Reptile Fight Club - June Herping Trips and more

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

In this episode we catch up about june herp trips and some reptile talk. Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comIGFollow 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

All right, welcome to Reptile Fight Club. My name's Justin Duhlander, if you've forgotten. And with me is Rob Stone. How's it going? I think we're kind of in for a bit of a proof of life. We didn't get a guest lined up for this week. Rob's been traveling and partying with Metallica and all sorts of stuff. So, and I've been a bit busy as well. So we've been a little lax on scheduling a show and getting guests, but that will be coming up forthrightly. Ideas for years, right? Yeah. Exactly. We've got stories for years.

Yeah. So I thought we'd, well, we kind of discussed what we could talk about. And obviously we've done a little bit of traveling and had some adventures here recently. So we'll chat about that a bit and maybe give some updates on what's going on with our collections and such. But yeah, just wanted to check in and record a bit of a show and see what was going on here. Well, I guess first off, you got any breeding activity or eggs or anything like that going on with you? Yeah. It looks like three rhino clutches this year, which is good, or three on the ground that

are good. Did get eggs of some variety, good and bad, from all the ones that I had put together and things, but some of those were real small males that I had tossed in a little bit late in the season and things like that. But it was always good to get that if something comes out, then it's especially in those, maybe more so than pythons, you can get sort of tweeners where they'll have sexually dimorphic visual characteristics, but I've seen it where I think genuinely there's a misalignment between them in terms of their presentation and what

they'll probe as and maybe even what they are physiologically. I think part of that might go to the fact that in terms of incubation, and I know this puts them in a weird spot, although to me and my lived experience, the porphyraceae, the bamboo rat snakes are in a similar place, we don't generally consider them to be a group of anything, any of their close relatives to be animals that would be subject to, that would be temperature sex dependent based upon their incubation temperature. So I recognize that this is sort of an out there idea.

But my lived experience is that they are or at least that it can override potentially their they certainly have sex chromosomes. But my question is whether those can be overridden. I've talked with Ben about this going back, I don't know, seven, eight years ago. It's an interesting idea. Certainly it's thing there's anecdotal evidence that goes to it. We haven't necessarily aligned to have the perfect sample to test the idea and validate it.

So it is. Anyway, in that context, it's always good. Even slugs are good when they validate, okay, everything that I thought was a female actually was a female, which speaks to the validity of the secondary sexual characteristics and the dimorphism between them. But yeah, so I think three clutches with eggs that look good. So that's exciting. I think probably I finally had become convinced of it enough, talked about it enough that

Jamaican boas are straightforward as long as you kept the room parameters as such and such and I think both actually both chylibrothrus, so the Jamaican boas and the Puerto Rican boas had sort of been in a bi-annual cycle. It looks to me, particularly based on the feeding response of the Jamaican boa that I thought might go this year, that the streak will end at seven or eight years or something between across the two species breeding every other year. I don't think I'll produce any this year, which is good and bad. Again, it's something that I give away to friends.

Those are pretty in demand. I know folks, Dustin certainly would like some more females and things but right um, I don't I think then it just sets us to be well It'll be doubles in the same year and then I'm bringing more online and stuff like that. So yeah, that's sort of the update from here Cool. Yeah I'm still in the hatching phase right now. I've got pretty much I think I only have three clutches left and and or two one is hatching phase right now. I've got pretty much, I think I only have three clutches left and or two, one is hatching out now. So I've got Stripe Spotted, Stripe from Ryan Young. I got

a pair of Stripe Spotted from him and they're hatching out now. So that's, they're looking good. I actually got all of the, all four recognized species of Antaresia, although whether they're recognized by some people or not. I'll be cold in the ground before I recognize Stimsoni as Childreni. I still just, I don't know, I just can't let that go. I can't get over it. They had that new publication that I'm pretty sure it looked at pygmy banded pythons, compared them with spotted pythons and showed that they're, they called them children eye and they're just all over the place. I mean, if, if they think those are children eye, I feel bad for them. You know, they just have no resemblance to that.

And it seemed like the genetic sampling was, like they were way out there. There was some dots in that area that were way different. I'm pretty sure it's the pygmy bandits, because they don't overlap with children. And I like the Eastern Stimpsons, which I would recognize probably would be the most likely to be lumped in with children.

I don't know. I've been thinking about a little more with this new paper, how I would actually split them up. It seems like there's that biogeographical barrier in kind of the border between Northern Territory and Western Australia there. And you see a lot of splits there. You see splits with the

frilled lizards, the ones to the West and the East are a little different than the ones in Queensland are even different from those two. So there's kind of three groupings of those. There seems to be differences between a few different taxo across either side of that line. So that makes sense. I don't know that I've seen a ton of the Kimberley children in the true, I guess, Western Kimberley. But so it'd be interesting to see if they look at all like the Western Stimson's pythons, you know, from the Pilbara and stuff. But I don't know, it's just weird. I was watching a video, Ricky Mack video today,

and he was somewhere looking for the Western Desert Taipan and found some Stimson's pythons that were amazingly clean, like just beautiful patterned in color. It was really nice looking Stimson's pythons that were amazingly clean, like just beautiful patterned in color. It was really nice looking Stimson's pythons out there in the middle of the desert. It was pretty cool. It'd be nice to know where those were to see how things shake out. But I do think that the central Stimson's around Alice Springs in that area and the Western Stimson's around Alice Springs in that area. And the Western Stimson's probably would constitute true Stimsonian Tellus and Stimsonii, Stimsonii, but that's just my uneducated opinion.

Just going by what the breaks in the genetics that they showed and kind of where those ranges are. Yeah, there is some overlap and I mean, species overlap sometimes, that doesn't mean they're not species, you know, you got overlap between Stimpsons and Pygmies and they're fine with that. So, you know, I don't know, I guess, it's one of those fun academic things,

but when you look at them, you can tell what's what I think. Maybe that gradation from the north to the south is what they're getting hung up on. But I don't know. What do you do? I'm going to call them stems and I would encourage people to keep that straight. Just at least it's a locality difference potentially.

I hatched out some Western stems. I just took those out to the reptile room from the incubator. I only got three this year because I only paired up one pair, which I probably should have done a few more pairs, but I've still got some from last year. I'm not the best sales um, but they're beautiful. Such cool snakes. And this is like a third generation pairing. So, um, they're looking pretty cool. This was kind of a stripey line that I paired. And then the broom Stimson's, um, broom Western stems are just incredible. And they, they keep getting better and better and really reduced patterns.

And I threw in a pinky last night and they all ate, I think one didn't eat. Just right off the bat. They're big. They're a lot bigger than the wheat belts, which is kind of interesting. And then jungles, I got jungles, hatched out two clutches of jungles. I got three from one and then six from the other. So not the hugest clutches, but they were both first time females. And they, all those babies ate like right off the bat. I threw in a fuzzy last night and they all grabbed it right away. So that's exciting when they do that.

And then I've got the Inlands out there, some Inlands hatched out. I got a whole pile of Inlands. Looks a little bit skewed towards males, but maybe like two extra males for you know probably what like 8.6 or something like that. So yeah it's not a bad, maybe even more. It was a pretty good size clutch. So and this is actually a mahog paired to a an AI AR line. Cool female so now male. So it's kind of mixing the the two lines a little bit. So I'm curious to see what how they turn out and check those out for a bit. So hopefully they'll start eating

and I can start seeing some color and pattern. They take a little bit, I mean, just like any carpet, you know, but my, oh, I kept a couple Inlands from the previous pairing, I think it was two years ago. Oh my goodness. They are stellar looking. They just so blue. At least the pair, I have a 2.1 left and the 1.1, 1.1 looks just phenomenal. And then the extra male is like, yeah, he's, he's nice, but when you compare them to the other two, it's like, yeah, it's like, wow. So I'll probably hang onto those just cause they're here and they look really nice. Why let them go at this point? I guess you got to roll the dice early if you want to get some really nice inlands. But yeah, they're- Or just get some when you produce them from that pair. Yeah.

Right. Yeah, exactly. I guess that's the trick is everybody wants the holdbacks, right? Everybody wants the holdbacks, right? So yeah, I got some children that I hatched out from a holdback. Well, no, this was from my original or one of my older females, not the original female. She's unfortunately passed. I think she was 23, 24, somewhere around there. So yeah. It was getting her babies when we first met back 22 years ago. She hadn't bred for probably five or six years, so she was kind of not doing much and just

kind of being old, I guess. Yeah, living her life. Yeah. Yeah. But the, her offspring are, I mean, they're all really nice. And I think there's a lot of confusion in the, in herptaculture with the Red Desert line that the Barkers put out there. They look very similar as babies, you know, they're lighter than the, I guess, the mainstream or the triple L, whatever children I see there. I know Ryan had some really dark patterned children that were cool looking. I actually got a pair from him as well or a female or something, but I got some from him and produced from that female. The Barker line that I've kept since the late 90s is pretty light babies, really faded pinky

looking things. They look an awful lot like what people would expect a T-plus albino to look like, but they're not T-plus albinos. Yeah. So I don't know. I didn't think I was too excited about the T-plus albinos, but I saw some at Peter Birch's and they were pretty cool looking like back in the day. So it's been a while since I've seen them, but I know a few people have been producing them, but I think there's a few people that are producing the Barker line.

They go, oh, there's T pluses in here. And they're trying to get money for those. So I guess that's the way it goes. Yeah, I sort of remember some of those interactions and things. Right. I think Nick very famously had a rant about that. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah.

Well, he's invested in that, I guess. I know. Yep. So I can imagine that would be a little frustrating to spend all that money. Yeah. So yeah, things are going, going as good as they can be. I did get that one blackheaded Python to hatch out. So unfortunately, the rest didn't make it. I still don't know where I'm going wrong with these things. But Jordan mentioned something about elevation, but I don't know. Maybe elevation plays a role in it.

I guess I'll change some things up and see if that fixes it. It's frustrating. They look good until the very end and then I get one to hatch out of the six eggs or whatever. Just like, come on. Just, and you know, when they, when I started doing feeding trials, it's like, okay, maybe I'm glad there's not six because they make you pull your hair out. They're really frustrated.

Uh, and then the pygmy pythons, I've started feeding trials with them and yeah, there's no going for mouse pinky. So got to figure something out those start assist feeding or tails or legs or something. Right. Yeah, the late the drumsticks work really well. They're just a little bit of a pain to prep, you know, so that I should have plenty of drumsticks around. Yeah, so that's where where I am right now. I've still got a few, I've got a couple female eastern stems that are really nice. I've got some from another Stimson Lion line that are pretty cool. And then a few of the Western stems left. Very cool. People want some.

Yeah, they know where to go. It's pretty interesting. There's quite a few people producing Western. So that's a good site. Yeah. I guess producing as many as I have over the years, they're established now. That was kind of the goal is to get them into herptaculture. So that's exciting. So I haven't been worried so much about producing numbers of those anymore, but they're the nicest of the stems. I just want to refine them now, get nicer and nicer ones. So there's some pretty insane looking ones over in Australia. So yeah, that's true.

Especially WA. Yeah. Some of those are wild. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just some of the wild types are pretty fantastic. Yeah, for sure. I've seen a total of one in the wild, so I can't speak too much to it, but yeah, some of the photos I've seen, pretty impressive. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. Well, want to talk a little bit about our trip? Yeah, absolutely. How about you kick it off from your perspective?

So this was our enormous Carpetfest trip to go check out Pennsylvania and New Jersey on the back end, but you got a little New Jersey. You get to see some of it. Great. Again, a second time. But yeah, and then you had to head back and that was okay. Save one find, maybe two, depending on how you feel about three frogs, but yeah.

There were a couple of finds I was a bit jealous of. But so yeah, I mean, Rob was the mastermind, of course, behind this trip and did the planning and arrangements and everything. And I didn't have a lot of time off of work since I took a couple Australia trips in the last year. And so I'm kind of flushed out of annual leave. So I had to do more of a long weekend.

So I came, we flew in Friday night. Friday night. Arriving early Saturday. Yeah, we did a red eye, which maybe it't the best choice, but what do you do? It's a herb trip, so you're going to be tired anyway. But yeah, those, what airline was it? Southwest or? Frontier.

Frontier. Yeah. I mean, it was fine. It wasn't very expensive, but the seats aren't very comfortable. I didn't sleep very well, that's for sure. I was in a middle seat, so that wasn't great either. Luckily, we had a long drive to Western Pennsylvania. We did a quick jaunt into the Everglades, not the Everglades, the Pine Barrens to go have a look around before

Nipper got there. So we were kind of waiting for him. And so our first stop was a really good one. I think the first find was a lifer for me. I was very excited about. Yeah. It was really cool. And Eastern box turtle. And I've been in the range quite a few times. There's not just for Easterns but for the desert box turtles and are they the ones in Texas and Arizona? We've been in their range quite a few times and in the areas where they're found. You guys saw some in Texas. I was thinking you were talking about the and I've seen the Easterns too. I expected something else something else Eastern at that side I'm too aphidian focused. Yeah, right Exactly. So, you know box turtles have eluded me up to this point and Eric found a really nice box turtle as he was

I think taking a pee or something wasn't Is those fines go but you know, so yeah, I was really I was really excited It had a little bit of shell damage. You could see that some of the go? But you know, so yeah, I was really, I was really excited. It had a little bit of shell damage. You could see some of the bone through, you know, some of the scutes had been chewed off by some critter or another, but otherwise it was in good shape and it was just beautiful. Looked to be probably a female, but gorgeous animal. So I was really stoked to see that. And then driving between there and another site, we found a little baby one that was really stoked to see that and then driving between there and another site We found a little baby one who was really tiny. Yeah, so great

It was crossing the road. So we got to get it off the road and help it across a like there was a Truck coming big truck. Yeah, it would have been it would have been smushed pretty quick I think by the trucks that came behind us. So yeah glad to get that one off the road and then walked around the Pine Barrens a bit more and Owen found a nice Chain King. So that was another lifer, really cool snake. It was in shed but it looked good regardless and then picked up Nipper and we paid a nice little visit to Johnny Rax and saw his amazing collection. Yeah, some pretty amazing shingle backs and other blue tongue skinks. He just had some alpine blue tongues born there. Beautiful species. That's one I'd like to work with down

the road for sure. Yeah, I just couldn't believe that collection. I was, you know, and Johnny's such a nice guy. Like he's just really fun to chat with and has a lot of great ideas and just is knocking them out of the park. Like just producing that, that telequageness like nobody's business. So it's really great to see, see how his setup were and how he's got things going. And just really great time. So good stuff. And then we headed west. We made a stop off to have a look around and saw a couple of garter snakes and then nipper

flipped that juvenile. Yeah, a little, probably young of last year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, very little, probably young of last year. Yeah, very little palm-sized. Yeah, it was really a nice one. We'd seen a couple of milks the previous time in Pennsylvania a couple of years ago, but this was just like perfect. Yeah, and in Jersey too, right?

So we saw them in the Poconos, we saw one in Jersey. But as that form, as it gets larger, they tend to get duller in overall appearance. But as bait, and as babies, that one was what? Probably six to eight months old, something like that. And that thing was stunning. Vibrant. Yeah. Yeah, very nice.

So that was a good find for Nipper and good site for the rest of us. And then we went looking for the Eastern Massasauga, which is in endangered in Pennsylvania. So kind of a difficult find to some extent, unless you're Rob and you know where to go and definitely put us on the right spot. But as I don't know if listeners heard Eric and Owen talking about the trip a little bit, but Owen may have gotten a couple of the details wrong, but it was, yeah, I walked over and was hanging out with the class a little bit. So I think they were walking, Nipper and Owen were, and maybe Eric were walking with them

for a bit on the front end. But by the- Yeah, I had totally just bolted from as yes, you do other things. But by the time the class got to me, they dropped off or weren't with them. So it was just me and I was chatting with the professor of the class.

And she was really nice. You know, we had nice little conversation. She was she worked at the university out there and and had this class of this class of field biology or something. So they're out looking that day for Mesasagas. And so they had the ranger with them and really nice guy. You never know. Yeah, exactly right.

So if we go slightly back, we'd gotten there the day before, but late in the day, and not the sort of time, particularly that time of year, that we would anticipate to see one. It seems like generally a lot of the records are concentrated in sort of earlier in the year and then later in the year. It's sort of an unusual time to be looking for them. It seems like mostly kind of they're basking to get those first sheds and then you're seeing them sort of in the fall Those are the general timeframes. But yeah, so this was a June, you know Mid-afternoon to early evening in a June day and it was it didn't feel promising

But it was really good to check out the habitat see okay are there particular spots? We could imagine one coming out to bask that sort of thing, right? And then it was yeah, let's go early in the morning So we did and we're out there and it's just us, you know for the first hour hour and a half something like that There's a spot that's closed out. There's sort of several spots that are inaccessible for different reasons and whatever and Yeah, so the ranger has come through and I actually recognized him I I was like, I think I've seen this guy when I was looking at, there's video content

from this spot around Mass Saga, them doing sort of the same deal that we ultimately experienced, or you experienced. I think he's in those videos. I can send it to you and you'd say, oh yeah, okay. But so we'd all waved and we were all dispersed, right? I was by myself and you were by yourself and Nipper was out of, however it's situated, we were out there with Robert and Connor and yeah, it was really good, but it was like pairs

of two at the most and then a lot of us sort of singly. And then, so I waved to him and things but Nipper, of course,, because that's how he always engages, chatted him up, told him, hey, this is our interest, was super transparent, which is great. And as you say, got a really positive reaction out of that, which is great. Again, I would think that given where we're coming from, that should always be the reaction, but some people are just inherently defensive and things. Yeah. Or just don't have much information like the Ranger we saw in Canyonlands that had never

seen a con color. I've worked with Rangers and never seen a Rattlesnake. Well, that same night we cruised three, we were 15 miles of that office. They worked for 10 years. So I don't know if I can tell you. Exactly. They're just not paying attention. But Ranger Taylor, Will Taylor was very astute. And yeah,

he's putting in the work for sure and very involved in the Massasauga research out there. So glad Nipper chatted him up and glad he was so cool. You know, absolutely. So he wound up giving us sort of carte blanche save one spot. So the interesting thing about that spot is it's either the last or one of the last publicly accessible spots of prairie habitat in Pennsylvania, in the entire state. Talking about immune endangered in that state, they are very closely tied to that habitat type and basically all of that. I think it was probably just given the context of Pennsylvania generally, there might not have been as much of it in

Pennsylvania as in Ohio and Ontario to start with, but certainly it's amenable to development in historical times to now. There's I think either one or at most a small handful of publicly accessible spots that are prairie habitat left in Pennsylvania. Certainly, this is where their population is concentrated. There are definitely a handful of spots, but they've been in notable decline throughout the 1900s to now, and even dramatic declines from the 80s forward in terms of county extirpations and things. There are definitely papers that are... We had mentioned it was ZAC actually.

In the context of saying there were interesting papers that talked about sites on a county level that gave some level of specificity. With a trained eye, you could have ideas, but we're not sort of willy-nilly giving out GPS coordinates and those sorts of things. So it was kind of a nice mix between those two. So I'm not saying they're only at this spot in Pennsylvania, but in terms of publicly accessible, it's certainly where they're most concentrated. People can certainly Google it.

You can figure it out, find it and all that. I encourage you to, but to treat it with respect. That was what we had done. Ranger Taylor, based on hearing our motivations, said, hey, we have this part is closed because we can't mow it, and we don't want folks just randomly walking out because we don't want them stepping on a mess saga. You guys, I understand and appreciate your purpose and the values that you're bringing to this.

So feel free to go down this way. We're trying to expand the prairie habitat up to this northern part. You guys can go do whatever you want, Carte Blanche up there. So yeah, couldn't have gone better, as you said. Yeah, and it was interesting, because he said, oh, you was interesting because I, you know, I, he, he has, he said,

oh, you're welcome to join with us, you know, walk with the class. And, and, and so I was for a bit and he was really like, I was thinking, ah, he's just going to be doing kind of the, the base of it. He was given some really cool details about, um, you know, the fact that, uh, Massa sagas wait for a certain temperature shift. So between the ground temperature and the air temperature, once you see a shift to a certain degree, you know, temperature, the ground reaches, they'll start to come out and bask and move around. So he said, once you get to a certain time, you have like a couple days, and then you can't

burn anymore, because that's how they're managing the prairie in certain areas. So they'll burn a plot and kind of a controlled burn to clear out the brush and the trees and things like that to maintain the prairie habitat. Because I guess if you don't do that, if it doesn't have an annual, or not an annual, but a regular burn, then it will become overgrown. And so that was kind of cool that they're using those. That's where Zach comes in, that they're using those crayfish burrows to overwinter and stuff and then come out when the shift occurs. And so he said, so I'm kind of listening in on his lecture to the class and he said, you know, he said they don't really move when you approach them so they just

kind of hang out there and then they just kind of bask on, you know, in the grasses and stuff so you got to, and he said, okay, everybody line up and stand about six feet apart and we're going to start going through the brush. I'm like, Oh, this might be a good time to be around, you know? And so, so they start walking through and I'm like, man, is it going to count if they find it? And you know, we just see it or working out those details in our head. And, and, and yeah, right off the bat, a couple of the kids, one kid in particular, he found like two or three snakes, I think. And he's like, Oh, and yeah, right off the bat, a couple of the kids, one kid in particular, he found like two or three snakes, I think.

And he's like, Oh, there's a snake. And he's like, we'll describe it. Oh, it's got a stripe. Okay. That's a garter snake, you know? And, and I think they just took off, you know, and we'd seen a couple Eastern garter snakes on our walk through there. And then somebody saw maybe a decays or some kind of, you know, more plain snake, but it

definitely, yeah. And it took off as well. I don't think they got hands on any of the other snakes they saw. And then, you know, I think with when that decays per the person saw the decays, I started kind of walking through, you know, the undergrowth to go see if I could see the snake. And then it got out. And so I like, well, well, I'm here, I might as well do what they're doing. So I start tromping through, you know, kind of, you just had to walk really slow and make sure you're not

stepping on Massasauga. That's kind of the, the technique. And, and yeah, without that class there, we definitely wouldn't be tromping through the grasslands like that. You know, although he did kind of give us permission to do that. Yeah, in certain areas. You guys can check it out in certain areas and stuff. There's one area, so the whole area itself was, I think I distracted myself from it, the whole area is protected because of the presence of a particular flower that's endemic to that prairie habitat.

And that's why that area has been protected for the last 70 years, something like that. It's for this flower. And so the spot that he said, oh, don't go in there and be tramping about is the spot where that flower persists. So that was kind of the one exclusion they did put on it. But that's not the principal sort of snaky spot. It certainly wasn't where the class was going and all that. So yeah, I certainly took it as, hey, explicitly we have permission to do this explicit activity

in this context. And yeah, in this area. Yeah. And so yeah, I was walking along and I'm like, oh, there's one. And it was just, it was quite a good size female, but I didn't see it until I was maybe, you know, six feet away from it or maybe even closer. Like it was, it blended in pretty nicely, you know, and it was kind of still had its winter coat on, I guess you would say it hadn't shed out yet. So it was fairly dull looking, but they get some mud, yeah, mud, fans or whatever it is on them.

Yeah. Yeah. Kind of soaked into that skin. And so usually they'll come out and shed and look a little nicer, but, uh, so it hadn't been gotten to that point yet. It's plenty great to me. But yeah, it was a, it was very nice to see that target, you know? And so I'm like, Oh, here's one. And so he came over, Ranger Taylor came over and had a, uh, some snake tongs like, oh, here's one. And so he came over, Ranger Taylor came over and had some snake tongs and picked it up. I mean, after I spotted it and kind of was getting closer,

I got a couple of pictures with my phone and then it started to move off. And so he came in and kind of clamped it and put it in a bucket or no, a bag, a snake bag. And then we took it over to the pavilion and weighed it and put it in a bucket or no, a bag, a snake bag. And then we took it over to the pavilion and weighed it and measured it and all that kind of stuff. It was pretty cool. And then he tubed it and he asked if somebody wanted to pit tag it. And of course, the college students wanted to and he's like, how do we have anybody that has experience

with injections? And I'm like, I do. And he's like, okay, maybe it would be better to have somebody with more experience. Why don't we have our friend come over and do this? I'm like, yes. And I'm sure they're all like, no, you jerk, stealing our thunder. So, but yeah, it was, it was fun to get to pit tag it. I've got the pit tag number written down and everything. So kind of cool and measured it. Yeah. it was fairly good size Like I think they only get about you know, about two foot maybe just over two foot He said it wasn't the largest one. They've recorded but it was 24.4 inches long about 62 centimeters and 285 grams it was very thick around the back third so it's probably developing some follicles

or something because it looked pretty, pretty obviously thick and thought it had 22 subcattles. So maybe it looked female-ish. That definitely looked like a female to me. Yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah, I think so. So unless it was just a male with a hadn't voided its bowels from last season or something. But yeah, I thought female as well. So and then put a little wound glue over where I injected the pit tag and that was that. And I think so he started scanning for the pit tag I just injected and he wasn't finding it and he's like, Oh man, maybe the maybe it already had a pit tag and it was, you know,

this thing was messed up. We should have checked the pit tag number before we injected it or something scanned it, you know? So, but, uh, so maybe it had one already and the scanner wasn't working, but either way it was kind of cool to get to do that and work, work that intimately and closely within, you know, a species that's endangered in Pennsylvania. So kind of a fun, fun thing. And then we released it back where we found it.

And at this point, the class had gone off to lunch. So it was just us. And Ranger Taylor again was nice enough to let us have a little photo shoot. And he just kind of stood back and let us take all the time we needed to take pictures and wasn't rushing us or like telling us our interaction with the animal was completed. And so it was really

a nice, nice, very nice interaction, a true Western Pennsylvania treat. So good times. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I thought, I thought it was fantastic. He's, he'd kind of put the caveat on it on the front end of saying so was in the bag He was gonna dump it out of the bag or you know gently, you know let it out of the bag and then he was sort of like He it sounded like he gave the impression that if it had then just bolted that that was it It was what it was, right? So that's where I own poke fun at me for just going belly down right

into the face of this bag. I was like, what else am I going to do? Especially in this context if I may only get one or two shots. Right. Waste that opportunity. Waste that opportunity by being whatever. Standing back and not going full for it. So I'd done that, but that wound up not being, well, she played along anyway, right? Yeah. And was content to sit there and pose up nicely and kind of the same thing that you're describing, right?

Or the perpetual when you find something in the wild, you have a picture from 20 feet, a picture from 15 feet, from 10 feet, from 5 feet, you know, and you're trying to get closer and closer, but taking shots along the way so that you don't miss the trick at the end. That was basically the deal. Certainly got some stuff that I thought was really cool, really happy with, loved the context. I thought it was great. Couldn't couldn't have asked for better. Right. Yeah, it was it was great to add another Crote or I guess not Crotilus but citrus another venomous Yeah, yes, I miss us rattlesnake, yeah, yeah Very cool. And yeah, Rob put us on the spot again delivered again. So I think the one thing we neglected was The the first day when we kind of

went to scope things out the day before we had this find. And Robert's son, what's his name again? Connor. Connor. Yeah, Connor found some critters out kind of a little pond area. Yeah, a couple of dusky salamanders and a green frog and a few other things. They're aquatic, man. Yeah. The rubber and family are aquatic, for sure.

They are. Yeah. It's always fun to go out with those guys. And it was great to see them again. Yeah. And then I turned up a wood frog kind of as we were hiking around a little bit for the really reddish colored one. It was really nice looking orangey red wood frog.

And then we headed back east again, more to eastern Pennsylvania to Eric and Rob's or Eric and Owen's timber spot. And sure enough, Owen and Eric turned up a couple of timbers. They were- They turned up another one on the back end of it. Oh yeah. That nail.

Yeah, well, we were taking pictures of the first two and they were kind of in the rocky areas where you'd expect them to be and where they'd seen them before, I think. They said it was the same rock that they'd seen some in previously. And then I walked a little bit further and there was this beautiful black rat snake just stretched out across, you know, just kind of hanging out there like hoping I didn't see him in doing the windows. Like, did you see me? I'm going to hold still just in case, you know, and was pretty well behaved. I mean, it took a couple swings at

Eric, but other than that, I have a great shot of it with its mouth wide open and Eric's got his mouth open. It was a really, really fun shot. That's pretty good. Yeah. But yeah, it was fun to see. Eric was pretty excited because he's trying to find all the herps of Pennsylvania. So that was one that he hadn't seen in his state yet. So that was a fun find. And yeah, for the most part, it just sat there and let us take pictures and then it crawled off nice and calm. So yeah, nice interaction for sure.

And then, yeah, I walked a little further along a ridge and, and just spotted this, another kind of darker timber out on the crawl and it was, oh man, it's, it's amazing how they just blend in with that environment. And it was fun to watch it kind of crawl along. And I got to sit and watch it, you know, make its way over, kind of over the ridge. Yeah, it went quite a distance, right? Yeah, yeah, from where I first spotted it and while you guys came over. And finally, as the group we sort of caught up

and I was able to make enough of an impediment that it finally sat and coiled up and stuff like that. Yeah, it kind of went under some branches or something, a kind of a dead tree or something, just kind of, you know, where we could have a good view of a dead tree or something, just kind of, yeah, where we could have a good view of it and get nice pictures, but where it had a little bit more secure feeling, I imagine. Luckily, it didn't try to go for the rock crevices because it would have been very difficult to...

Absolutely. That whole place is very rich in terms of escape routes in terms of if they want to go then they're gonna go and that's it Yeah, and the first two definitely took advantage of that went right into the rock cracks You know, we got we got pretty good views of them and you know, and they gave a bit at us It's not we gave them, you know black rat snake photographing time and yeah back out, you know back out and basking Yeah, so we did yeah We didn't interrupt them too much and they look pretty heavily gravitas well or in the process least working towards it. Yeah Yeah, so after after that we went and got a bite to eat and you dropped me off at the airport So that was the end of the trip for me

Yeah, we got some pizza that or you got the pasta right? But yeah, the rattlesnake pasta. I thought that was fitting for a three rattlesnake day to and then a four rattlesnake trip to have a little bit of rattlesnake pasta. It wasn't rattlesnake in there, but that was the name of it. Had a little spice to it, I guess. That's why they called it that. Good stuff. And then you guys had some nice finds. Congrats on your, the next one, I guess, was that the next day or? Yeah. Yeah, that was the next day. Okay. You didn't go out to Delaware that night after you dropped me off? Yeah, we did. I had forgotten. I was digestively unwell.

It's actually not that bad of a hike, but the park to where you can park to where we're trying to go. It's a little bit of a haul. It's a little bit of a haul. Then they were doing renovation or construction or something. I think that heavy equipment there probably has thrown off the population that's there. It didn't seem, again heavy equipment, not that they're killing them, but I think

they're probably dissuading them from sort of the activity that we had seen them engaging in previously. And yeah as I say say, digestively unwell, Nipper had used up the... He spoke highly of the import and integrity of bringing a bog roll. Naturally, I had failed to listen. I had hoped that then that would mean that he would be sufficiently... He'd cover you. ... to cover me. I was nicking the headlamp on this trip relative to the bog roll. I'm like, okay, well, at least Nipper will be able to help me out when I'm indisposed. He was like, no, sorry, mate. He couldn't spare a square.

He could not spare a square. I think he didn't have it to spare. So I don't know if that meant he had used it, be it for his camera himself, whatever, but there was none to go around. And so I had a lot of those tense moments where you have to stop, sort of stop moving, process through, recover. Okay, I have some more distance in me. Yeah, down once you get to the flat bit, then there were some facilities and so I was able to resolve the situation. Substantially improved. So that was all good. But yeah, I guess I had forgotten, forgotten that element of it. Yeah. So we'd gone there and then went back to, back to Eric's.

That's a cool part of, you know, being out of that area. You know, it's the, it's a close drive, close drive and things. And yeah, yeah, it's all relative, right? But the next day we met up with Mike Curtin, Jason Balin, and Mike and I have been talking heavily. So, Mike has seen a pine snake before and we'll have to have him on here at some point. He's great all the time. As I understand it, it's a known animal at a particular place.

He was only 1% less motivated to ideate and go find a pine snake, a tree, completely unvalid, an unknown pine snake and things. He and I were very excited for this and we're talking about it and planning it and trying to come up with the ideal time from last year when I was out there in terms of saying, okay, when's the time? When are we going to try and do this? Where are we going to go? I'm sending him spots. He's showing me spots.

We're talking through it. There was a ton of ideation and effort and I do sincerely want to recognize Mike's. So he lives out that way. He's closer to the habitat and things, but he put in a ton of time between the fall over winter in the spring, checking out spots. I was sending him spots that I was like, Hey, okay, go check this out. He would go in 90 minutes, two hours each way. And you know, he'd spend the day hiking around and saying, okay, learning about it, you know, seeing, okay, checking

out these spots, validating the spots from a forum, saying, okay, seeing this stuff. Yeah, I knew he was a nice guy, but I didn't know he was that nice of a guy. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's cool. Fortunately, our interests align. Yeah, any excuse is a good excuse. Yeah, any excuse, exactly. Yeah, he put in a ton of time and effort.

The spot that ultimately paid off was a spot that he had identified. I certainly don't take credit at all beyond saying my enthusiasm or enthusiasm to do it. I think had him really looking and thinking and really invested in trying to figure it out. Where it ultimately paid off was purely the result of that work from him. We'd gone to a spot that I had highlighted. He'd gone to found promising, found black racers, boxed rull turtles, hog nose, that sort of stuff. So very cool animals. We spent the front half of our day, that was where Owen was in his own narrative saying

yeah, he wasn't super feeling it. It is. Maybe I need to start taking into account as we're getting out of the car and I see what provisions, principally water, people are bringing in stuff that I'm thinking, well, we're probably going to be mostly an hour's walk from the car, at least an hour and a half to two hours, but more in a meander sort of way, a walkabout way, not in a defined trail or what it were. Straight hiking, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's just... But either way, it's not particularly going to be close. And I anticipate... I mean, potentially, we could be out here all day is sort of my idea. So your little 20 ounce to sunny is not going to carry you very far in June. Right. Fine Barrens when it's...

We actually sort of... Once it had gotten to the maybe mid 80s, we had come at start, it was going to head back anyway because it's like, well, we've got a siesta here before we're going to see anything anyway. On the front end, before that happens, we're probably going to be out here for easily four or five hours. Bring the jug. Be a jug.

Don't go for the 20 ounce. Maybe that's a lesson for me. I need to start being more explicit around that. That's tricky too. You feel a little bit more responsibility when you're planning the trip. You expect everybody to use their heads to some extent, but you don't know if you've made it clear, okay, this is a four-hour day. Bring the jug.

Don't bring the little bottle. It's tricky. But yeah, I sympathize with you there. Mike and I had a laugh about it after. That was sort of the point that we had come to was saying, yeah, maybe we needed to be a little more explicit. We need to work on that, you know, character development and all. But, you know, it's half the fun anyway. But yeah, so I don't wear the things that can track such things. But yeah, someone had said that we hiked, you know, in that Sandhills habitat hiked 15 and a half miles that day through that stuff. And obviously that was their sort of personal take. So for everyone else, it's give or take a take a little bit but you know not going to be dramatically different. I think that might have been Eric's which is probably pretty close to mine because at some point we did he and I did

go back to get more water from the car for other people. You know saying like okay we need to yeah head back get more supplies come back out do that stuff. It was getting hot, so we didn't stay out terribly long after we had come back, but we did get in maybe double the fun on that. Did you see much? Yeah, black racer, box turtles, toads. It's interesting. It's that habitat, same way, it really reminds me of the central Florida Sandhill habitat where it's, I think, most of the activities happening underground.

And it's just difficult to... They're there, but it's difficult to spot one. In that context, unless you have a highly localized, maybe if you know a known denning site or a site where females are what Bob's Apple already was telling us, right? We're talking about oh the females are coming to open patches and they're basking and then they're going into the hole You know to deposit their eggs and things and unless you're suit have that super Locale specific intelligence. I think otherwise you're just sort of You're on walkabout and it feels like every step you could run into or locale specific intelligence. I think otherwise you're just sort of, you're on walkabout and it feels like every step you could run into a pine snake, a corn snake, a hog nose. That very next step could be the one

and 999 out of 1000 it isn't, but occasionally it pays off. So yeah, as Eric said actually, I've seen probably a dozen black racers, at least a dozen, 15 between the Pine Barrens, Florida. Aspen and I saw a lot of them in Florida. But in general, they're very difficult snakes to photograph. They're super responsive, super quick. Remind me of the Lapids in Australia. How do you know if it's, well, with a notable exception on our combined last trip, I would say that, how do you know it's a Python that you road cruise in Australia? Well, because it's still on the road when you stop the car and get out and

go over to it. Whereas for the most part, the Lapids start booking it right away. Yeah, that Wiggles Brown snake didn't fit the bill as I'm standing over it, but processing. But yeah, black racers are kind of like that as well, where they're just so keyed in, ready to go. Yeah, all that group of Masticophis stuff. But this one, it was, as Eric said, he'd spotted it next to a railroad tie, kind of between two railroad ties, next to a box turtle. So they were within 18 inches of one another. That's cool. And he was showing it to me in that context. And yeah, I was able to grab it and bucket it,

put it under the hood for some pictures and stuff. And yeah, so those are, I think that's the first, certainly proper black racer pictures that I have, but maybe first at all. Again, it took me a dozen of them to get good photos alone. Right. Yeah, that's cool. So you got the racers and the box turtles and... Racers, box turtle, stoads. And then, yeah, so we'd gone through the front half of the day. It was very hot and gone back to the car. I think we went and had a Pine Barren street someplace, as I recall.

gone back to the car. I think we went and had a Pine Barren Street someplace, as I recall. I would say we were joking about beforehand that in general, the front half of the trip felt very soft to me. We were in this very constrained area over in Western PA and we'd been eating way too much food, eating three meals a day with the kings, damn hell ass kings. Yeah, yeah. Damn hell ass king. Yeah. And the, yeah, it was. How many monkey butlers were there? One at first.

But yeah, it. That's cool. Yeah, I was like at the first part of the trip. I'm like, man, is this, is this a Rob trip? Did Rob plan this? Right? Yeah, I felt way too comfortable and we didn't hike more than a couple miles or nearly enough. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It didn't lose a lot of weight. I'm like, man, I guess I needed to hang in for the rest of the trip. Yeah. The next day we put it to put it to

the test. So Jason and Mike only got that variant, so good on them. Not that either of them has it to lose, but so it is. But yeah, and then that evening, we had post-feeding, we had gone exploring different spots and kind of sandhill cruising in a way, but really kind of spot to spot. We were trying to get to particular locations rather than just sort of cruising about. Eric talked about it really well. I was just glad that he was the one effectuating the Pine Barrens pinstriping on his car, not me. That was my principal concern. But yeah, it was pretty brutal. It was pretty tight and Yeah, so we want go down this this road it's it's challenging seemingly didn't seemingly to nowhere and then to no effect for sure and we just have to turn around and come back through it and Sure enough then so we were driving with Jason. So Jason and Mike were in the first car

And I more or less agree with that one's assessment except I didn't ask, oh, do I think they have a snake? Don't worry about jumping out while the car was still moving is correct. We saw their car slammed to a stop and immediately before we had stopped, yes, I was jumping out of the car. As one should do. You should be ready to jump and help. We all ran up and yeah, it was just no one had even touched it and all. It was just a beautiful, probably four foot, northern pine snake stretched out across this

probably six foot of sand road between sort of bramble stuff and all that. Yeah. Yeah. It was... So is that Pichuophis number six or? That's six. Yeah. Six. Yeah. So you got one in Florida, Arizona, Utah, California, Pennsylvania and Colorado. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yep. That's a good way of thinking about it because all of those... Utah, Colorado would be the same, right?

Oh, I didn't say Texas. We don't have Great Basins. We have Bull Snakes. Oh, okay. Is that the same as Texas then, Colorado? So Texas has Bull Snakes and the same, and Sonoran, same as Arizona. Okay. So it depends where they are. So Texas has bull snakes and Sonoran is the same as Arizona. So you saw a bull snake in Colorado and a gray basin in Utah and a Sonoran in Arizona

and the coastal in California. Yeah, the Southern, the San Diego. I don't think we saw a Pichuophis when was in Texas, on any of the trips I was on. Maybe you saw it with Phil. That first trip with Owen? Did we see it? Yeah, I remember there was one, it was a baby that just had a big meal.

Like probably a first meal, it had a big bowl of Pichuophis. Well, we did see that. And that was a Sonoran though. That's a Sonoran. Okay. So you've seen them before. So I haven't seen a bull. Okay. That's what I thought. I'm. So I haven't seen a bull. Okay.

Yeah. That's what I thought. I'm like, I don't remember seeing a bull yet. I know I've seen a, yeah, I guess a couple of Sonorans. And I forgot about that. That was right after the disappearing snake. The boulder. And before the boulder, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. That was crazy. Okay. Yeah, it's really good. Very cool. Congratulations. That's awesome. That's a, that's a good find. Yeah, absolutely. I was, you know, we've been, it sort of overstates it, right? And we were talking before the show, um, you wind up having these things that prove to be more difficult either than you'd expect or just in actuality, you know, and kind of the, the work that goes into seeing them.

Pines snakes, certainly we've been going to that habitat for the last five years, as Eric mentioned. I think maybe there was one year we didn't go, but we've gone at least a day or a couple days each of those years, but again, not at ideal times. That probably isn't so bad, relative, I'm sure, to other folks putting an effort to that. But it felt like a lot. Certainly to have it happen on a day that was a proper trip day where we put in the effort, had a misadventure, and then paid it off at the end in a way that only happened because of the misadventure, all the end. Had a misadventure and then paid it off at the end in a way that only happened because of the misadventure and all the better.

Yeah, right. I guess it's all timing and luck to some extent and the misadventures play a part of that. So it's all part of it. Sometimes the adventure helps, sometimes it doesn't, right? Yeah, exactly. As was mentioned then, yeah. So the next day we'd gone to spots that you've been to with Matt Minitola and Johnny had come down for that. Had a good day.

They had started a little bit earlier than we did and went from a different side. So they wound up seeing a lot of Eastern King snakes and things, Sossabot strudels. The route we took didn't have most of that stuff. Fortunately, it was all stuff that I've seen. Nipper didn't get an Eastern King out of the deal. But yeah, it was still a that I've seen. Nipper didn't get an Eastern king out of the deal. It was still a great day in the field. We were running into ticks and for sure that absolutely was a thing.

Great day in the field. That evening after... Oh, this is really cool. Over by Mike's place, there's a spot where folks go out to fish, but some of it is restoration, but there are also very prominent signage and things. There are a ton of diamondback terrapins. This was when I was sad that I hadn't seen them. Those are beautiful. They're just out exploring areas to nest along the road or on the road.

And yeah, so we'd gone out there and must have seen a dozen or more, but really was able to check out and sort of scoot off the road. Yeah. Probably a half dozen, including really beautiful ones. Yeah, that one that you were holding, I think Mike took the picture. Fantastic. It was beautiful. Super clean. Yeah. Yeah, that one that you posed you were you were holding I think Mike took the picture Fantastic. It was beautiful. Yeah. Yeah

Yeah, I was a little jealous of that one for sure along with the pine snake But yeah, that's I was I was happy you guys got to see those. That's cool Have to check out that spot if I'm out there again Yeah, right. Yeah, I'm sure that's the good news, right? Being a spot that we can easily get to and have buddies. That time of year, it's probably predictable that more turtles will be nesting or because you saw a snapper as well. And so they did in that same area with the Eastern Kings and stuff like that. But that was, that was the other guys that was sort of their was their troop or partition had gone to do that. But yeah, it was really good.

And then that evening as we were cruising sand roads, different sand roads, but relatively the same general area, we saw the tracks of a very big snake on the sand road and to that same point right and I know Eric and Owen had talked about this but yeah just sort of the expression of it that's exactly the thing right sometimes it's the adventure sometimes the misadventure sometimes it's failing to have those right causes you to see it or not yeah. I think we if you've heard long enough you've probably had a few of those experiences, you know, where you just missed it or see the track or sometimes you follow the track and you find the snake at the end of the track.

Yeah, we did check it out. We did try. It was a little bit of a, you wonder if levitation comes into play or what, because it's sort of like, how does the trail disappear here relative to what we were doing? But yeah, we definitely gave the Jeff Lemm School of Thought a try, but couldn't pay it off in that instance. And I don't know, you know, was it from, that was a very lightly traveled road that could easily have been from two minutes or two hours beforehand. I don't know. Yeah. That's always the question is how long, how old is this track? You try to see if there's certain things over it or...

Are there tracks over it or is there additional accumulation in it or whatever it might be. In some ways, that's the blessing and curse of the sand roads compared to paved is that the paved you just don't know what you missed. Whereas on the sand road, well... Claire's day, something big crawled across the road. Yeah. Especially something that large where it was just like, it was either an extremely large black racer or another pine.

Yeah. Couldn't have been a timber, didn't have the right. No, and in that habitat, that would be a little bit surprising. I know we saw one, our famous accident, you know, accident one. Exactly. Sort of. It wasn't far from there.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if no, it certainly wasn't, that's not what I would have guessed. Right. I would think it had sort of the dimensionality of eraser or pine, but probably again, for at least four feet. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah.

Well, it's a great trip, very successful trip. You got two huge targets and a bunch of nice bycatch targets in parentheses. I hate that word. It's all good. Anytime you're finding a herb, it's a good day. And even if you've seen a thousand of them, you know, it's still exciting to find and good times. We saw Robert and his family. We went hanging out with them on on Friday and Poconos. That was really good. The crack was not super populated this time, but that's okay. It was still no lem crack this time. It was definitely a lem crack last time. It's a lem crack for sure, but only one snake this

time. Yeah, but yeah, we won't sake this time because we saw at least five or six in that one man Bill Jackson, yeah, yeah milks are the water snake water snakes and ringnecks and yeah Yeah, it was pretty pretty well populated Cool. Yeah, that was excited. They were so far back. You couldn't really get great pictures or you know, right? Yeah, certainly getting them out or and yeah, they were well ensconced. It was good to be out there. I don't know if that's seasonality, if it's something with this year compared to other years. Still a great time. Oh, yeah. Robert's son had... There were little painted turtles. We did see a ton of painted

turtles actually on that Thursday, the day before down in the Pine Barren turtles. We did see a ton of painted turtles actually on that Thursday the day before down in the Pine Barrens. Then we were up in the Poconos and he fished out the cutest little painted turtle. It was just gorgeous. Maybe an inch and a quarter, something like that. Straight length, something like that. Yeah, just totally beautiful. Right. Well, coming home early, I was a little like I wasn't completely herped out. And so I went up the canyon and and basically parked

the car and walked about 15 feet and there was a great basin rattlesnake just right on the side of the trail. Just waiting for me to give me that high again, you know, that had adrenaline rush or whatever the serotonin boost. So it was nice. It was a nice looking snake and sat and took some pictures of it kind of, I don't know, it was like close to the road. So you never know what to do with that. Cause on the other side of the road is the river. So you don't want to put it over in the river because you know, that's not a great, great option either. And then, I don't know, it's one of those, I guess I just like, that's not a great great option either. And then I don't know It's one of those I guess I just like well, let fate take it

Yeah, so But yeah, it's nice to see that and then The next week after you guys got back you came to town. So it's pretty cool We had a cool little jaunt in a family trip that we drove up through Flaming Gorge. I gave a go for some con color, did see some great basin gophers. That was cool. Then had gone, yeah, come out to you guys. We had a great supper.

Then the two of us had gone cruising and got my life a rubber bow, which was super cool. Yeah, I was very happy that the road paid off. Yeah, that was awesome. You know, and it's funny that it's not necessarily the timing that we would think, but in the last what? You've mentioned it in the last year or two, you put a lot of time into sort of that space generally, your area generally, generally you seemed relatively confident

even though it I would say it was drier and warmer than people who You know have rubber bow it captive rubber bow exposure would expect. Oh, yeah, sure They'll be out cruising around and doing their thing Yeah, that first one was sort of a nice what I would sort of prototype adult male That second one was a very large male. I thought it was a female from the car. It was like, man, just with the sheer size of that. But yeah, two big males and certainly proved

the value of persistence in terms of, right? That's the thing when you're cruising of like, is this, does this make sense? We're in the, doing kind of tight loops and it's like, we've done a handful. Okay. Is this going to do anything? Oh, there's one, you know, and we do a lot more, you know, and oh, there's another one. We were just here and this is only 50, a hundred feet from the last one. Right. Yeah. Interesting for sure. Yeah. It's pretty cool. And it seems like the ones that I've seen there, Interesting for sure. Yeah, it's pretty cool and it seems like the ones that I've seen there

At least that I've road cruised have all been in that maybe stretch of quarter mile, you know It's not a very long section. But yeah, it seems to be Heavily traveled, you know Yeah, no, no the other but it's really thick Grassy habitat on either side of the road. So they're not, if they're not on the road, you're probably not going to see them, especially. But I have seen some walking the trails, of course, you know, crossing the trails and stuff. And I've missed a couple just by a couple of minutes, you know, walking and be, Oh, are you looking for snakes? We just saw a big, big gray one crossing the path back there. And I run back and can turn

it up, you know, where'd you see it? They tell me the exact spot and I can't can't find it You know, I just disappear so very elusive, right? Yeah. Yeah, and they tend to go under, you know down, you know And they're very difficult to see once they start getting under stuff. So unless they're on the trail there, they're difficult find I think I don't know I guess some people have a knack for them or know where to look better than I do. But you know. Or where to flip them. I think that's probably how most people are seeing them. But yeah, no, the idea of cruising them was a bit of a shock to me. Save your experience, you know, as you were talking about, what, two years ago and last year, you know, and it's not how I would anticipate necessarily.

It makes sense, makes enough sense, but it's not what I intuitively think. And I, you know, I was, I was very happy. I did go out a couple of nights later and didn't see anything. So you know, we just got, you know, fortune, fortune favored us and yeah, that was, that was all good. Yeah. I took my daughter, we went on the same hike that we went on. Oh, sorry. I'm getting ahead of us a little bit.

So the next day, we kind of showed you guys around the campus. It was the unofficial campus tour. Yeah, exactly. Got some Aggie ice cream. That was a good stop. And then headed up the canyon for a little bit of a hike and turned up a gopher snake pretty quick and just kind of crossing the path. And yeah, that was nice little fun. Yeah. Gopher snakes.

But again, illustrates the difference between gophers and pines, right? You know, west of Mississippi and east of the Mississippi. Right. Yeah. I mean, I guess the, some people say the Sonorans are a little fine. And I've had my share of Great Basins that have been pugnacious, striking and hissing and stuff. But they're mostly bluff. But they can be a little intimidating with that big hiss and they jump off the road at you and stuff. But it's the rare. I think that's more of the exception than the rule that they're feisty because but I think it's the opposite maybe with the a lot of the other localities. I don't know. Bull snakes especially tend to be a little feisty, you know, that way

hissing. Certainly. Yeah. Nine out of ten are going to bluff strike. They're going to hiss. They're going to tail rattle. They put on quite a show, but I would say that all of them, maybe even more than nine out of ten, will put on that show. Nine out of ten of those, if you just pick them up anyway, you don't do anything. And that'd be like the Great Basin where it's all sort of that bluff and intimidation to do it. There definitely are outliers where I've been savagely hidden. Yeah, right. And there are the outliers of the calm Great Basins that'll light you up too. But I'm trying to think, I may have been bit once by a Great Basin gopher, like of all the ones I've handled. Usually you can just walk like that one that we found. You

just walk up, pick it up and hold it for a minute And then let it go and it's just goes on its way, you know, no big deal. Yeah. Yeah, it was great Yeah, and then on the upper path saw racer It was kind of coiled and dipped pretty quick. Yeah, just like out of there fast and gone You know, I think I had already walked by it, you know It is yeah froze for me and then as you were coming up to it yeah, just like out of there fast and gone. I think I had already walked by it. It froze

for me and then as you were coming up to it, yeah, it bolted. It didn't move until I made eye contact with it. It's like, oh, I'm spotted and then it took off real fast under some rocks. I didn't even see where it went. It was just out of there. Typical Kaluber Mastikofis behavior. Those racers are named racers for a reason. And so, yeah, we didn't get a closer look at it, but it was out and about. A few sagebrush lizards on the trail. And yeah, so- Really good. Good times. It was great to have you out to my neck of the woods. And I'm glad we got to get you another lifer. And yeah, that was fun. Yeah. Always good reason to get out another lifer and yeah that was fun. Yeah always good reason to get out herping and

especially after a good Father's Day meal. Yeah that was great. It was all great. So yeah we had a great time. We ran further south and back to where we'd gone you know in terms of San Juan County and stuff like that and I'd say we put in lot of effort, not what we had done on the first trip in terms of all the hiking stuff. We did some hiking and things went to some beautiful places, also went down to Flagstaff. We put in some miles and things, but for various reasons that made a lot of sense, we didn't see a whole lot of much. But that wasn't the purpose of the trip. So it was all right.

Yeah. Well, Matt Teachen had messaged me and said he was headed down to that area. So I gave him a few spots that we had taken a look at, including the den spot. And he went down and saw a couple rattlesnakes in the den site. So I thought it was a little early like ah, you know, you might check it and see and he yeah, he saw some good stuff saw some collared lizards and Yeah, a few rattlesnakes. So yeah, it's a good Yeah Remember that he reached out to me as well and I said well a the person you need to talk to is Justin

I'm happy to tell you what I know And I remember thinking yeah, it seems a little bit early But I think it was same deal where it was sort of you know going for other reasons and that sort of stuff But right now that you mention it. Yeah, I do remember him turning stuff up, but it was kind of yeah I was a little skeptical and just goes to show yeah Right and and you know, it's hard to always say what the timing should be or is or whatever, you know. Yeah, again, a lot of luck and just hard work goes into it too. Just putting in the miles, you're bound to see stuff. I think there is,

you know, a little bit of skill too. I guess the times I think about skill is involved is when I see Ry Jones posting more pictures or Thomas Will, they're posting pictures of the different milks and mountain kings in Utah. Those guys know where to look and where to find them. Yeah, that's not happening arbitrarily. Yeah. They're turning stuff up really readily and in good numbers. I think Ry just did a photo dump on Flickr and just put up a bunch of great shots. He's got just milk after milk after milk. It's like, man, that guy is a great herper. That's amazing. Yeah. I mean, I do.

Still need to get out with him, go herping someday. Yeah. I think you're, it's exactly right, right? It's a, it is a mixture of luck and not necessarily skill, but preparation, right? And trying to put yourself in the right place and not do, I don't think you can do the things that will make sure something turns up, but you can try and avoid negative outcomes that probably give you the optimism, spirit and willingness to put in the time to do it. Those things you can do. You can make choices that positively feed those aspects, and then you just have to hope it works.

Exactly. And living in the area where your target is helps too. Thomas can look out the window and go, hmm, looks like a good day to go see a Mountain King. I'm going to go down the road and check one out. Whereas I would have to drive at least three and a half to four hours to get to a suitable Mountain King spot. Not quite as freewheeling as Thomas is there, but it is nice to get out there when I can. Your rubber bows, maybe that's the variant that you have. Exactly and there have been a few, I mean last night I was thinking to that too

like I saw some clouds rolling in and it looked like there was a thunderstorm coming and it started to get windy then all of a sudden it disappeared so I was like oh I'm going up the canyon tonight, you know, and then never mind. It kind of petered out. And it may have been a good night. You know, I was just busy with, you know, feeding reptiles and cleaning mice and stuff like that. So I kind of missed the window.

But yeah, you know, so what do you do? You had to go binge a show with Heidi. That's the other factor that sometimes you don't consider is happy wife, happy life. You want to keep your spouse happy and not just, hey, I'm disappearing again for a few hours to go look for snakes. Hours, days. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I mentioned something like, man, I really haven't gotten out much this year. She's like, well, I don't know about that. I'm like, okay, yeah, I guess that's fair. Two weeks in Australia does add up a little bit. You know, yeah. Oh, and I'm headed, I got a plane ticket to go to Carpet Fest in Texas. So I'm gonna go. Yeah. Fly down Jordan, hang out with Jordan and, and then go check out replantia. And I'm really stoked. Yeah. Hanging out with Jordan, especially, um, in October. So October. Yeah. So I'm going to go like what a couple days before carpet Fest and then stay a couple of days later. So maybe go check out, hopefully Jordan.

I mean, obviously checking out Jordan's area will be cool and he knows that place very well, I'm sure. So that'll be fun. Yeah, meet his, I don't think I've met his family yet. So, except seeing him on Zoom while he's talking to him, you know, and from Australia, but so yeah, it'll be cool to meet his family and see his area and go check out Replandia and meet some of the Texas Carpet

Fest folks. I think we're going to talk about some herping as well. So herping Australia and Jordan and I are going to give a team talk. So that'll be, that'll be fun. Yeah. So that's very cool. Good times. But yeah, I'm looking forward to that. And I think we'll, we'll hopefully make it out in the fall sometime to go, yeah, continue our list and yeah, we, we need to get some firm plans there too. That'll be

good. Yep I have stuff for you on that so all good. Sounds good. So yeah I can't complain about the time I get out herping. I have a very patient and loving wife that recognizes my wanderlust and lets me take off here and there. So yeah, she got to go out and do a trip for work up to Washington state. So she had a nice time for a week up there. So that was last week and yep, good times. Cool.

Well, I know you got stuff to get to. Go check out some fireworks for the fourth. Happy fourth everybody or everybody in the in the US, I guess. Anywhere else is just a lie fourth, but here we think it's a pretty big deal. So yeah. Oh my goodness. Good times.

All right, well, it's good to catch up with you. Any cool things you've seen in regards to herb culture lately? I know I had something I think I Snapshot it, but I can't remember what it was Hmm yeah, so there's a ton of stuff the thing that jumps most quickly to mine but I know this isn't the Extent of it is the same account that I mentioned before that NJ herping on Instagram right a post of a, I

think a pine snake going into or coming out of a burrow, probably a friend in nesting. Really cool, just the account. He's obviously doing way cool things in the pine barrens and I spent a lot of time thinking about it and stuff. So I have a ton of admiration, respect, and joy in the stuff that he posts up for sure. That's cool. Yeah. I saw there was a picture of a weird tegu that I don't think I'd heard of. I'm not up on my tegu taxonomy, but it was Salvatore Duceni. Interesting.

Like Duchenne's almost? I think so, yeah. I think it's a recent split off of maybe, I'm not sure, it looks like yellow and orange and then spotty on a dark background. Really cool looking Tegu. Man, I don't think I've seen that before, but I think Registro Animal posted it. They posted a bunch of South American species in a post. It was pretty cool, Registro Animal. I don't know. I'd never maybe noticed that before, but it was a pretty cool post for sure.

And then I think that was it. I think we might have talked about the spotted, the Molga that was trying to eat the spotted python. I think we talked about that already. That was pretty cool. But yeah, I don't know. Good times and I appreciate being invited on your herb trips. And it's been a good herping relationship. So good finds.

So continues on that way. And yeah, exactly. Yeah. Looking forward to September, getting back into Southern Arizona again. That'll be nice. Yeah, that'll be good. I'm super excited. So yeah, so far and excited for, you know, man, we had stated earlier, half ingest, but

a ton of cool guests to talk to and things, man, there's so much cool content that I know we're excited to bring out. So yeah, fortunately, I think we were forward enough that I think maybe we've only missed a week depending on when this one comes out. But yeah, we're trying to lots of good ideas that I know people are going to be happy with. So I'm excited for it. For sure. All right.

Well, we'll of course thank Eric and Owen, the MPPR umbrella, and thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next time.