Field Herp Forum

Enjoyed all of it alot, lots of creatures featured that I hope to see someday. Really good photography all around as well. Another abundant though legless gecko, was the Western Hooded Scaly Foot, with 20 being seen in just one night. I never realized it was a gecko, this sentence sent me scrambling...

Scolpendrids are responsible for 'some' deaths. You don't really have to worry about dying though as that is not very likely to happen. I have read it is an extremely painful experience , but this this varries by species. The Giant Asian species are said to the worst. Everyone has always told me th...

I recently read a paper that stated that centipedes made up a decent proportion (I forget how much) of the diet of western massasaugas and desert massasaugas. I can't remember the details, but I was surprised to learn about it. There aren't alot of critters out there that give me the heebie jeebies ...

I am currently disappointed with Photo Bucket. In my 3 part Australia series, the pictures no longer show because the 10GB bandwidth limit was exceeded for the month. Not sure when the month ends but the pictures will apprently reappear when the new month starts. Sorry for the hassle. Do other phot...

Couple of Trapjaws basking on a dirt mound in a swamp.
Warming up by antonsrkn, on Flickr

Thanks guys for the additional clarification, always appreciated! an easy way to tell the males is they look a bit like a female Mallard but have a black butt and rump. I'll be sure to remember that! Wait until you see a male Gadwall swimming in good light, maybe not the showiest of ducks, but reall...

Left to right... Mottled Duck (? - where were you?) might be a female wigeon. American Wigeon female Gadwall male Gadwall male Gadwall female Gadwall Thanks alot! These are in WI, so that first one must be a female widgeon. And as for the gadwalls, Huh well its not the most climactic way to see a n...

Thats really cool (no pun intended). I'm surprised they would be active on ice like that, last week I came across a snapper that had hauled itself to shallow water on a sunny day here in WI, it never even opened its eyes and its only movement in ~20 min was to raise its head slightly in order to bre...

Hi all, I snapped this shot just over a week ago and I have been having some trouble with IDing all the ducks in the photo. So using my bird guide I IDed one as an American Widgeon, it was my first time seeing one of those so it was pretty cool. I had assumed the others were mallards but the two dar...

My one and only reptile so far this year, a snapper basking in the shallows on a sunny day. It was still fairly cold out with ice on certain parts of the same pond the snapper was in. It barely moved in the 20 min or so that I watched, it would occasionally raise or lower its nose above or below the...

Thanks guys, Yeah I won't let it bother me, initially it bothered me a bit but the feeling has passed. One aspect that bothered considerably is that a few of the FB posts and blog posts thank OM and Heather Ray for educating me and as one comment put it help me become a better conservationist.... In...

You saw your reactions/responses over on operation migration, right? Yikes, no I had not seen that. Thank you for bringing it to my attention so I can defend myself. I wrote up a lengthy response to the post and several comments and posted it, lets see if it gets past moderation. Incase it does not...

Nice post yet again, you certainly found yourself a fascinating corner of the world to reside in. So much cool stuff its hard to pick what to comment on.... but I'll start at the beginning; the color in that kingfisher is incredible! Its interesting that there's alot of tarantulas at this time of ye...

So I actually found the database. http://www.bringbackthecranes.org/PopList4March2014.pdf And I was able to ID the cranes I saw, I'm stupidly excited about it. Introducing Nougat and Grasshopper! http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/crane/11/BandingCodes1118D.html http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/crane/...

NickAsher wrote:THey are moving

Awesome, thanks for the info.

Clearly a banded one migrating north. Do you have any clearer of his bands? That's an i.d. you can see what group he belongs to and what year/age. etc. I actually do have some shots where the bands are more visible. Is there a database I can access to ID the individuals? 1st bird: L -green, red R -...

Posting some of the shots in question would help, But to echo the others... a diffuser is almost necessary when photographing wet amphibs On a related note: How much does a polarizing filter generally help with reflections in everyones experience? I have never had a polarizer so when I saw one on sa...

Good stuff, Ecuador is a herp goldmine. My favorite was that Agalychnis.

Any suggestions on better photo hosting sites?

Could try Flickr

Fantastic! Nice shots and cool finds! Finding a caecilian would be a huge event for me. Is the caecilian and the snake mimics of each other? What advantage would that give either one? At least some Caecilian species secrete poison in their skin. I imagine it would make them unpalatable to certain pr...

Anyone been out to the road yet, is anything moving? Considering a family trip down there, maybe even this next upcoming weekend.

Thanks for the feedback guys. Why it might work: That crane was in all likelihood raised by people in giant white suits. It shouldn't associate a white suit with danger. Yeah, this was my thought process as well. Why it might not be a good idea: It is a federally listed bird, one of the most endange...

That sounds like BS to me. You're not going to get tagged because a snake senses your body heat, you're going to get tagged because you step on or next to a snake and it bites defensively. A decent sized Fer-de-lance will probably go through rubber boots like butter. They are good to wear because r...

Bornean Keeled Green Pit Viper (Tropidolaemus subannulatus) https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7305/11826713836_602887ae83_c.jpg :shock: :shock: :shock: That is possibly the coolest snake I've ever seen! Thanks! I was pretty ecstatic when I saw it, if I recall correctly the striping indicates its a you...

I guess we should have left the game camera set up right here in our yard!...

Thats pretty awesome, i'm envious you can see such cool wildlife in your own backyard, if it was there once then it'll be there again is the way I see it. Good luck on getting images!

Alright so I wanted to ask the opinion of some bird savvy folk about an idea thats popped into my head... Its kind of silly, feel free to laugh or tell me if its a bad idea, thats why I am asking. So I know of an general area where a whooping crane is hanging out, i saw him/her 2 weeks ago and then ...

Great stuff, I was particularily interested in the philippine section, we dont see many posts from there and im extra interested in the herpetofauna from there as ill be there in just over a month! Good luck with the crocs, hope your gamble pays off! not sure if it's just my crappy computer/monitor....

Great finds!

Does that Frilly Gecko parachute like Ptychozoon?

My fieldguide says they are known to parachute and glide between trees for distances up to 3 m.

Green is certainly a beautiful color for snakes to be, I always get a little extra excited when I come across a green snake of an sort. I have photos of a few.... Smooth Green Snake https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3139/2552282905_752451b4ce_o.jpg https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3085/2553102156_f7553b8...

Anton, I love everything about this shot except the tilted horizon! That always bugs me for some reason. Haha Believe me I know, no matter how many times I see that shot the first thing that jumps out at me is the tilted horizon, I have a version somewhere on a harddrive where its fixed in photosho...

That's an awesome shot! Nice wide angle use for environment incorporation Thank you! It was actually a shot I envisioned before I even made it down to Mexico (where this was taken), while doing research on the area I started picturing this type of shot with a croc in the foreground and the lake beh...

Incredible work all around, your 3 posts are the stuff dreams are made of. I'm really impressed by your bird, mammal and herp photography as well. How in the world did you spot the leaf tailed geckos? I feel like I could closely inspect a specific tree trunk with one on it and still miss it half the...

An older shot that I like quite a bit.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected] ... 4396674709

Fantastic find, seems like you made the most of it and had a great encounter and the snake didnt even get to maul you. Nice post.

For those of you who are initially confused (like I was) look at the bottom right corner of the images. Its tough to say from this kind of image but yeah im guessing coral or one of the mimics. Its always cool when snakes show up in camera trap images, there are some photos floating around on the ne...

Anton - Good luck in the philippines. My recommendation would be to get certified before leaving so you don't have to waste dives there on your 4 open water dives. That being said, your options in the winter are probably slim to none so I understand why you are probably doing it how you are. Thresh...

Another fantastic post! I'm in love with that green cat snake, that thing is gorgeous. And i'm very jealous of your pangolin encounter, I spotted one running off deeper into the jungle at one point and after a few seconds hesitation took off after it myself but in those few seconds I hesitated it di...

I'm jealous of all you guys posting herps from this year,we thought spring was here but just got dumped on with snow again a few nights ago. Lizards at night tend to be pretty easy to get in-situ shots of, this lizard never budged while I was photographing him. https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3805/10...

They finally did it, I have been switched to the "new experience" with no way to revert back to the old way. I am not thrilled about it.

That snake is gorgeous, I remember seeing it in one of the fieldguides I was looking at while in Borneo and being awestruck. Interestingly enough I just looked at the pocket field guide I do have and it doesn't have this species, must be so uncommon they decided not to include it in the pocket versi...

Andy, thanks alot for your help! This would indeed be M.m. hudsonica then as it was found in the central part of the state. Subspecies info is hard to find for anything other than herps - unless the subspecies are very unique or hunters and fishermen care. Yeah I was surprised by how little info I w...

So I have seen plenty of Striped Skunks (Mephitis mephitis) in the past but earlier today I finally managed to photograph one. I was a bit surprised to learn that there are 13 subspecies of Mephitis mephitis, this led to me trying to figure out how the subspecies were defined, seems like size and we...

Great photography work and looks like you turned up a lot of nice critters!

Wow, very nice work and very interesting observation. I wonder if this one could possibly be the same one you saw 4 years ago? Probably not, but I dont know enough about these lizards to say one way or another. This is high on my wishlist for when I return to SE Asia in a few months.

I saw my first Whooping Crane today!! Didn't get any decent photos, still kicking myself.

especially Red-breasted Mergansers Yeah there were a number of dead mergansers about, I didn't photograph the dead ducks much but when I saw that the two ducks previously shown were going to fly by the merganser I tried to get a shot with all 3 in frame. Really sad to just see them out there like t...

I'd be delighted to hear others' recommendations for news sources, too! Does anyone look at Mongabay? The site is described as "Tropical rainforest conservation and environmental science news". I like to go on there from time to time, there is usually some interesting stuff. http://www.mongabay.com/

I'm trying to abstain from joining this argument, mostly because it seems like the majority of folks posting more or less have similar views as my own and are able to express them more eloquently than I. But this statement tickled my funny bone: As for the "scientific consensus", it really only exis...

One thing that surprised me about Gopher Tortoises were how wary they were of people, it was surprisingly tough to snag a photo of one going about its business, they would spot me and make a dash.

Nice work, I also particularly like the eagle. You did really well with a 300mm, my biggest lens is a 400mm and I know thats still painfully short for many bird shots.