igshid=1kn8vrnphlmc1
Called the Allison's Anole (Anolis allisoni), it is in the same clade as our green anoles and it appears to be able to successfully interbreed with greens, as one of the three known populations is seeing the usual blue coloration pattern in males start to fade. Herpetologists suspect this is due to interbreeding with native green anoles.
As you can see it is morphologically very similar to green anoles, with the obvious difference being its blue coloration in males. Females of this species are practically identical to female green anoles.
Like the Cuban green anole (Anolis porcatus), allisoni is slightly larger than American green anoles and, thus, better able to defend itself against invasive brown anoles.
Need to get that kid collecting bait for ya. After the storms we had last week, my boy was out collecting all the worms he could find in the yard ?
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No one is quite sure because they're not common inthe pet trade. Based on invasions of similarly sized anoles in different parts of the world, they likely arrived as eggs buried in potted plants from Cuba. The Naples population appears to have spread from a plant nursery, so that is almost a guarantee as to how it got here. The two Tampa populations could have spread independently from the Naples one or they could have "hitch-hiked" from Naples to Tampa, another common way anoles spread to different areas.
There's a species called the Hispaniolan green anole (anolis Chlorocyanus, more distant from/unable to interbreed with Carolinensis) that is currently limited to a 3-block radius in Parkland, FL, about 15 minutes from me. That one started at a plant nursery as well.
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Lizards are lame
Isolation has changed you.
hope you’re almost done with that bullshit, buddy. Come to Tx and I’ll get you vaccinated next week ?