Reptile Fight Club - Haranguing the Herpers w/ Hayden Lewis

Episode Date: March 1, 2026

In this episode, Justin and Rob start a new series called Haranguing the Herpers.This episode we are joined by Hayden LewisWho will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Hayden's IGFollow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comIG https://www.instagram.com/jgjulander/Follow Rob @ https://www.instagram.com/highplainsherp/Follow MPR Network @FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQSwag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

Welcome to Reptile Fight Club. My name's Justin Ju-Lander, if you don't know. And with me, as always, is Rob Stone. How you doing, Rob? I'm doing great. We're excited for tonight. We're trying a new thing. That's going to be really good.

Super excited for you. Yeah, you've probably seen the title, so there's no surprise here. But haranguing the herpers, we're going to have a guest on tonight that's Herper, and we'll give them some questions and try to get to know a little bit more about them and herping they do, that sort of thing. So see how this goes. But our inaugural guest for this haranguing the herper segment is Hayden Lewis. Welcome to the show, Hayden.

Thanks for being here. Yeah, thank you guys for having me. This is super cool. This is actually the first time I've been on any sort of podcast. Oh, cool. Yeah, looking forward. forward to it. Well, glad to have you. Yeah. So I guess you and Rob kind of know each other from your Colorado herper. So, you know, Rob from that. Yeah. Yeah. Rob and I have gotten out and herped a few times and met up a few other occasions for conferences and stuff like that and hung out a little bit on the Colorado scene.

Nice. I still need to make it out there and do. I've herped once with Rob in Colorado. I need to get out. I need to get out. out there again sometime and go see some hog no snakes. I've still never seen a live wild hog yet. I only seen a couple DORs, so I need to change that. Yeah, definitely there. They're pretty sweet. Right on. Well, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, kind of where you fit into herpeticulture or herpetology or herping in general? All right, yeah. I guess at least herping-wise, I started herping probably right around eight years ago or so, pretty casually. Didn't really know a whole lot about it, just like biking around and exploring some ponds near my house. But I don't know, kind of got accustomed to the herping scene in Colorado, really in like 2020.

It was kind of when I was first brought onto it. But yeah, I went to Colorado State, just graduated back in May of 25 with my wildlife bio degree and then I've been doing some field work and field studies over the past few years as well. Okay. Perfect. Related as well. Right. So as a job, you get to do some ecological work? Yeah. Most of the work I've been on is doing like statewide inventory stuff. and then also just some other Herpta Fana surveys and research as well that I'm sure we'll get into later. Right on.

All right. Well, do you have any mentors that have kind of shown you the ropes or is it kind of all self-taught? I think when I first started going, me and my friend Miles would, like we live pretty close. close to each other. So we would go out and try and catch turtles and stuff. And before we really knew that like herping was a thing, but then a couple folks in Colorado at least that kind of helped us steer us in the right direction and kind of mentored us over the next few years after that were my friend Graham and then also one of my good friends hunter as well.

And those guys really kind of breached like herping ethics. like herping ethics and like how to herp and like we're really pretty impactful for us as we kind of came on to the herping scene here. That's awesome. Yeah, I think that comes up a bit later. We have a few questions in that regard or we can cover them now. What do you think, Rob? Yeah, I mean, either way, I guess if there's one thing that sort of jumped out to you as sort of the principal lesson, I'd be happy to hit on it here and then we can see, you know, if other stuff arises, but sort of your principal point or two that you'd learn from Ram and Hunter? I think the big thing that they were talking to us about when we were young is

protect, like, being respectful to the animals themselves and also the habitat and the areas that we're finding them in, just being able to say, like, see an animal and know, like being able to like see that it, it belongs there and everything like that and just like how to be respectful towards all the snakes and everything that we were catching. Nice. Very cool. So, you know, a big part of this, right, is obviously, so I follow you on Instagram. So everyone knows it's HML Herping, right, all one word or phrase.

And certainly got a ton of cool stuff on there that I'm. I'm anxious, you know, have always been anxious to see whatever the new thing is that you're posting. Where have you been herping so far? I don't know. A lot of places around the U.S., obviously, I prioritize Colorado almost every day over anything else. Like if there's something, good weather, good conditions here, got to go chase that. But I made a few big trips in the last few years, I guess. I went down to southeastern Arizona back in 24, I think.

That was a crazy rocket run. But then one of my favorites, I went up to Oregon last January and got on some Pacific Northwest Herps, which was pretty dang cool as well. It was cool to see a lot of different diversity up there that we don't even get out west here or like anywhere else in the U.S. it's a totally different scene up there it feels like yeah absolutely so those are both things i'm interested in hearing about so pacific northwest in january doesn't seem promising necessarily to me but i'm mostly sick at um what did that what did you turn up um it it kind of worked out really well actually we were working with there was some rain before we went which is pretty expected up there but then temps warmed up pretty heavily um in the days prior

and we were able to get one good day of sun, and that was all it took to get some snakes up and basking even in early January, which was pretty crazy to me. Because, I mean, coming from here, it's like if I see a snake before March, I'm, like, shocked. But, yeah, it was, like, 50 and sunny one day, and just, like, the gap in the rain before we were there, there were garters up in basking.

We got alligator lizards. We also got some ringnecks as well, which was a little unexpected. But, yeah, I mean, as long as there's sun and that moisture can dry up a little bit, they don't really care. Fair enough. What garters are those up there? The common ones are red-spotted garters, suralus, conchinous. They're pretty widespread throughout Oregon, I think, at least on the western. and a half. And we also got

all that's going to kick me. We got another garter snake that I honestly can't even remember the name of it this time. But yeah, red spot is a big ones.

Okay. Very cool. What were some of the... Oh yeah. Same question. What were some of the cool things down in Arizona? And with Brendan, who was a previous guest, and at least part of the time, right, you guys went out with Dustin Grown.

Yes, sir. Yeah, we were down there. It was myself, Brendan, and then also our friend Liam. Yeah, we met up with Dustin for about a day or so. We had some pretty good finds. He showed us around the mountains down there. Had some clobbs, had some price eye. And then that night when we went cruising, we got some green rats as well, which was pretty cool.

That was, I was not expecting. see green rats whatsoever. I was like, eh, I know they're there, but I wasn't expecting to turn him up. And yeah, we got two in about an hour. So it's pretty sweet. That's awesome. Yeah, I was with Dustin when he got his life for green rat. So that was pretty cool. Yeah, he, he, uh, degrades himself a bit to go hurt with the old guys. So he's, he's a great guy. Yeah. I'm, I'm glad we had him down there because we, uh, we know what we're doing. But, But on a trip like that, it was definitely good to have some help. Right.

Yeah. Locals definitely can, you know, make things easier in a lot of ways. Definitely. Yeah. And I will say that road with those green rats, I've spent a lot of time on that road, and never seen a snake, let alone two green rat snakes. So, yeah, I envy that. And the only one on this call who hasn't seen a green rat in the wild.

Oh, interesting. hopefully uh 2026 that's your year man maybe not on that road i don't think so but uh no great stuff um do you keep a life list um yeah i i mainly keep track of it through hurt mapper um i'll uh load a couple fines i upload most of my fines to there

um but then it's nice to be able to like download it see it and everything. Yeah, absolutely. So the natural next question, right? So since you do, what counts? Is it sort of, I know my personal sort of ethic around it is the common effort, right? Common venture of the group in terms of the plan. Is it someone, you know, either that's a full part of the trip or, you know, at least we're all sort of commonly aligned in doing this?

If he came upon some, a car with a green rat, you know, who would, the car in front of you, if it pulls over and grabs a green rat off the road. Did you see a green rat? Did you find a green rat? What does that look like? Or are you a hunter, shall we say, who needs to be the exact person who either spotted or grabbed it or whatever? I would say, because it was funny, I was actually listening to the episode Brendan was on,

and you guys talked pretty extensively about this. And that kind of got my brain, my gears turning a little bit, too. And I was like, what do I count? And like, I don't know, because it varies, like, based on every find. Like, it varies for me if it's like a lizard that's like running around on the Lionscape versus like something you cruise in the road or whatever. And I would say I've, in short, I've got to be the closest to finding it as it naturally would have been if I had been the one there to find it.

I mean, I don't know, in like a broad sense. Like if I'm cruising, I've got to be in the car that cruises it. But like, if we're all kind of hiking out on the landscape and it's like kind of close to where I was, like I would probably still count that as well. Do you like to hurt alone or do you, I mean, does that factor into this at all? Yeah, I'll harp alone. But I do like hanging out with other guys and other folks out in the field. It makes the time go by a little faster and it definitely fills the gaps between. between finds a lot easier than when you're getting in your own head or like trying not to

overthink anything. It's fun just to be able to hang out and chat with everyone. But I also, I mean, if I'm like there are times where it's like just good to get out. I know what I'm doing somewhere. Like I can just go out and relax and just enjoy what I'm doing. It's also good to kind of take a step back and just do it for fun myself as opposed to just like hanging out with others sometimes. But I would say for the most part, yeah, if I can hurt with someone, I will almost always invite them. Yeah, I think a lot of my local stuff is more on my own, but, you know, if it's just in town or something, I don't really have any go-toes that live too close, you know, so I'll just get out and go look for the common stuff around here. But if I'm, you know,

going on a bigger trip or, you know, more of a, I guess, planned, you know, trip, it's, it's, It's more of like a herping group type thing, I think. You know, I think grobs grow in the same way, like get out and do it when you can, but also plan trips with others in mind. And that's usually a lot funner that way. Yeah. Yeah, definitely is. Nice.

Absolutely. What would you pick as the species that either took the longest or is considered the most difficult to find that you've found at this point? that's a good question i think yeah i think i think i think it goes to the eastern hog nose because i can't really speak to anything else out of state but at least in state where i focus a majority of my efforts it's got to be the eastern like i think that took me oh i think i almost got to double-digit trips for it before I actually got one. And just being in the area incidentally and then also like going down specifically to target them. It was a lot of man hours, a lot of miles, a lot of miles hiking.

And man, it was worth it when we did get one. How far do you have to go? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, a majority of the time I spent looking for it, I was in Fort Columns, Colorado. And the only county there in in Colorado was Prowers, which is about four and a half to five hours, depending on traffic, one way to get there. So it was, I probably put 8,000 miles on my car for that thing. And it's way too long. But, yeah, they're on the opposite end of the state for me.

Right, right. What kind of special? Yeah, Colorado is the way. extent of their range in terms of the eastern hog nests. So it's just barely. Yeah, they just barely peek into the state. Yeah, it seems like it'd be a little further from where most people are in Colorado. But yeah, what did it look like?

It was a, was it a nice one? I mean, I'm biased, but yes, it was gorgeous. Yeah, it was, I want to say it was a yearling just crossing the road in the morning. And we were pretty lucky. Like, we were able to see it stop in front of it and everything. walk up to it and it eventually did feign death as most of them do it was that was unfortunate but no it was it was a good looking snake and just a beautiful site in the road after many long days down there right have you found one since or was that the only one you've seen um that that's the

only one i've seen in colorado um but then i did get one in Nebraska back in 2020 four as well. That one was a big adult and also one of the coolest things I've ever seen. This thing was probably two feet long and like a stark black and yellow pattern. Yeah, just like pristine eastern hog nose from the western end of their range, I would say.

If you're looking for them out west, that is that's about as good as they get. Very cool. Yeah, that's awesome. The only one that I've seen, we were out hiking in the New Jersey Pine Barrens and Eric found one on the crawl out on the crawl. Yeah, which was pretty good. Really?

Yeah. What are they like up there? Was yours like all black or was it? I don't know. I'm not super familiar with the Northeast. It was probably a, I don't know how big they're born, either a hatchling or a yearling. So it still was kind of in that. It certainly had pattern and it was kind of in silvers.

and silver's blacks. I think a little bit of color to it, a little bit of yellow, certainly on the chin. Cool. Yeah. Yeah, those melanistic ones at Easter. It was a fun.

Right. Yeah, absolutely. Just thinking of the old the green Audubon field guide, there are so many different pictures of different color phases in there and one of the most fascinating U.S. snakes, right, in terms of their natural polymorphism

and just the, the variety of appearance as I say. Yeah, that's kind of the downside of the field guide with one shot of a snake or maybe two, you know, where you have so much variability. It's nice to show the range and the patterns and colors they come in. Yeah. Absolutely. And I guess since you fit into what I would categorize as an old guy, the Colorado Herper Bro set,

it's been interesting to me is sort of the fascination in the last decade or so. And I think it's probably, you know, the group of folks that you have been influenced by. The interest in going to Southeast Colorado to look for snakes is really interesting. It's not a corner of the state that most people would willingly go to, you know, in terms of just the average folks around town. So it's been super interesting to me that it's so popular amongst the, yeah, the herpers of the last decade, let's say. What do you think is driving that? Like, what's behind that?

It's the diversity and abundance of snakes in Colorado in the southeastern corner is unrivaled. It's unbelievable. And that's also where some of our more rare snakes do come up into the state as well. So, like, you get a lot of, you get a lot of snakes, even if they are common. And then you get to put yourself in areas where you could stumble across some, some rare ones too and I think that that mesh of like easy to find stuff but also the thrill of potentially finding something really rare is I mean that's it that's what it's what drives it right what are the top three like main targets I guess if you're looking for rare snakes down

there down there definitely eastern hog nose speckled king snakes are my number one down there but I would say they're there in the top three as well and then um just by rarity I would probably have to say thread snakes but I mean they're a little more cryptic and a little less a little less widespread so uh right folks aren't going to be going down there all the time for them at least so yeah yeah I'd say those are the big three nice right and as you alluded to right part of the appeal is the that it's habitat that are ecology, right, that comes barely into the state in that area. And it's also sort of where various habitat types interact.

So you're getting access to stuff that's really sort of Midwestern snakes that are appearing in Colorado only in that county or that couple counties. Yeah, definitely. Because, I mean, at least in the southeastern part, you got the Arkansas River that flows east-west. But then coming up from like Oklahoma, you get a lot of. of canyons and like canyon land habitat but then you're also mixing with like the short grass prairie and stuff coming out also from like Oklahoma and Kansas and it's it everything just kind of meets up down there you got a lot of rain in the summer good temperatures for a lot of snakes cruising moisture in the spring to go flip rocks too and it's it's a really cool area just to go

explore and it seems like you'll never know what you'll turn up just on like a nightly Yeah, I've heard really great things about Kansas herping in the spring and sounds like a similar, it's just kind of a similar setup there as well. And I mean, I guess you're on the border there with Kansas. So it makes sense. Right. Yeah, that's cool. Have you been out to Kansas? Yeah, I went back.

Yeah, I went out east in 2024 at least. in like April with a friend of mine and then yeah taking a couple trips to like just like the western edge of Kansas as well just in the fall at least but yeah that's springtime eastern Kansas like Flint Hills region

it is yeah that is crazy to me like I never had any I mean at least like before like three years ago I never would add any sort of shot at guessing that Kansas was the place to be if you wanted to find a lot of snakes. Like it's unreal. But yeah, I'm hoping to get back out there this year as well. So that would be pretty fun. And generally speaking, what does that

look like? It's going to find rocky outcrop beutes and things. And then it's a lot of flipping, or what does that look like? Yeah, at least in the springtime. Yeah, just finding any sort of cover, whether it's natural and rocks and stuff or sort of artificial boards cover tin. if you time it right and it's wet enough like yeah it seems like just about everything could have a snake under it which is yeah it's it's pretty crazy but yeah mostly flipping in the spring and then you can turn up some pretty cool stuff cruising in midsummer and fall it sounds like as well but i haven't been out there specifically for for some of those at least it seems like a lot of private land is it mostly like roadside you know rocks and stuff like that Yeah, a lot of roadside cuts and stuff And just like driving until you find some rocks on the side of the road that look good Stopping for 10 minutes flipping them see if you get a milk and move on and drive to the next one But yeah, I mean every once in a while you can get into a spot and hike around

But yeah, with Kansas being mostly private yeah, you're dealing with driving around and just flipping whatever you can that's remotely accessible He had a friend Pat May who was, he's a big herper out in Utah here and he went from, you know, Utah over to Kansas and herped along the way. And he said, you know, in Utah, they got like two or three milks. And then they got into Colorado and got, you know, seven or eight. And then Kansas, like 20 plus or something. Yeah. Just crazy numbers. Dozens.

Yeah, it's pretty insane. How I guess it just gets easier as you go. East as far as milk snakes go. But kind of crazy. Yeah, it's a lot of work. I put a full day, you know, or several days into finding my first milk snake in Utah, just flipping rocks. Not my favorite activity is a 50-year-old, but, you know, I guess it's a young man's

game. Utah, Taylor, Iron, something I've been wanting to see for a while now. Oh, yeah, they're nice. Yeah. I think I prefer Mountain Kings. You can find them on. the crawl a little bit easier than a milk. Right.

Yeah. I mean, people have road cruise milks as well, but yeah. You guys got some good, some good lamp of peltas out there. Oh, yeah, yeah. Just a shameless plug. My field guide's coming out here soon that I wrote with Nipper Reed. Well, yeah. Is that the name it'll say on the one?

That won't be the name on the cover, but yeah. But yeah. Yeah. So that's, we're actually in the final stages. Thank goodness. And looking through the kind of final layout and seeing if there's any issues and moving forward. And hopefully off to the printers in a couple weeks. So kind of exciting.

Nice. That's great. Just you said Utah field guide? Uh-huh. Yeah. Reptops and amphibians. Yeah. And another cool.

And funny thing. I was watching these herpetology lectures, and it seems, he mentioned how strange it was that we've lumped reptiles and amphibians together because they're so far, you know, they're not very closely related. He said humans would be closer related to reptiles than amphibians are. I thought that was kind of a crazy thing. So what a strange conglomeration of reptiles and amphibians. But I guess people are interested in kind of both. those groups make sense. Right. I take it you both are more snake guys than amphibs. Yeah, more reptile. I like a lot of lizards and stuff as well. But yeah, amphibians are kind of, I like them.

I like to find them, but they're not at the forefront of any trip or by any stretch. I'm not going anywhere just to find amphibians. Although salamanders would be kind of cool to focus on a little. bit. There's a lot of neat places, but they're kind of down the list from other stuff I want to go find. Yeah. Do you see any in Oregon? Oregon seems like it'd be a reasonable place to find some amphibians. Yeah, we did pretty well salamander-wise up there. We got some frogs as well. But yeah, we got like over a dozen species of salamanders in the three days we were there. Oh, wow. That's cool. Because, yeah, like that first day we were there, sunny, super nice and warm. And then

it rained like the next two or three days we were there so we were able to get a lot of flipping in for salamanders and then we also cruised some as well after dark but yeah they've they've got some cool stuff up there a lot of a lot of redback salamanders and and satinas and uh newts and stuff but we also got into got a giant salamander which is pretty cool and then like their northwestern salamander as well um that's pretty sweet just the big ambistomids and i feel like appeal to me a little bit more. Yeah. At least on like a general level, but.

Yeah, not to brag your thing. I've found all the salamanders of Utah. No way. I found all the salamanders in Colorado. Oh, sweet. Congrats. Wow. Even me.

An amphibian is basic as basic as amphibians go. It is a bit of a shame. I do wish we had some more salamanders here. Right. What can you do? What do you do? I guess just for the folks who, you know, for clarity, for folks who aren't from either Utah or Colorado, Justin, how many salamanders are there in Utah? All of one species, the tiger salamander.

Marloreum. And Hayden for Colorado? All of one. Bard tiger salamander. However, it is pretty neat. We have one salamander, but it does exist in every county in the state. So, well, we don't have the diversity. They are very widespread.

Does your list get down to specificity of county? I mean, do you have a separate list for like the Herps of Colorado? Yeah, so, I mean, I've got my worldwide life list. That's just what it is. But I think, yeah, for Colorado, I've got it down to subspecies at least. And at least on that front, I'm only missing three. species or subspecies from the entire state before I finished it out. Oh, nice.

I'll open to maybe do that this year. I'm missing some tricky ones, though. Yeah. If you're interested, I've got Tansley-Painted Desert Glossy Snake down in the Four Corners region. Those guys just barely poke up into here. But I don't know. That should happen in a night or two.

I'm not super worried. I've got two lizards left. variable skink down in southern Colorado. Then the trickiest one of them all, round-tailed horned lizard. Oh, yeah. That has been, that was a doozy the last year or two,

and I assume we'll continue to be going forward. But hopefully just putting in a lot of time over my weekends for them, see what we can do this year. You had a really cool interaction with the horn lizard. Do you want to tell us about that? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that was honestly probably the coolest natural history moment I've been able to see in the field in my entire life. Back in July of 2024, I was on a field crew for the Colorado Natural Heritage Program.

We were doing statewide surveys for just species of interest. and that was actually one of our office weeks where we were entering data and like planning out the rest of our summer. But we had some, my field partner, Tyler and I, we had some spare time and we decided to go check up on a locality we know about and potentially try and find a few more that morning. And for, sorry, greater short horned lizards. I thought I mentioned that. And we did find two individuals at our first spot. But the second one was actually a gravid female that over the course of like an hour and a half while we were there, we were able to watch her give birth to over 12 babies. Just kind of scuttling around under bushes and stuff.

Right. Yeah, it was phenomenal. Yeah. They're actually, Fort Horned lizards are the only lizard in the state of Colorado, at least, that give live birth. our two other horned lizards lay eggs as well as every other species in the state. So that was really cool to be able to see her give live birth and watch it just right in front of us and just kind of marvel at all these little baby horned lizards that were running around this spot afterwards. Yeah, it was so funny.

Like she would give birth to one and it would like save. there and whatever sort of like embryonic stack. I'm not even. Yeah, yeah. They would sit there for a little minute or two, just completely motionless. And then all of a sudden they would like wiggle and just burst out and be completely ready to go. Like they would run around a little bit around there and then sit for a bit. And then they would like wiggle their tails and like wiggle their legs and stuff.

And it honestly just seemed like they were feeling. figuring out, like, how to walk and how to run and everything for the first time. And just, like, testing out just, like, all their limbs and figuring that out. But we watched a few of the babies as well. Within half an hour, I think, a few of them were already running around and eating ants, which was just, like, right off the bat. They were perfectly, perfectly ready to go live in the world and just start munchy. around on whatever ants and little bugs they could find.

That's very cool. Yeah, I love horn lizards. Yeah, so I'm curious, you know, when she was giving birth, would she give birth to one and then move to a different spot, or was she just kind of hanging out in the same area? And did she clear out when the babies were born and she just took off? Or did she stay close? Yeah.

So I think between every baby that she had, she would move, a little bit. But like she'd lay a few or give birth to a few like around one bush. And then she like moved maybe five feet next door to another one. And most of it, most of the time, it was like under dappled sunlight at least because it was by the time like near the end of it, it was getting close to like mid 80s, which I would say is, I mean, it's not too hot, but it was definitely getting pretty warm. And you could tell that she was trying to find at least a little bit of shade and cover for herself and then also the newborns. Yeah, she'd like have a few and then run around a little bit.

But yeah, she didn't move more than, I want to say 20 feet between the whole thing. She stuck pretty closely to the area that we found her in initially. But then I think after that last one, after the last one, we watched her for a bit, and we could tell she was moving around a little bit more. That was about when she was done. And we went, all right, take step back, leave her and everyone else alone. And just let them go on their way without disturbing them. Right.

Yeah, it was remarkable. Yeah, yeah, that's neat. I had a couple. I found out, you know, you could order ants. And so I talked to somebody that kept them. And he said, yeah, they're pretty straightforward. And like the short horn lizards will take ants. and other insects and things.

So I kept them, you know, for a season or whatever. And one of the ones I collected was gravid and had a bunch of babies. And so, yeah, it's crazy how well they blend in, even like in a, you know, an enclosure setting where, you know, I had dirt and rocks and everything, but you'd be searching and couldn't find them right in front of you, you know. It's pretty cool. Right. Yeah, that's how I feel with around. tails at least. Yeah, they're masters of camouflage, right? Those they're so critical. Pebble mimics.

Yeah. Yeah. That's super cool, though. How long, you said, how long do you have them for, at least? I actually sent the babies off to a friend at a zoo, and I guess they collected some ants that it hit some poison, so all the babies ended up dying from feeding on some poisoned ants, so that was kind of a bummer. But I didn't do great with them during brumation, and I lost the pair that I had to brumation, because I'm an idiot, I guess. But, yeah, that was not the best thing, but, yeah, I need to figure out how to broomate stuff.

I'm not the best at that. Yeah, that can be tricky from how I understand. I was checking on them and, you know, making sure they were all right every couple weeks, but then just one time they weren't all right. You know, it's like, I'm not sure what I did wrong, but I need to learn more before I try that again. But they were really fun and like the ants were pretty straightforward. Like you could keep them in the fridge and they'd stay for a while. I guess from what I understand, it's easy maybe to keep them for a couple years, but then beyond that, you know, they really need the sunlight and things like that.

they're really, you know, sun-focused animals. They love it hot and sunny and things like that. And that's, you know, unless you're taking them out or keeping them outdoors for the most part, that's difficult to keep them happy, I think. But it was crazy watching them feed, especially, yeah, just right out of the, out of the embryonic sack, they were going after these harvester ants, which are, I mean, I got stung and bit a couple times, you know, working with these things. It's no joke, man.

They're crazy. And I did a few, like, slow motion videos of their feeding technique. And I guess they, they, when they grab one, they kind of get it coated in saliva to kind of protect themselves. So they almost, what, you know, make make it so the ant can't really sting or bite them. It's really kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. Every, I feel like every day I learn something crazy.

like that. Amazing. Yeah. It just blows your mind. That's really cool. Yeah. So I felt bad. I, you know, I didn't do them justice, but I, you know, I think I might try it again

down the road once I, you know, learn from somebody more capable than myself. Well, and unsurprisingly, right? Isn't there, there's some European keeper who has come up with an incredibly ornate and elaborate terrarium setup and is doing really well with Phranosoma. I don't recall that it's Hernandez. But, you know, really going to great lengths to have sort of a natural presentation. He's got ants crawling up out of the ground at a center here and all this stuff. And, yeah, it sounded really, you know, really intriguing, obviously.

That's one thing I wish I would have done was the feeder concept, you know, having a little container underneath that has a stick coming out of it and the ants will go up and down the stick. And they can't get out of the feeder. And so the lizards will just kind of come and take. them off the stick. It's kind of a cool, cool little concept. But I've decided I just want to see him in the wild from now on. I'm not going to really, yeah, mess with them in captivity

anymore. But it is great to be able to see those kind of things, you know. That's a really cool experience you had. How many species are in Colorado? Um, I want to say we've got around 76.

I honestly don't know the number off the top of my I want to say 76. We're sitting right around there. And that's all reptiles and amphibians? Correct. Yeah, that is reptiles and amphibians. One salamander, seven turtles, a dozen or so inurans, and then snakes and blizzards we got quite a few of. Okay. Sounds pretty close to Utah. Yeah, probably similar to you guys. You guys have the planes of the eastern. side that we don't really have but yeah a lot of shared species i'm sure other than trying to finish out the colorado list what are your herping plans for

this coming season um hopefully do in kansas that would be fun um little road trip out there at least i'm taking like a family vacation to soCal maybe soon i don't know um maybe in March. So see if I can get out down there for a day. But other than that, honestly, yeah, spending a lot of my weekends in southeastern Colorado, trying to get that roundtail. And then if anything else comes up, I'm all years, but maybe potentially thinking about southeastern Oklahoma just to try for like mud snakes and stuff like that. That would be an interesting one. Yeah.

Yeah. honestly, like, I don't have anything too much set right now. I've had some thoughts, but I don't know. Just going to kind of see what comes up with work and everything like that. And what sort of free time I can manage between April and October and kind of wing it and go from there. Yeah, fair enough. And certainly in eastern, if not southeastern Oklahoma, those western pygmy rattlesnakes would be cool too. Oh, yeah.

I mean, that's one of those species that I almost kind of forget about, like, targeting just because once you get out to where they are, it seems like they're somewhat common, at least. But, yeah, those are pretty high on my list as well if I could get out there for them. That, timbers, scarlet snakes would be fun, but I know they're a bit of a stretch in eastern Oklahoma. So, yeah. Where is your main interest lie as far as the reptiles go? you were a snake guy or a, you know, you like rattlesnakes, you know, that kind of thing? I'm more of a snake guy. I would probably say I enjoy targeting collo birds a lot more than I do vipers.

I enjoy myself a good viper, though. But yeah, definitely, I would, if I was to categorize myself, I would fall into the lamphead category for milks and Kings. Yeah. If there was one thing I could go out and look for every day, if weather was good, it would probably be those. Right. Yeah, it's hard to beat a good Lamper Peltus, for sure.

I was going to ask this before, but have you ever hiked up a milk snake? Personally, no, but I've been right there when two other guys have. I've been, I was about a quarter. Actually, I was probably like 100 feet behind someone a few years ago. when he did, and then I was about 10 feet behind someone else last year when they hiked one as well. Someday, someday. Okay, but it can happen, right? So those kind of get into a box where the most common way to find him is to flip them,

and then probably substantially behind that would be cruising them, and then substantially behind that would be to hike one up. Yeah, I think, yeah, most of my milk snakes in Colorado have been flipped, probably cruised a low number honestly I've probably cruised less than 10 of them in the state and then

one of them that I was there for was hiked at night per usual and then we actually we day hiked the other one which was very interesting you don't typically see them surface active during the day but we got a lot of rain earlier

it was in May it was late May but yeah we got some rain earlier that day i think and yeah went out to flip in the afternoon and uh yeah just crossing the trail right there um yeah i think that moisture brought it up and got it a little more surface active than it might have typically been right yeah fair enough and to that point what's your favorite method of herpink obviously finding the snake's the most important thing i think that's pretty natural but cruiser or hiking?

I would insert a third category. I prefer flipping, I think, most of all. And then I would say cruising, and then if I'm, and then, like, specifically, like, hiking and looking for snakes out on the crawl would probably be near the bottom for me, at least.

Not that it's bad. I don't hate it. It's just my least favorite. What are your feelings on board lines? and, you know, setting up board lines? Yeah. In the right areas. I mean, it's got to be productive for me to want to do it. But now, it is fun to be able to flip stuff under artificial cover.

It's a lot less effort, at least on my end. And it's, yeah, it's pretty cool that way. But I don't know. I feel like I'm a little old school. Like if I can put in a good four or five hours on a hillside flipping rocks, I feel like that's where I'm at home. Yeah, fair enough. I appreciate the sort of category of feedback for sure.

Do you prefer taking pictures, video, nothing? What do you find yourself to do? A lot of pictures. I'll get release clips sometimes if I feel like it, but a lot of the times I don't even stress that. But yeah, if I can get in C2s when I'm flipping, or they're so cool. I like getting a good in C2 of nice rock-flipped milk or something like that.

But then, yeah, I've got a camera. I try and pose some good stuff up every once in a while, if I feel like it's worth my time. I feel like I've fallen off a little bit on the photography end over the last year or so, just because I don't want to take the time to set up my camera as much anymore as it might have used to. That also comes with, I don't know, got a flash, got a diffuser, got all that set up and stuff. It's like, am I going to want to get it out just for me to try and pose this thing for 20 minutes and then have it not cooperate?

So there's that. Yeah, Lamper Peltes are not the easiest posers for sure. No, which is, that's unfortunate. But sometimes, sometimes it works out. Yeah, when it comes off, it's really good, though, right? Exactly, yeah I think the last good Lampedalta's picture I took was

over a year and a half ago. They're really cool photographs. Absolutely. So you mentioned it, alluded to it a little bit earlier, you said Hurtmapper. The question is going to be I naturalist, Hurp Mapper, Instagram, nothing.

You know, as a poster, as a user of that information, what are your thoughts? I am a very large, very big proponent of HIRP mapper especially. Eye naturalist is great. I mean, any form of citizen science that you can collect for data that land managers or anyone else can use is important and should be collected. But HurtMapper on, I think, on a much larger scale, at least for reptiles and amphibians, is important. is the way to go.

They've got specific partnerships, at least with state and federal groups, at least, that are trusted, and they know they can share coordinates with for species that do need conservation action. And that also limits potentially the public pursuit and the public knowledge of certain records as well, that I know there is a large controversy over with i naturalist at least and how open and how visible you want your records to be. But yeah, I would say with with HurtMapper, it's nice to be able to be able to have the option to privatize some of your records and your finds if you want to and also know that that data is getting shared with only trusted individuals as opposed to.

anyone with access to the data set or the website. Is it less useful as a planning tool, though? Because it only gives you kind of like a, you know, bird's eye view of like the county, right? Yeah. If you're viewing a record at least, just from anyone, you can see the county, but that's it at least. Versus I naturalist, you can drop a pin and be like,

yep, there was a king snake found right here. and anyone and their mother can go find it and at least go to that pin and try and find it but at least like with a lot of those sensitive species on INAT you can't obscure them but that's still like if it's on a road like there's two roads and that whole box

it definitely opens it up to a little bit more marauding and potentially folks with ill intent right yeah I mean it definitely has some potential consequences in things with limited habitat or, you know, if, uh, or, or easily damaged habitat of people want to go out and find them and they're flipping stuff and not putting it back or things like that, you know, but I mean, a snake crossing road, you know, it's very hard to predict and I mean, you can cruise the roads and try to find them, but I don't know.

I guess I, I, um, maybe, maybe there is a huge problem that I'm not aware of, but I think like it just seems like with with iNAT around it's it's interesting that her mapers stick into their guns and not giving more information you know to kind of help people in their pursuit of finding different species but i don't know that's that that that's their job you know what i mean like i think it is good to have those data sets and that they make them available to researchers and and things like that so i don't have anything bad to say about them i'm just like you know you're sticking to your guns even though, you know, INAD is a thing and, you know, all that data is kind of freely available already.

But yeah. Yeah. It kind of seems like to me like eye naturalists is, I mean, by and large, the large umbrella for public citizen science data to go towards. But I find at least in Colorado, at least, the folks that use HurtMapper are. more educated about what they're doing in the first place as opposed to looking for looking for help from others for an identification or something on a species that like a snake that they may have just seen on a hike or whatever eye naturalist is a great tool for that right yeah but at least with a lot of the records on HurtMapper it's like you know at least what you're

looking for and know what you're searching for when you input that record into their site at least that's true yeah they might be more more willing to go to greater lengths or have the ability to find things that other people might not. I mean, we went to Canyonlands in Utah and talked to the Rangers about, you know, con color, the midget fader rattlesnakes. Oh, I've never seen one here, you know. We're like, oh, you're not the right person to talk to because you must close your eyes when you drive because they're all over, you know, in this area. And if you have some... That was a weirdest, question mark.

Yeah. Right. But, yeah, it's kind of funny that, you know, you would think a ranger would be more, you know, aware of the fauna around them, even if it's something they may not be interested in. I think too. The context that he gave where he's been working there for, quote, years and I haven't seen one. It was pretty shocking. Yeah. It's crazy.

But I guess I do like Aynast. in regards to that, you know, it has more diversity of, of, you know, you can log in trees or plants or insects, you know, and kind of, and see what you're, you're looking at. So I think from, you know, where I'm a novice in those areas, you know, might not be as important for me as the, you know, on the reptile side, but as far as everything else, it's kind of cool to have it all in one, one spot. And you can see, hey, I'm in this area. What else can I see around here kind of thing? absolutely and the as much as i might find the i nat uh agreement you know the the side where it's the identification agreement disagreement all those things a little bit obnoxious i will say that

uh even even the experts on hurtmapper sometimes get things wrong and the ability to you know maybe in a specific example i emailed someone and they never never responded didn't change the record don't seem to care which was frankly surprising But if it was inatalyst, I'd be able to say, nope, that wasn't that. I can tell even from, you know, it's a DOR. What does it really matter? But it just sort of matters that it's like, no, that's obviously not what it is. But there isn't a natural context to correct the record on that.

Right. And I mean, I know at least with CPW and Colorado Natural Heritage Program, and everyone here. Part of their work is to go through and like verify those once they've actually gotten the data set. Just to confirm, I mean, yeah, you're not going to get them right 100% of the time. But at least just to go in and verify that it's not something totally off or like the location. Make sure the location's right. Make sure the area of accuracy is close enough to be able to make use of that data point and everything like that.

But yeah, definitely in that aspect, my naturalist is good for more public discussion and debating any potential discrepancies with ID and stuff like that. I know I'm going through a few of those right now. It always surprises me when people are not interested in that. Like there was a specimen in a visitor center in Western Australia, right, by the town of X-Mouth or in that Cape Range area. And they had a Rosen snake labeled as a Stimson's Python.

And I was looking at, I'm like, that's not a Stimson's Python. I said, you've got something mislabeled here. This is actually a Rosen Snake, you know, not even closely related to a Stimson's Python at all. And she said, oh, no, our wildlife biologists have identified these and verified that that's what they are. And I said, well, they're wrong. That's not what this is. You might want to have them check again, but she's like, oh, no, you, you'll find that we know what we're talking about here. I'm like, oh, okay, great.

Good luck with that, you know. It's like, I don't know, that overconfidence can be kind of funny sometimes. Yeah, I feel you on. I mean, to be fair, they have a similar pattern, a little bit of a similar head structure, but you can definitely tell they're different things. Yeah. That's funny. When you do post, are you doing it in real time while you're out there? Are you doing it at the end of a trip? Are you doing it during your off-season? Almost exclusively during the off-season.

At least for records, like on HurtMapper, I'll do it in real-time. But just about everything else, I put a pretty heavy delay on, I feel like. part of it's i'm lazy i don't have time i don't have service the works um at least for for some stuff but at least with hurt mapper it's nice because you can you don't need data at least out in the field you can just uh save the record and then upload it once your home which i'm pretty big fan of but then yeah just about everything else

i nat instagram any social media beyond that it's it's when i get to it um just with how busy I usually can in the summer at least. Sure. And is that, so is it totally a function of that? Is it also sort of avoiding the treasure mapping idea? Is there some component of that? Yeah, I would say there's a little bit of at least seasonal delay just due to conditions and stuff like that.

Especially in the springtime for me, I feel like that's more of when it comes in. Just with how closely some folks monitor precipitation and everything like that, I find it easier just to wait a little bit until conditions are not so either primed for some things or at least a little more consistent. Folks aren't following them closely. certainly do you usually sort of extensively plan your ventures particularly well heck even southeast call out or for you as a track are you um do you plan extensively you just kind of wing it at this point you know if it's a repetitive area obviously there's a different level of comfort within

a given space right um i don't know i feel like once i kind of have the schedule mapped out for my somewhere I stuff will start kind of filling in ideas will start popping up and I don't know sometimes I find it's easier to pick an area I want to go to at least and like set aside a few days for that and then once I'm actually in that area like I don't have to hit all the spots I checked out and like mapped out beforehand it's once I set an area it's almost more fun and like I almost have a better time if I just kind of go with what what feels right and just kind of wing it once I'm down there, whether that's like cruising during the day versus the night and stuff like that, maybe mixing up the spots based on what success we had earlier. I feel like that's where

that's where you get some fun finds and there's a little bit more thrill in it and kind of scouting it out and adjusting based on what you're learning out in the field in real time. Sure. As you were describing Kansas as seeing what you could flip and then almost arbitrarily driving on, I don't think that my neuroses could handle that if I didn't have a plan of where we were going. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like I've got pins out there and stuff. Like, I'll check a few of them out, but it's like half the time we were just stopping at random places and being like, yeah, that looks good. Why not give it a shot, see what works. I feel like some of my best and favorite finds were when nothing else was working. We're like, we got to mix it up. We just got to try something different. And what do you know?

Sometimes it was pure luck and completely random. Other times we're like, this is not working. We need to move areas. We need to do this and adjust. And then it works out as well. And I feel like those are, that's just way more rewarding in my mind. And to be able to say you did it a little bit. bit based on your own intuition

versus just hitting some spots. That's what it's about. Right. With that flexibility method, are you mainly camping out, or are you sleeping in the car or you hit in a hotel? What's your general method there? Yeah, it's

pretty rare. You'll see me in a hotel on a moving trip. Whether it's just because of where we are or I don't feel like coughing up to 100 bucks a night. Who can say? But no, I feel like most of the time, if I can find public land, like, yeah, I'll go camp out on that. Lay out of tarp and sleep under the stars, if it's raining or buggy.

But not half the time, a third of the time, I would say I'd, like, get done cruising. I'd, like, find a place to park and I just, like, sleep in my car. especially like if it is buggy or wet or anything like that i don't want to deal with wet gear in the morning or anything recline my driver's seat and call it a night which i'm grateful i can still do but i don't know yeah i don't know 10 years down the line my my back might be telling me otherwise or something definitely doesn't work for me so and i don't think it's ever really worked for me i i mean i'll I'll maybe curl up in the back seat or something, you know, but I can't do the reclaimed driver's seat. That just drives me.

Yeah. I'd rather sleep on the ground or something. Risk the bugs. Yeah. I find if I can cut, sorry, if I can cover up my feet, I can sleep just about anywhere. Yeah. Nice. So it's just kind of flying by the seat of your pants.

You end up where you end up. And, yeah. Have you ever gotten pulled over by the cop or have a cop knock on your window and wake you up and say you can't be here? You've been pretty lucky. No. In all my years, I've never had that happen. I've gone to wood. But I feel like, yeah, if I, like, I'll scout out like a little bit of BLM land or something that I can pull down the road on or something and call that good enough planning wise.

But no, as long as I'm not like trespassing when I'm setting up camp, like, it's free for all. The beauty of the West, right? Right. We got, we got woken up by the cops in Western Australia. But we didn't know it, but we'd set up can't or like we just were sleeping in our, in our hippie van or whatever that had a little bed in the back. But we were right in front of like a military installation and the MPs. are like, yeah, you can't be here. Beat it, you know.

So, and they said, go, go sleep at the visitor center parking lot. And we're like, there was a sign that said, no sleeping. They're like, nah, you'll be fine. Okay. Yeah. And we were all right. But it was kind of funny. You alluded to this a little bit.

What role do you think luck plays into herping? How much of it is, is luck a function of actually the ideation and research that you've done versus the sort of just chance and count. encounters? I think at least for like certain, for certain snakes, I could see it playing a little bit of luck. I mean, as you get to know certain species better and better over your years, like you can, you can only, you can put yourself in the right situations and stuff, but you can only do so much and hoping like a certain snake is up and active that night or whatever. even if conditions line up,

like you may have just been in the wrong spot at the right time, wrong spot at the wrong time, whatever. Feel that way with cruising a lot, especially. It's like how fast you're going, like how you're timing your passes and everything. You could still miss something like either end of your pass if it decides to cross when you're on the other side or whatever. So you could still be doing it, right?

You can put yourself, set yourself up with temperatures, humidity, whatever you want, and just not be there when those snakes are out and moving. And I feel like that's a bit of a product of just their cryptic nature, at least. That's the tricky part with herbs versus a lot of other wildlife is they choose exactly when they're going to be up for a reason. And it can be tricky to actually come across the few that might be in an area at that time as well. How much of your time are you spending like exploring new areas for you or, you know, where you think something might be, you know, have a range extension or things like that, like, you know, exploratory type herping? I find myself doing that a lot more now than I may have four years earlier.

it's a lot more fun and like the thrill of searching for something that would be beneficial either for science for a new record for data or just like being able to find something new in a spot for you at least is it it keeps it keeps things fresh and a little lighter as opposed to going back to the same. same areas all the time. I mean, it's always fun to hit, hit that one spot every year or whatever, but, but like part of it, a lot of it for me is just being able to learn about the animals I'm actually looking for and apply that to, uh, using my own intuition to apply that to new, new places as well and not places that folks have shown me is, I feel like that's become a pretty big part of what I do now at least is. Right. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Do you think that lunar cycles make a difference? Hmm. Well, yes and no.

I would say that it does not broadly yes. For stuff like Vipers, at least in the Western U.S., I found this year or last year, they care a little bit less. But also, like if the moon, rises earlier in the night, you might get a bigger window right before it versus after is kind of what I've found. But if I can like schedule a snake trip on the new moon, I would do that over full moon just about every time. Absolutely. And just to hop back one question, at this point, recognizing different

spots have different limitations. Are you kind of a long pass guy or a short pass guy? And what does that look like? It depends for some species to be able to hone in on certain micro habitat that they might be utilizing more often is definitely call for a shorter pass.

And I would say I don't know, it depends. If I'm looking for one species, I might hone in on a two-mile stretch of road versus a little bit longer if I'm just going out, having fun, seeing what I can find.

But, yeah, I would say, yeah, generally I would stick between like two and five mile passes if I was really looking for one species. Yeah, fair enough. Have you witnessed any bad behavior from other herpers or bad behavior you'd like to see corrected either online or in person? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think we're all at some point in our lives in the world. bit at fault for something, but not to sound totally cynical. But, no, I mean,

at least in Colorado, it's easy to see at least on the ground where some herpers may not have replaced cover as good as they could have or taking the time to just put that rock back a little bit better and reseal, recreate that moisture seal as best

they could. That's definitely a little bit of a shame to see at times. And then I guess the other one for me is like, especially with horned lizards, making sure you're careful with how you're walking and stuff. Because that soil that they live on can be so fragile sometimes. And any, like, you don't want to disturb it so much so that it's completely trampled. And then that leaves a lot of open soil for like cheat grass to come in and eventually start choking them out even more that way. which is definitely something we're seeing along the front range quite a bit and on the western slope as well.

I'm sure you're seeing that in eastern Utah, Justin. But yeah, I would say just not replacing cover and then make sure you are replacing cover. And just being careful and cognizant of your impact and your presence on the landscape when you're hiking around in habitat with me. those are those are some pretty pretty key things for i think all herpers to keep in mind definitely yeah absolutely uh do you ever collect or would you ever collect anything in i think in rare in rare cases yeah i've i've collected my fair share of uh herps over my years um just some mainly some amphibians um But I've got a couple snakes in my care right now, at least, that did come from the wild.

One of them was a bull snake that someone found in their basement, actually. And she was being harassed by some rodents and ended up having to get stitches and everything. But no, she's healed up well and doing all already. But then I've also got – I have a wandering garter snake. that is actually albino. So in that case, like, yeah, when it's something that might not survive as well in the wild, like as long as it falls under Colorado's legal jurisdiction restrictions for that stuff, like, yeah, I would, I'm picking that up and taking it home.

But for the most part, I enjoy leaving snakes and animals I see in the wild. Yeah, absolutely. interestingly so the albino vagrants is known from this area actually had one 31 32 years ago that had come in same sort of basement window well into into a basement from in town yeah so it's definitely that mutation at least is from one of the locations that you can find it is around here which is interesting right that it's been persistent within the local population for at least that amount of time. Right.

Yeah, absolutely. So I have a couple, just from the picture, inspired by your photos. I wanted to run through either a couple places or specific animals and maybe, you know, really tap into some of your insights around Colorado. So feel free to take them wherever you think is appropriate. I saw it. It looks like you went to Costa Rica. Yes. I was there for around a week back in 2020.

We were mainly down in the Osa Peninsula. Yeah. It's a good spot. It is a phenomenal place. I would love to go back and monsoon season and really see the diversity down there. First wise. You spend time in Corquivado? Yeah, we did a day in Corkavato. Yeah, we went in on a boat and got to hike around with one of the guides in there for a day.

Nice. That was really cool. We got a lot of cool birds down there at least. We got cool mammals. We got tapirs in a different spot we saw some Kawati as well, I think, which were, that was super fun. They're fun, yeah. For sure. Yeah, we were down there. My daughter was teaching English in La Palma on the Osa Peninsula kind of on the way in, you know, at the top of the peninsula by the Gulf of Dulce. And so that was pretty cool. We got to go out in the Gulfo and see one of the yellow sea snakes out there, the Gulfal Dolce sea snake. So that was pretty sweet. But really cool area. Yeah, herbs are a little harder to find than birds and mammals.

But I think we saw all four of the monkey species you can see out there. Do you see some howlers and stuff? I think so. Yeah, I think we saw some howlers. That was about it. We only saw a couple. It was really dry and they were coming off the back end of a really extreme drought from everything I had heard.

Yeah. Yeah, it was kind of rough going at least. Right. By Costa Rica standards, I would say it was pretty slow. But, I mean, it was still remarkable how much wildlife and everything was out down there. For sure. Yeah, it's a pretty sweet place. Yeah.

Yeah, the favorites of the pictures you posted, for me, at least, were the masked tree frog, the basilisk, the tail of swift scorpion. Yeah, those are pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, I really enjoyed that mass mass tree frog a lot. Yeah, that was amphibian-wise, I think that was probably the coolest thing we saw down there. Yeah, they're really unique frogs. Absolutely. Transitioning areas. Well, and you have probably from a couple different spots, including Colorado, but do you have any thoughts on the level of difficulty of photography of

graphing tantilla. Justin, I can certainly relate. Yeah, they're a piece of work sometimes, just with how small they can use it. But I do feel like this year, my friend Anthony and I, we kind of got a little bit of it down, I think. We flipped one Plains black-headed snake on the front range

and, like, set it on a rock to pose, and it was squirming around per usual. But we set like a smaller rock on top with a little bit of a crevice underneath. And it curled up there pretty well, actually. And we'd do that for a few minutes before it would start to move again. But like hand posing Tantilla is a doozy. But yeah, I think if you can set up a little rock on top with a little space under it for it to hide, they usually sit there for a minute or so.

I haven't really photographed Tantilla since then. I can't say if that was a one-off or not. But yeah, they're tricky. My last two Tantilla experience or photo sessions have been pretty straightforward. Like I just kind of cupped them for a bit with my hand and then pulled back and they sat and posed for minutes. It was crazy. Okay. Fair enough.

And then slowly kind of crawled. Yeah, I think it can definitely be hit or miss, but mostly miss, I think. Well, maybe the size. How big were those ones? The one that maybe sticks in my mind was, what, all of two inches? Yeah, yeah. The smaller ones are probably more wiggly, I'd agree. Fair enough. You also went to Florida, it looks like. Crown snake, Diamondback. Yeah, we were, I would, the Crown Snake. was in Florida, actually. But the diamond back we got in Alabama,

which was actually pretty interesting. Yeah, that was a fun little spring break trip down to the southeast. Again, one of those things where got out when I could. Had a day to go hiking. That's when we got the diamond back. But then, yeah, we had some other time down there. We got some like ribbon snakes and stuff, but it was a little on the early end or,

I don't even know. Honestly, that's like I'm not super familiar with that area, so I really couldn't tell you. But no, we were lucky enough to, we spent a full day hike in sand hills, like a gopher tortoise colony or a Rerosystem. And, yeah, luckily did manage to find a diamond back. That was probably the biggest target down there, at least. and yeah it was like mid-morning I would say when we got it but then now we went the rest of the day and we didn't see a snake till the evening and through that which was pretty cozy they slipped some cotton mouths under under some or we slipped some copperheads under some tin like right at sunset but now that diamond back was that thing carried so much even though it was in shed that was a dream species for me to see and I would love to go see him again someday. Yeah, that's my...

That's my... Put you through some work, for sure. Yeah. Unforgiving, but also very rewarding. If you do get one you're looking for. In terms of some Colorado, prominent Colorado species, do you have any advice for folks

in terms of looking for smooth green snakes? Also, Utah applicable. Yeah. Um, they're, they're one of those species that, like, uh, they, I don't have as much experience looking for them as I would really like, um, fortunately. But it seems like I find a lot of them, um, I rarely find them on the crawl, but in any sort of like high elevation meadow. Um, by high, I mean, like 6,000 to 8,000 feet. Um, just like any, any, mountain meadow with any sort of rocks

flipped them when it's dry I flipped them when it's like pretty moist and there's been a lot of precipitation lately they're they're interesting little snakes really underrated

just because I feel like everyone gravitates towards like the milks rattlesnakes around here and then there's this little green snake in the mountains that I feel like everyone forgets about until August

Right. When do you primarily find those? Like what time of year? I do honestly find a lot of mine in the fall, I think. I know you can get them in May pretty easily just with the rain and stuff. But I think the fall window is generally when I find most of mine. Just flipping after a day or two after some fall rains and stuff like that. That's generally what I've gotten. I think we've. I saw some as late as October one year, which was, in retrospect, was kind of weird. I didn't really know what I was doing at the time. And we just kind of went out and went, oh, there's one. That's cool. But, yeah, I would say I get a lot of mine in August, just any day or two after rain. Very cool. You have a photo on there of a very strange prairie rattlesnake. almost like a hypo

it was missing the sort of external boundaries of its pattern yeah that was a weird one that was also in southeastern Colorado yeah they turn up every once in a while like that down there it's kind of hard to say why

but yeah we were just like evening cruising and like there's a rattlesnake stop pull over went back to it and like We're looking at it for a few seconds. That is just weird.

Yeah, really lacking that pattern. Its tongue, I think, was like, I'll say it was blue. No, pink. I think it had a pink tongue, which was also kind of wonky. But, yeah, I haven't seen another one like that. And I've been on that road countless times since then and countless times before. and yeah they just that was a weird one that just turned up kind of kind of randomly and i don't know maybe see one again someday but it seems like a few other people have seen them like that but

not very often cool how about uh so probably the most prominence at least with an herpeticulture species that we have here western hog knows you have insights um ideas Sure. Let's see. Yeah. I, honestly, I cruise most of mine, which is, I mean, I think that's generally how you're going to see him, but at least in Colorado, you know, there's the board lines that you can go get them and flip them under in the spring at least. I try not to, I think I've been up there a few times, but I try not to go hit those very often. But yeah, like it seems like those midsummer days in the afternoons, they really, they like those a lot. And then I've had some pretty good mornings in the fall where like the morning after you sit up and stuff, or it seems like they're moving across the road in pretty good numbers trying to look for out and about, trying to move back to wherever they're going for the winter or just with the moisture at least trying to get any sort of towed metamorphs. that are potentially on the crawl that next thing as well.

Yeah, they really like those sand hills in the eastern Colorado, at least around like the plant in the Arkansas rivers. But you can also find them in short grass prairies as well, just about anywhere east of I-25 that hasn't been disturbed by agriculture, too heavy grazing or anything like that. Absolutely. Speckled King Snakes. I would have to say, those got to be my favorites in the state.

Yeah, I don't think I've seen, let's say I've seen four in Colorado, all crews, all after dark. And, yeah, they're one of those weird ones where, like, you can try and pinpoint, you can try and target conditions to go down and see them. but you never know sometimes. I really like to be able to flip one. That's one of those kind of like your Mountain Kings and Arizona are in Utah, like get them a lot active on the surface at least, but I would love to see one undercover. But, yeah, they're phenomenal snakes.

I got my life for back in 2021, I think. I was all along at a pretty good clip of, one per year until 2025. And I just didn't have enough time to make it down to southeast and be in their range as much as I would have liked. I don't know. Sometimes they just turn up. It's another one of those ones where moisture helps. But we had one a few years ago that was just kind of super fluky and it was just out just after dark.

Yeah, just crossing the road there. When you get one of those, that makes the entire trip. Very cool. And you spent last summer over in Utah, right? You want to talk about that project a little bit? Sure, yeah. I was on a field crew for University in Northern Colorado. We did midget faded rattlesnake surveys.

So it was range-wide. So western Colorado, eastern Utah, and then southwestern Wyoming as well. And yeah, we were out there from May through October. I can see what we could turn up, just going around doing road cruising, hiking in the mornings, and at night and stuff, and then seeing what sort of data we could get our hands on for how populations are looking like at there and their their current range is looking like as well how did it go did you find a bunch of them we we had a you had a fair share um i want to say we think it was right around 90 that we got over the summer um there are foof uh like those southern utah areas and like those canyelands and

stuff, they're really cool out there, but they're a doozy. It's just high-strung. Yeah, it seems like there were some areas. We'd go, we hit some areas so often last year, and we never turned one up. Then we'd go and we'd find a honey hole or something, and that would be super fun as well. We under our permits and stuff, we had, we, we, we took blood samples. We did measurements, so like snout bent length, mass. We took rattle segment and everything like that.

The number of rattles it had. It's a lot of morphometric stuff. And then, yeah, when we got them, we'd hit tag him as well. So that way if we did get recaptures, we could tell which individual that was, maybe how far it moved, and just sort of taking note of its behavior and everything like that. That way we could just try to lean a little bit more inside into them because they are a pretty understudied species, at least out west. There's still a lot of questions around them. Right. out of all the ones you saw which were your which were your favorite population we there's one snake that comes to mind almost instantly and that was we had one in colorado that it was really it was a white snake like it was a white con color maybe someday i'll i'll get to posting those pictures but i'm pretty backlogged right now but no that was going into the season

I wanted to see a white con color in that one. It was like three weeks in it. Yeah. We never saw another one like that. Yeah. We got some pretty high red ones in Utah. There's even a pink one we got in central Utah, which was pretty crazy. That's awesome.

Yeah, as a kid, before I knew it was against the law, I collected one and brought it home. And it was, it just had a button. And so it was just a young one and kept it for a number of years. And then I found out it was illegal and gave it away. But that thing never calmed down. I'd come in my room and zzz until I like held still long enough. And then it would chill out for a bit. And then as soon as I'd move, it started buzzing again.

I'm like, what is wrong with you, dude? Kind of crazy. But beautiful snake, really nice pink colors. And yeah, it was really beautiful. And quite notoriously once, right? Your caging was insufficient to keep it contained. Well, the caging was sufficient. It was just my parents were caring for it.

I was living in Germany. And then I guess when they fed it, they maybe didn't secure the lid well enough. And so my mom was looking for it in the enclosure. And she could hear it rattling, but she couldn't see it. And then she looked and it was sitting on top of the cage like a few inches. from her face and she, you know, jumped back and freaked out and called my dad and he's like, oh, take care of it when I get home from work. And then he came home and it was just sunning itself on the window sill. And so he just got a hook and put it back in the cage and it was fine. But

I'm like, oh, man, I don't know if I would, how good I would have felt about heaping her rattlesnake if my mom would have got bit in the nose, you know. So yeah, the follies of youth, I suppose, but it was a really cool snake. And I'm, you know, I guess I'm a little surprised that it, you know, I did so well with it, you know, wild juvenile snake and it took to pinkies and didn't really have much issue. So it's kind of cool. Were there folks on the team that have done this previously or do you have insight into it or was this the first year for the project? Do you have sort of year over year?

How was this year compared to other years? Yeah, so our field, there's three of us on the field crew. And this 2025 was the second year out of three for the project at least. And yeah, the 2024 crew, I can't remember the specifics on like their numbers and stuff. But I think we matched pretty well to 2024, at least just about. number of individuals. And then the study's got one more year on it in 2026. And then, yeah, I think it should wrap up in October this year.

Okay. Are there plans to publish the information or is it just kind of like a state report that will go into some closet somewhere? I think part of the data will just help inform like Utah and Colorado and Wyoming. about their individual con-collar populations, but then I imagine there will be a publication coming out at UNC in a few years regarding some of the data we've taken. Cool. Yeah, they're not the easiest things to find, right? If you're talking about 90 over all the man days that you're out there.

Yeah, they are, they can be tricky, especially in some of those more arid climates in Utah we found. and western Colorado. It's like the low deserts we struggled at times to turn them up. But then sometimes, like, you get some rain or something and follow the rain, and they might turn up a little bit easier. But they're very interesting things because coming from at least eastern Colorado with prairie rattlesnakes and then even like Western moscler, sagas. It's like, I don't think there's been a time where I have struggled so greatly to find a

Masa Saga just based on like conditions sometimes. And it's like, but we picked it up over the summer at least it seemed like. But yeah, when it's dry, it doesn't seem like they're doing much. And that can be a little tricky if you're, if you only have a certain amount of time out there in an area. Yes. Right? That was certainly my experience this summer. The previous year, we had, well, I guess what?

Now, I've looked for them three times, and we were successful on one of those ventures. But we spent a heck of a lot of time sort of on the western extent of their range in Utah. And it was actually, it was what, a couple, what was that two or three years ago that was unseasonably wet, both in Utah and here. And it was in May when it was killing crops. It was so wet and all of that. And it seemed like we were in plenty of perfect habitat, but the impression it gave is that those are snakes that are probably staying. There's a lot of fidelity to the dent sites because, you know,

late snow could be fatal for those snakes. So it seemed like, yeah, in those unusually wet conditions, then we were a couple weeks early, probably. Where was the best place to find them? Or was it all kind of the same year to year? Yeah, I would say generally the more northern populations proved to at least have higher densities and a little greater abundance. It all kind of depended on what we were doing, like fall hiking versus like Summit Road cruising. But it felt like as we moved further north, there were areas that they became a little more prevalent in.

Was there a time of year across the field season where you found more of them than others? I think our September went pretty well. Like late August, early September, I think went pretty well for us. Like we picked up a good amount in July, just like following monsoons and stuff in Utah, or at least southern Utah. But then like that fall window with all the other. the neonates and everything. There's a lot more snakes on the landscape anyways, but that's fall period. It was good good of success.

Cool. Very cool. And you are the co-chair of the Copark Steering Committee, right? So Colorado Partners in Amphibian and Repetal Conservation? Yes, sir. Very cool. And we have our annual meeting coming up in a couple weeks, which is exciting. Yeah.

Yeah, so we have, every year we have an annual conference that just kind of brings together academics, obvious, collectors, keepers, and everyone of the sort enthusiasts in Colorado to learn about some of the reptiles and amphibians in our state and hear about potential updates and new research that's coming out relating to. the herb to fauna in Colorado in the southwest. This year we've got our annual meeting February 28th actually down at the Denver Zoo. That'll be really fun. I think we're having

keynote speakers, your previous guest, Dr. Andrew Holy Cross. He's coming in to talk about some of his work with New Mexico Ridgno's rattlesnakes and their conservation and some of the recovery efforts as well that they're doing down there, which will be really fun and really good to see.

Yeah, Dr. Holy Cross is a very personal. He'll be a fun speaker, I'm sure. That's cool. Nice. Yeah, we're looking forward to it. And then, yeah, go ahead. Oh, sorry. But yeah, Copark, we also, we do field surveys as well over the summer. we've got our we got an annual survey in southeastern Colorado that we've been coming back to for close to 10 years now I think and being able to see kind of some of the changes and what we've been finding down there and in the midsummer months has been really cool then we've also got

some field surveys around like the front range and stuff that certain partners have invited us invited us out to do bioblitzes on their properties, which has been really fun and really cool to get people involved and interested and excited about reptiles and amphibians and just like getting hands on and being able to help contribute to some of that work has been really rewarding as well. Absolutely. So that is one utilization of INAT, I suppose, right? So both the Southeast Colorado and the front range stuff. is moderated through that context, which is cool. Yeah. Very cool. Well, we really appreciate you coming on and chatting, herping with us and kind of, you know, sharing what you've learned and what you've seen in the field. It's really cool stuff.

So we, I like to kind of take a few minutes at the end to kind of report anything cool in herpetology or that you've seen over the last bit. or you want to share. For me, it's, I don't remember if we talked about this previously, but the three new monitor species that were described recently in Australia, the Varanus Irides, Umbra, and Phosphorus were described out in Queensland somewhere. They kind of look like Tristus types, you know, but really cool. One's got a really... They're up in the Cooktown, Chile, Go, Mount Surprise.

Right. Yeah, kind of. of that inland area. I've been out to Mount Surprise area. That's where me and my kids found a couple of the pygmy banded pythons, but I didn't think to go look for a new monitor species, unfortunately. Yeah. So now that, I mean, it's cool, but now my percentage is down a bit.

So I'll need to make it out there at some point, I guess. I think now I've seen, with the new ones, I've seen 18 out of 38. So, yeah. And then with the new one that Gavin described and also, I think Caranda is now a species. So a few more to the list. I think it's that much fun right in Australia is going to be a very difficult one that will only keep growing. Right, right. And I think too, like, I don't know, it's kind of fun to see all the people who were able to make an armchair tick and be like, oh, yeah,

I've seen that one, you know, so accomplished, I guess. But I don't know that I saw anybody that's seen all three. So it's kind of surprising that there'd be three fairly distinct and diverse monitors out there. But kind of cool. I know those green-headed ones have been, I've definitely seen those on Instagram quite a bit. Yeah. Previously, you know, previously to the description. Yeah, I feel the same.

I've seen a few posts where people have posted those. I'm like, that doesn't look like Atristus. You know, that looks kind of different. But, yeah, kind of cool. You guys seen anything listening to a good podcast lately? If not, oh, go ahead. Right. Well, I mentioned it last time.

I did think the, and Hayden, maybe you have exposure to him. Samuel Kerwin's, he was just on the Snake Talk podcast at some point talking about the essentially that vipers utilize, you know, maintain the venom in a more acidic environment within their body so that to sort of prevent harm, you know, in themselves. That's a super interesting episode that I would encourage folks to listen to. I did re-listen, Justin, I don't remember if we were on air or not, but I did re-listen to the Massasaga chat where they were talking about inbreeding. Yeah, interesting. I'd also encourage folks to listen to that as well. Yeah, certainly interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've been perusing through some papers there. They're a little older at this point. Just looking at life history on red-legged frogs, at least right now. I don't know why. That piqued my interest.

But, yeah, at least with the genus. Rana. That is a unique complex of frogs, at least in the Pacific Northwest. But at least just from when I went up to Oregon last year, being able to dive into red-legged frog life history there, they're fascinating little guys. Like just the other day I was reading through, and apparently we got to see it in person, actually, but they actually call from underwater. So, like, their vocalizations are pretty muffled.

You have to kind of listen for them. Versus, like, with your chorus frogs and stuff, they're super loud. And, like, they make themselves known. Yeah, with these guys there, the males sit underwater and submerge themselves in vegetation. They'll call from down there. I think Columbia spotted frogs do that as well. I'm not sure if that's a similar trait for all of Rana at least. At least those two species, I'm pretty sure they both do.

It's pretty fun. Is it more of a clicky type call or is it more? I mean, are they inflating their vocalization sacks, whatever you want to call them? I think it's a little bit more clicky, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, which would make sense if you're underwater, carry better underwater. Yeah, that's really interesting. I didn't know that. I'll have to see if that's...

Do you know if it's with leopard frogs as well? As far as I'm aware, as far as unaware, leopard frogs call above the surface. Right. Yeah. I don't know. You might get a weird one, but... Yeah.

We're about the surface of it. Well, very cool. Again, appreciate you coming on. And so you're... give out your Instagram handle again. Yeah, I'm on Instagram at HML Herping.

Okay. Generic, but yeah, that's where you can find some of my photography. Like I mentioned, it's a little backlogged right now. I just got through 2024.

But hopefully catching up a little bit through the winter and then maybe see. how far we get soon. I feel your pain. That's always a challenge to get, you know, get your, especially if you've got a real, you know,

camera getting all the pictures and edited or cropped or whatever. It can be a time-consuming thing. But yeah, appreciate you coming on. And thanks to Eric and Owen for putting us under their podcast empire. And we'll catch you next week for Reptile Fight. Club.