EDITED to add: I am working on the picture sizes since they aren't showing up in entirety, and will finish them later today. Sorry for the multiple posts to various family members' emails. Hopefully 3rd time will be the charm.
*Last week Matt took the boys on their yearly overnight trip to the Ozark "Mountains" of central MO to look for Salamanders. The boys look forward to this time with their dad and even now a week later Asher is talking about his BIG "twip" with daddy. The following text is from a post Matt wrote for a field herpetology forum so it is pretty technical, but you will enjoy the pictures. I added a few translations with a star to help us normal readers understand what the heck he's talking about. Ridge & I relaxed over the weekend and were very ready for them to get home. I never thought I'd get bored of having too much alone time, but I did. -Jamey
My boys and I, with some friends, made our annual 2 hour drive to center MO a bit early this year due to the forecast. As temps are now in the teens and we enjoyed mid-70s when we went on the weekend, I'm glad we did.
This is a caudate-centered trip and it once again didn't disappoint, producing 7 species, which is about all of them in the area. After getting back I hit the two we have here bringing it to 9 in the last 5 days.
It is always great to hear the Chorus Frogs here this time of year. Starting about 10 minutes from my house and increasing as you go south and east, they are quickly drowned out by the vociferous Spring Peepers. As we arrived at the first pond just before dusk, the peepers were so loud we couldn't hear each other.
Pseudacris crucifer
We didn't get rain that night so after dipnetting for tadpoles and newts, we headed to a hotel. In the tradition of this trip and his life in general, on the way back to the car Asher (*Jamey edit: "now known as Smasher/basher" ran headlong into a fence and cut his head open, drenching it in blood.
After making sure he was OK and then enjoying a "good night's" motel rest, we got up the next morning and headed to a cave. Here are some of its denizens:
Grotto Salamander,
Eurycea spelaea (larval)
Slimy Salamander
, Plethodon albagula are always found in one discrete part of the cave and nowhere else.
Pickerels are a constant, but this was the first time we have seen a Green Frog in the cave, pic of both after a mud dive unfortunately.
From the cave, we went in search of maculatum (*spotted salamanders) and Notophthalmus (*central newts). Rain was coming this evening and Spotted Salamanders were under leaf litter surrounding ponds.
Central Newts were thick as always in the pond and in the leaf litter in the muck zone. I unnaturally posed one of the aquatic animals lacking a good aquarium for it.
Notophthalmus viridescens louisianensis
Reptiles were out also. We hunted some and scoped a lot, finding some habitat to explore during the true serpent season hopefully. I didn't take photos of most of what we saw as they are species that I have many shots of already, but here are a few:
Coal Skink,
Eumeces anthracinus
Ground Skink,
Scincella lateralisAt one stop, my five-year old had turned up this
Virginia (*earth snake) and a Sceloperous (*fence lizard)before I so much as got out of the car. He's going to pass me up before too long.
The biggest find came after returning home, though. Monday rains prompted me to make a run that I hadn't made in a couple of years-- the search for the ghost
tigrinum, which is what finding Eastern Tiger Salamanders is around here any more. The last time I searched for them, I found a DOR (*dead on road!) in the vicinity of the last record from the past several years in any county touching ours. This time I went to a different bordering county to an area that had habitat that made me hopeful. I had seen the habitat on the way to a site visit for work about a month ago.
Ambystoma texanum were moving agressively. These four were all headed to the same slough:
No tigers though. I started back to the area where I had seen the DOR last time, but didn't get more than a few miles before I saw the tell-tale shape of
tigrinum, head in the air and large in stature, clearly visible even at 55 mph. I wanted to take a pic in that pose but it was not a safe place to stop so I had to move him. I didn't get good shot at all unfortunately. Not a beautiful tiger, somewhat drab with a sore on his snout, but great to find.
We're going to be contacting the landowner to send folks to the pond it was headed to in hopes of finding more and getting some eggs for translocation to a mitigation site that will be intensely studied. Trying to figure out central causes for their decline locally and whether we can bring the species back here.
A few final pics of the hunters. Great time of year is upon us.
Asher, posing a snake for me (he loves this job and wants shots of every snake so he can "pose" them).
Newt in hand, blood still on the chin.
