A Trip to Southeastern Herp Mecca, March 2011

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Berkeley Boone
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A Trip to Southeastern Herp Mecca, March 2011

Post by Berkeley Boone »

Okay, so that title is an accurate description of where we went….under normal conditions.

Our trip, unfortunately, met some terribly adverse weather conditions and ended up being pretty poor for what we were planning on. The usual suspects for my trips (Matt K, Brad B, Justin O and me) met up with Josh H, Matt C, Young C and Tim W (all from the forum) for a trip to the Savannah River Ecology Lab in the great state of South Carolina. It was the end of March 2011. Historically, this is the prime time to hit the woods and the swamps in this region for big results.

We arrived early in the morning on Friday and met up with my old friend Cris who was one of our escorts for the time that we were there. Sean, our other escort, was doing a program for some schoolkids and would meet up with us a little later- which we hoped would be fortunate because it was about 43F and cloudy when we got there. So we were glad when he said that he would get caught up with us after lunch, because it was supposed to warm up a little bit.
While we killed time, we looked at the animal collection. These are all animals that are used in outreach programs, and get seen by thousands of people in Georgia and South Carolina each year.

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A gorgeous Eastern tiger salamander

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Super chubster California tiger salamander

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A gopher frog. I still have yet to see these in the wild.

Cris also showed us some of the animals that he takes care of: assurance colonies of mostly Asian turtles and some random crocodilians.

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A hatchling three keeled box turtle, Pyxidea mouhotti

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One of the adults in the group

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Chinese three striped box turtles, Cistoclemmys trifasciata

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Beautiful coloration on a hatchling. These little guys had insanely bright orange and melon colors.

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Yellow spotted river turtle, Podocnemis unifilis. A South American species.

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Big headed turtle. One of my favorite species.

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A pignosed turtle. These turtles just can’t be beat in the coolness factor.

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Indian spotted pond turtle, Geoclemys hamiltonii. This one was rather shy, but they are beautiful turtles.

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A New Guinea crocodile, Crocodylus novaeguineae

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Adult Chinese, or yellow margined, box turtle, Cuora flavomarginata

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Pan’s box turtle, Coura pani

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Super cool batagurid turtle called the painted river terrapin, Batagur borneoensis. These guys get massive, and go through an incredibly dramatic color change when they go into the breeding season. Normally they are pretty non-descript mud brownish gray, but the males lighten up incredibly to almost white with three dark stripes on the carapace. They also get a broad red stripe right on the top of their heads. Unfortunately, Cris told me we were about three weeks too late and they were already coming out of their breeding colors and going back to gray.

I love turtles, so I could have stayed there all day looking at the collection, but the other guys don’t really share my level of enthusiasm for that kind of stuff and I could tell they were getting antsy.

The fog had burned off and the harsh chill was gone from the air, so we figured we would try a couple of locations within walking distance of the animal collection. We flipped logs and coverboards and tin, peeled a little bark, and the only things we came up with were a neonate corn snake and a couple of skinks. Not a great start, but at least it was something.

We were able to track down Whit Gibbons walking around the lab offices. He was on his way out for the day, but agreed to hit a couple of favored tin sites with us.

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I think someone in the group found a ringnecked snake or two, and a couple more skinks here, but nothing more.

We got out onto the roads of the site after that, and we went to a few of the coverboard locations or places that hopefully would have some good areas for searching.

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Nothing was out, and it was getting late in the day. So we headed back to our base camp for the rest of the evening. Fortunately, we were staying at an indoor location at our basecamp because there was a severe thunderstorm that night. Absolutely terrible lightning and horrendous rain would have made for a looooooonnnng, cold night in a tent.

The next morning we got up early and searched the areas around where we had stayed. We flipped more logs and coverboards, and checked a couple of pitfall trap runs that were nearby. Nothing! Some hoop traps and some minnow traps had been put out in a pond at our basecamp, so we checked those. We got a few blackbanded sunfish, some topminnows and a giant water bug. And a single eastern musk turtle!

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Cary H and Marisa I (both from the forum as well) were able to meet up with us for a little this morning. Unfortunately, Cary soon suffered a serious bite by one of the local herps.

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We had plans to go out on the river in a couple of boats to look for various Nerodia, as well as softshells and cooters. Cary and Marisa weren’t able to join us, so they headed off to a nearby state park for some herping out there.

The rest of us loaded up with Sean in the trucks and headed toward the western side of the site. Our plan was to stop along the way and check a couple of Carolina bays that have great populations of a variety of herp species. In order to do that though, we had to stop and get checked before we could enter certain areas.

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Several of these bays were actively running research sites, so there were literally miles of pitfall traps and coverboards to look in and under.

The trapsites get checked daily while they are open, and just the day before, a neonate rainbow snake had been captured at one of the bays that we went to. Everyone was ecstatic to get to see that; it had been one of our target species. As anticipated, it was very difficult to photograph because it wouldn’t sit still. Not one of the photos that I took of the snake is worthy of being posted here. Sorry!

We did find a cottonmouth in a funnel trap and a baby cottonmouth in a pitfall bucket though.

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This is the cotton in the trap. I’ll post a picture of the baby cotton a little further into the post.

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We made our way down to the river. The breeze had been picking up, and the clouds were rolling in. As soon as we pulled up to the boat ramp and unloaded the boats, the wind really began to blow and it got even darker. Lightning flashed, and the bottom of the clouds fell out. It rained hard on us as we ran back to the trucks for shelter. We all got inside, and the sound of the falling rain got even louder. Marble and pea sized hail was pounding down on us now, and the wind was whipping.

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After the rain subsided, the temps really dropped back down to the low fifties. We discussed going out on the river as planned, but decided against it since the sun never came back out. We opted to go try our luck on some roads instead.

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As we got out of the trucks to look in this nice roadside marsh, Matt K spotted a cottonmouth coiled up out in the grass. We tried to sneak up on it, but it was apparently quite alert and bolted before we could even get close. We looked through the rest of the muck for some spotted turtles and amphiumas. Nothing showed itself though.

We went out to one of my favorite places on site, and it didn’t disappoint! We found two cottonmouths there- one literally spotted as we were getting out of the trucks again, and another about a half hour later.

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It remained cool and cloudy for the rest of the day, never getting much above 60 degrees.
It was late enough in the day now, that Matt K, Brad, Justin and I figured we would head on over to where we would be staying that night and get stuff set up and go get some dinner. Matt C, Young C, Josh H and Tim W opted to head out to some of the roads that we told them about. Marisa I was back in the area now as well, and met up with them while they were out. The roadcruising group came back in after 10pm with all sorts of Ziploc bags full of goodies: two and three lined salamanders; green and bull frogs; green, gray and squirrel treefrogs; mud and red salamanders; marbled salamanders; and a lone brown snake. So we spent some time photographing the critters that had been brought back on some makeshift ‘nature-fake’ substrates.

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The next morning, we woke up slowly. It was still cold outside, and still pretty wet. We packed up and headed back over to the Lab. We met up with Sean again for one last time to photograph some of the animals that we had missed out on seeing in the wild.
We also checked out the well known ‘python pen’ where the Burmese python cold tolerance studies were conducted several years ago.

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After that, we headed out our separate ways. The results of the trip were a little disappointing, but everyone had a good time. That’s just how the herping trips go sometimes: you may strike it rich and find something under each piece of cover you turn, or you may work your butt off and get just a few things to look at.

A big thanks to Whit, Sean and Cris for allowing us to come down, and for Matt, Young, Tim, Josh and Marisa coming all the way over here to develop some good friendships. And as always, thanks to Matt, Brad, Cary and Justin for good times!
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Stohlgren
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Re: A Trip to Southeastern Herp Mecca, March 2011

Post by Stohlgren »

Very cool, Berkeley. I was down there that same weekend, and my group had equally as bad luck (you actually probably had better luck, believe it or not). I'll add a not terrible photo of the baby rainbow for those who can't live without it, if you don't mind. Not something you get to see everyday.

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Josh Holbrook
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Re: A Trip to Southeastern Herp Mecca, March 2011

Post by Josh Holbrook »

Good memories. Thanks for posting Berkeley.

-Josh
Matt Cage
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Re: A Trip to Southeastern Herp Mecca, March 2011

Post by Matt Cage »

Berkeley,

Lack of herps or not, we had a GREAT time. Thanks for setting this up and for bringing back the memories of the trip with the post!

I'll see you again someday, somewhere.

Matt
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Berkeley Boone
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Re: A Trip to Southeastern Herp Mecca, March 2011

Post by Berkeley Boone »

Thanks guys. Glad you all have enjoyed it.

Kevin- GREAT photo of that rainbow. Thanks for adding that in- hopefully it will appease the masses! I knew that a group from UGA was down at the same time, but I was unaware that you were in the mix. We'll have to meet up some time.

Josh- Thanks man. Indeed it does bring back good memories.

Matt- Glad to hear you all had such a good time! I did as well. I'll look forward to getting out with you again, hopefully next time in your neck of the woods.

--Berkeley
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Tim Borski
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Re: A Trip to Southeastern Herp Mecca, March 2011

Post by Tim Borski »

Berkeley, that Pig nosed turtle rocks! It looks like it would feel at home in an ocean or river.

Pine + Tiger sal + Rainbow + hab shots + miles of drift fence + etc = :thumb: :thumb: :beer:

Tim
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Berkeley Boone
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Re: A Trip to Southeastern Herp Mecca, March 2011

Post by Berkeley Boone »

Ha ha! Thanks Tim! It was a great time.
Yes, that little pignose is awesome. I actually just posted a series of 'baby pics' of that same turtle over in the Herpetoculture Forum (titled 'Carretochelys insculpta'). And you are correct, they do live in large rivers- very powerful swimmers! I kind of think that they may be found in some brackish environments, but it is still early in the morning so don't quote me on that one yet.

--Berkeley
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Jason B
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Re: A Trip to Southeastern Herp Mecca, March 2011

Post by Jason B »

Nice post Berkeley. Looks like a great area and sounds like fun trip too. That Platysternon is pretty cool. I'd love to play with one of those some day.

Jb
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Mike VanValen
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Re: A Trip to Southeastern Herp Mecca, March 2011

Post by Mike VanValen »

I'm a turtle guy myself so seeing that collection would take me back to being 15 and wanting to keep every giant species I could manage to get shipped. The Batagur must have been a real treat. Podocnemis is one of my favorite genus as well. Those turtles make up for not seeing much in the field.

Thanks for sharing.
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Berkeley Boone
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Re: A Trip to Southeastern Herp Mecca, March 2011

Post by Berkeley Boone »

Thanks Jason. When the weather cooperates, that area is a real treat to get to herp in. Platysternon are definitely fun creatures- I hope I get the chance to work with them again.

Woo hoo, a like-minded individual! Thanks Mike. Yes, the Batagur was a real treat. I've kept several juveniles, but never got to work with any adults. They are stunningly large. The chelonian collection certainly made up for stuff in the field we didn't get to see!

Thanks everyone
--Berkeley
Tamara D. McConnell
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Re: A Trip to Southeastern Herp Mecca, March 2011

Post by Tamara D. McConnell »

Wonderful post! The habitat shots are excellent. Looks like a very beautiful part of the country. I also loved the unusual turtles.
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Berkeley Boone
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Re: A Trip to Southeastern Herp Mecca, March 2011

Post by Berkeley Boone »

Tamara-
Thank you for the kind words! It is a very nice part of the country, and I enjoy getting out there whenever I can.

Happy herping!
--Berkeley
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