Reptile Fight Club - The Value of Old Herp Books

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

In this episode, Justin and Rob tackle the topic of Value in Old Herp Books. Is there, or is the outdated info worthless? Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!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

Hello and welcome to Reptile Fight Club. I guess if you're hearing this, you've found us, so welcome. I guess I thought I'd switch it up a little bit with the intro. Right? That was interesting, exciting, novel. Probably not the best idea to switch it up, but all right, here we are. I'm Reptile Fight Club i'm justin julander and with me is uh bob rock mr rob stone how you doing i'm good excellent all right now last time we recorded you kind of hinted at a something you were gonna attempt but you didn't say too much about it so i'm very curious what was okay yeah so it was a trip to my first trip

to southeast colorado to try and find a massasauga um it seems like you go up on me another uh tick i did not i did not so yeah never fear is to that yeah um I hadn't been down that way. And so the Co-Park survey is always in the mid-summer. And it was actually the week before. And as part of their venture, they went down there with a group of obviously different vehicles and all that, but something like 70 or 80 people. Oh, wow. Yeah. So it seems like a cool deal.

I do the local ones. Every year it seems like a cool deal. Uh, I do the local ones. Um, every year, it seems like they also have a local one. I haven't done, um, this one down in Southeast Colorado. I know you'll have heard about it because Mike Pingleton has gone several times and, uh, I think recorded some episodes at one, a handful of years ago. Um, so it's kind of that area. And, uh, they had gone on that the week before i wasn't able to do that and so it was like hey let's try our own little attempt there as a part of their survey they had found one massasauga so it's certainly possible but that uh i think it's early either early or late depending on which way you at it, so that they're more of a spring and fall.

And that habitat, I think, is a little bit marginal. There's sort of further, closer or further might actually be better. And we kind of saw some of that on the way back. And so ideas going forward, for sure. Most of the cool things that we saw were actually mammals or birds uh there were a bunch of burrowing owls that were very cool yeah those are neat yeah so those were super cool and it was cool to see their kind of the holes and things it was like are these prairie dogs no they have like this weird kind of conical structure on the top and i was like oh i think

these are the owls you know and there were pellets in uh around various ones and stuff so that was pretty neat um and then uh we saw a badger i went with my buddy andy gillick and we saw a badger that uh crossed the road in front of us and it stopped off to the side right at dusk and uh he was very funny because i slowed down so that he was right outside the door of the truck and um you know he had uh so he scooted across and then backed up so he's facing the road he's you know so he's perpendicular to me and uh he uh did a sort of the uh what shoulder thrust forward position you know kind of assumed this position and then uh it was it clearly you know gave off the vibe of i could totally take yet you know, kind of assume this position. And then, uh, it was, it clearly, you know, gave off the vibe of, I could totally take yet. You know, I just don't feel like doing it today. He did the backward shuffle into the grass. So it was really cool. That's probably my favorite. Yeah. Oh yeah. I love badgers. I've, I've only seen them maybe a,

you know, a small handful of times, but yeah, every time I see him, I try to get closer, go to, go to check him to check right yeah i had one one kind of thing where we were driving along and this badger was high stepping he was carrying a dead prairie dog in his mouth high stepping across the road to carry this big rodent it was pretty sweet but yeah i really like badger i i got to pet one during my undergrad at Weber State. There was somebody that came through with a bunch of, you know, rehabbed wildlife. And one, they had found this baby badger that its mother had been killed or something. And they brought it in. You could go up and pet it. And it was like this little lap dog type badger. It was pretty crazy. Yeah. I said, so, you know you know no he doesn't like go off on you every once in a while no no he's a sweet little uh guy but he was kind of younger too so who knows if they get grumpy as they get older but such a cool such a cool uh animal but absolutely the world needs your experiences i wouldn't mind it

Especially So long as everyone Stays on their own side They might be marginally Far away friends As we would say I definitely like seeing them They're really cool

You don't mess with mustelids They'll rip you up there was a wolverine that was making its uh way through like the salt flats of the great salt lake a couple years back and uh i was really tempted to go out and try to see it you know just you know when do you get the chance to see a wolverine especially running running through town, basically, you know, pretty crazy. That's wild. Yeah. Insane.

So really weird experience there. But I never made the drive. I guess it was a rare reptile. I might have done it. Right. Yeah. But I don't know. That'd be probably more rare than any reptile in Utah, seeing a wolverine.

Yeah. probably more rare than any reptile in Utah, seeing a Wolverine. But yeah, I've always had a fascination with the skunks and their allies and badgers. Absolutely. They're really cool animals. Nice. Sounds like a good time to get away and go see some cool stuff. Yeah, a learning trip for sure. Yeah, yeah. It's always nice to kind of have those uh yeah exploratory trips to you

know make sure you get you know know the area a little bit where you need to look and things like that so that's cool yeah absolutely yeah and for the record i would not be sad if you got another tick on the critalis uh belt or whatever the belt yes i i hate to give that imagery of you know having a crotalus belt but you know what do you do so more power to you and good luck in your ventures but yeah and i'm not you know i'm not gonna gloat that you didn't find one because i would i would have been very happy for you if you found one. Yeah, we saw a couple of prairies that had been hit, which are down that area and are more common.

It seems like the Massasaugas have a more specific habitat type, whereas prairies are super generalist, as we've seen. And yeah, I would say, as ever, the lesson was, despite being in otherwise very sparsely populated areas, I never cease to be amazed by how much traffic goes through some of those spots, even in the middle of the night. It's totally bizarre. It's crazy sometimes. You're just like, where are these people going? Yeah, where are they coming from and where are they going? I have to think that a lot of us seeing that, and maybe we even talked about this when we were in Utah, is the proliferation and availability of cell phones and apps, wayfinding apps.

I think a lot of these roads probably even 15, 20 years ago would not have been nearly so popular if people weren't so confident that it would go where they hoped it would go and that sort of thing. And they couldn't tell if it was a good, solid road or if it was... Right. Is this a main road that will take me where I want to go or not? And I think the traffic has sort of expanded off of maybe some of the major thoroughfares with more confidence in, oh, this one actually does connect and go through and I can take the scenic way. And it might take only a little bit longer despite being further because there's so much less traffic and things. Yeah. How far did you have to travel to get to the spot? Probably we'd gone three and a half hours or so we kind of went a circuitous way to get

through some different habitat and doing it doing it ourselves but you know certainly intentionally both to avoid traffic and to be in habitat for longer probably three and a half to four hours each way something okay that's not too terrible but i mean if it's just over it was it over the course of a day or was it, did you stay overnight? Two nights. The first one we got rained out. The second night, it was bizarre. I mean, kind of one of those nights that, so there was storms in the afternoon, but around us, not through us. Whereas the previous night they'd kind of come in. We've been through this where they come in late and then it gets dark and it's really cooled it down and it's wet uh so it was very much a toady night um and then the next night

the storm cells actually kind of went around the area that we were in very close to it as close as you could get without getting wet basically um and uh so big pressure drop but the temperature stayed up felt really snaky save for being a full moon. And essentially, Coach Whip had been hit during the day, those two prairies at night. And then the next morning, we found a hognose in a different spot that had been hit the night before. But a new place to see hognose I've never seen. Well, I've never been down there, so I wouldn't have seen hognose there. But, yeah, big female.

Oh, the other interesting thing with your avian love is we were out at one spot, and it was the first time, I think, in my life that I've seen a shrike kill site where there were lizards actively hanging on. Yeah. Yeah. a shrike kill site where there were lizards actively hanging on yeah yeah um and there was there was one it must have been from the day before because the so it was just at the hips it was an airless lizard at the hips um hips and tail and it had ants kind of going at the fresh you know at the exposed bit and then two uh the second uh barbed wire rosette down had the remnants of clearly one from a week ago or two weeks ago so i took some pictures of that i'll have to send them to you

yeah i haven't seen that that's uh yeah it was very cool and very as i say very fresh the uh yeah the part that remained looked looked great so that that was actually really you know kind of a lot of natural history thing you know the badger there's you that was actually kind of a lot of natural history. The badger, this sort of thing. A lot of cool things in that vein, but not a lot of live snakes until the next morning. Okay. What did you see? I think a Western yellow-bellied racer that's on a dirt road in a tie in a tire track so it was one of those

where you pass it and you slowly back up and i wound up essentially then being too close to it so i kind of freaked it out and wasn't able to to run it down but it was a uh i would say it was probably a yearling you know or coming up on a yearling so it was still not color changed but it was probably 18 to 20 inches long, which was cool. I found them as babies before, but never a larger one that hasn't changed color yet. And I've only seen a DOR baby, which is strange because I see adults all the time around here. So I don't know why I don't see juveniles. You know, I guess they're just more secretive or they don't make as much noise

for my old ears to hear i don't know it's kind of great yeah but uh the one i'd seen i uh actually wound up hiking it up actually at the co-park thing a couple of years back i there was a group of us hiking and it just took off and that one i was able to get you know this one uh the other day it wasn't and then two other i don't race in mastocophis of some variety very dark mastocophis i don't think they were yellow bellies but i don't know what else is actually down that way so whether they were coach whips or your coach whips yeah i'm not sure but very dark that's cool yeah they were super heated so it was they were just gone gone yeah the striped whip snakes uh kind of like that uh plain or you know prairie land and and they're darker usually like yeah like the ones around in utah like

where we were looking for the um mountain kings on our way over to moab they they uh they're around there they're about black you know uh with some stripes as their name implies but yeah striped wood snakes are fun but yeah very fast especially if they're heated up yeah so but that was it it was good nice hi i. I, I, uh, went up yesterday. It's the, uh, birthday of Utah yesterday. So the 24th of July is our founder day. Uh, so we, um, had the day off of work and, uh, I went up on a hike up at a place where I've, you know, seen quite a few different, uh, well, not a few different species, but a lot of racers and, uh, rubber boas. It's a really good spot for that, but it was hot and I saw nothing, but, uh, I, for some reason I figured it was time to start running again. So I ran on Monday and my legs

are just wrecked. It was like two and a half miles and it killed me about, so, um, I'm trying to get through that. So yesterday I'm i'm like i gotta hike or do something active or else these legs are just gonna fall off so i got out and did a couple miles up in the mountains and um it was nice i saw a few birds that i hadn't seen this year yet so that was cool but uh no herps at all there were millions of grasshoppers like it was just inundated absolutely yeah yeah the area we'd gone same deal there were two spots in particular where it was it seemed like he took a step and 10 of them or 15 of them just shot off in every direction yeah it sure it sure makes looking for snakes difficult if you if you have all that noise from the grasshoppers because you know a lot

of when they're small like in the spring the grasshoppers are either non-existent or very small and so they're not making that much noise and you can discern if there's a snake or a lizard moving through the you know nearby area but when there's just grasshoppers everywhere yeah just wrecks it's kind of like having cicadas scream at you as you were looking for rattlesnakes, you know, just not a good mix, but usually it's around the time the reptiles start stop coming out. But I guess I'm, I was surprised I would expect to see maybe some yellow belly racers out there

just, but they're probably already gorged and beyond capacity. You know, that's I, I read read in part of like a part of a paper that was talking about the diet of, no, maybe it was in the Snakes of Arizona book, but it was talking about the yellow-bellied racers in Utah. They're like, what did they say? Ninety-seven percent of their diet is grasshoppers. That was kind of an interesting factoid yeah kind of cool to think about a an insectivorous uh snake that's quite large right gets large yeah yeah but no shortage of uh grasshoppers that's for sure yeah absolutely yeah the one other note that i wanted to bring up was I did find and catch a lesser earless lizard, I believe.

And I think you've talked about this sort of in the context of Australia. So it only had one eye, which certainly made it easier to catch. But it was interesting because it was like a full-size full-sized animal point one point two would be the habitat as i was standing there holding it i was like wow this is just like the habitat of the ones we saw in utah which you know again probably makes sense but that that same same exact style of habitat and uh yeah i was just impressed that as an adult looked like adult female that uh yeah it made it despite, like, it was just completely gone. There was some black color distortion.

So I would think it was probably a loss rather than, you know, congenital or being born without it. But super interesting. That's cool. Yeah, I really, I mean, after seeing in in utah i i just really am geeking out on those but yeah it looks like they there's a pretty healthy population down there in uh in uh southeastern colorado that's pretty cool but yeah i i really enjoyed seeing those for the first time. So they're cool. Absolutely. Yep.

Well, are we ready to do a little fighting? Sure. All right. We've got a topic about, so I guess your purchase of some older, you know, I don't know. You wouldn't call them field guides. They're more like trip reports or something kind of along the same vein as clobber, I guess. Uh, no. Yeah. Clobber. No. Um, cough held.

Gosh, I keep calling cough health clobber. Sorry. Um, yeah. Cough held along that vein where they're kind of talking about, uh, their trips and what they're finding and things. Is that kind of the idea? But anyway, um, those books, um, and, and if they're, if they're relevant today, like if they are helpful to, to read those and understand those for modern day herping. So thought I'd make an interesting topic may not be a very long one today, but, uh, thought we'd chat about that. So, um,

let's go ahead and flip the coin and see which side we want to take. Either it's helpful or not so helpful. So go ahead and call it. We'll see if your win streak continues. I'll say heads. It's heads. Your win streak continues. The win streak continues.

Oh, my goodness. The tides have turned or the winds have changed. Oh, my goodness. The tides have turned or the winds have changed. Oh, my goodness. Well, very good. There was some disjunct an aphorism or whatever that I was searching for. So the tides have turned or something, but I couldn't pull it out. Oh, the turn tides of the assembly. Turn tides of upside down. But yeah, nevertheless,

I don't know. I'm curious what, I'd rather defer the choice. So you pick what you'd like to do, because I'm happy to do either. I have thoughts for both. Yeah, maybe I'll go with the not helpful side. I'll let you go with the helpful side because I think you'll do a good job. You want to go first or are you going to chuck me? I'll chuck you this time. Why not? Sounds good. I'll enjoy being chucked.

All right. Well, I mean, obviously, you know, with books written in the early 1900s or mid 1900s, lots of lots of things have changed. You know, some sites might not even be sites anymore. You know, they might be a copper mine or Walmart or something like that. So that's kind of the obvious, uh, low hanging fruit of, you know, these books are out of date and, and, you know, excuse me, just a second. For the most part, you know, when, um, you're, you publish something, it's pretty much out of date the minute the, you know, the book is printed. So it's kind of a tricky thing. Now, of course, that's not true for everything, but I think that's kind of the major drawback of some of these things is you could hear about this reptile utopia,

head out there and find that it's covered with a Walmart or something like that. So that's kind of the, I guess the lead I'd take there. And that, you know, even, even if it hasn't changed, um, there's potential for, uh, different, you know, invasive species to move in or there's, you know, other, other ideas, I guess, maybe I'll save those for, for the later points. But I guess the fact that things change and change is ever present and it's usually a destructive change that you don't really bounce back from so unfortunately but yeah i'd start yeah well obviously that's a fair point right and certainly something that we've seen uh seen some places we don't necessarily see in everything right we have been to uh spots in the new jersey pine barrens that were literally, I think they more or less are identical to the, certainly they're identical to what was described in the, you know, snakes and snake hunting from 1957. The habitat of the old quarry and all that is identical,

right? So literally it's very easy to visualize that. I would say that the principal value, more so than an explicit location, is if those previous books, which Kauffel generally did very well with, was describing the context. you know, a ton of detail into what the habitat conditions are like, or the sort of ancillary conditions are like, that maybe there's a value to being able to take that now and say, okay, well, what still exists that mimics the conditions that are described there, even if that particular place, whether that place is there or not, right? As we highlight, I do think herping the pine barrens is always hard. It's quite possibly even harder at those places that have been publicly known about for 65 or 70 years. Right. And so probably a source of inspiration for more than just us. And it does remind me. So I was reading, you might guess why I was reading the Obscurus chapter in the Snakes of Arizona book, which was written by Dave Barker. And he actually goes explicitly into sort of the impact of both Caulfield's books because, well, principal books, because in his second book, he talked about going to the Animus Mountains and finding Obscurus and sort of the impact of increased traffic associated with that.

And, you know, in his lifetime, Caulfield took heat associated with sort of publicizing spots, even going back to our conversation from last week. But as Dave sort of distills the argument, his argument at that point was, well, it had been published in scientific literature that they occurred in the Animas Mountains and all that. And Dave did make the point that, yes, that's true. Simultaneously, Kaufeld's reach is almost inarguably much broader. And so it's, you know, not exactly the same thing. So it's still a contentious issue, as we highlighted last week. But yeah, certainly a point of interest. So I think there is utility to the extent that they go into explicit description and it's not relying upon just sort of a name that might not even clearly convey absent its context, right? We talked about Big Hill in the context of the River Road last week, sort of within the alternative lingo so to speak that has a meaning

but it wouldn't be all that surprising if you know today outside of that community or 20 years from now that's not nearly as clear what that means right so um if the focus was instead on being super explicit about what that habitat looked like that would have a lot more utility than just let alone mile marker x well the highway could move yeah you know and then it's truly meaningless right it's all about the description of the habitat so yeah canyon names might change or you know things like that so um it might be tricky in some way you might be going on a wild goose chase for a name of a place that doesn't exist anymore or you know this certain family farm that sold out and the new owners changed it or or now it's private property we found that in uh western australia we we had this uh location of you know a good spot to find uh one of the spiny-tailed skinks you know know, we wanted to see all the spiny-tailed skinks

in their natural environment. And we went to this spot that was supposed to be really great for them. And there was a big fence in the way, and there was some mining company that was setting up shop. And we're like, oh, that's awesome. But we picked a neighboring hill, and we found some of the ones we were looking for, so it was reasonable. But, you know, that kind but, um, you know,

that kind of development, you know, might get in the way a little bit, but I think, you know, as far as like national parks go there, they're probably going to stay the same or maybe, uh, expand a little bit over time or something like that. And the fact that they're like, we talked about last year or last week, uh, patrolled and, and kept safe that way is probably a good, good, um, place to look at, you know, especially if they're described in a book like that, but also when a spot becomes popular, you know, I guess you're kind of alluding to this, but, um, they get maybe over collected or over visited. And so, you know, even if, uh, I guess, depending on the

species, of course, but there's a chance that the numbers could dwindle because of increased, um, visitation, but I don't know that that would really be due to a book, but maybe in some instances you could kind of point to it. I think Dave might be a little hard on Kauffeld because, you know, I, I don't, I don't know. Um, it's hard to, hard to say, like, he's the only reason that anybody went there because there's so few places to find Obscurus in, in the U S anyway, you know, it's like, you know, two, two or three good spots spots and and it's the word's gonna make it make it make the rounds regardless of who put it in a book or who put it in a scientific publication you know it's really um kind of hard to point the finger at one one person for that but um

i am i rambling now i'm probably in the ramble mode so maybe you should take over now i i and i think that's fair i honestly in reading it i thought that they're uh reading dave's piece on that specific component i thought that there was probably some fair elements to it and others yeah where it's it's maybe sort of uh his perception which could be accurate or it could be exaggerated or biased by his own experience where he was saying, you know, and I think there is something to the fact that like the amount of popular herp, herp, herp, herpologically related literature was much less abundant, right.

At the time that the Kauffeld's books were coming out in the late 50s and late 60s, right, that those really were sort of, especially something that would then be popularly available at local libraries and things like that, that, you know, Dave even talks about in the context of, you know, his suggestion. And again, I think in the same vein, right, this ignores the reality that, you know, libraries don't always keep all their books forever. But, you know, he highlights how many library copies are out and about in the world and, you know, speaking both to their popularity and maybe to the popularity of or willingness of young herpers to make that their own book rather than the library's book and all that. So it's sort of interesting. It's certainly interesting. I don't I don't know that it's 100 percent as cut and dry as maybe it's sort of suggested in there, but nevertheless, certainly interesting.

It didn't take me too long. Maybe I'm a nerd or something, but I remember going to the library, and I would really geek out if I could go to a university library like the University of Utah or something like that, go into their herpetology section or even their herpetology journal section and look through, you know, the different issues of herpetological publications and try to find chapters on species I was interested in, you know, things like that to see if I could find additional information about a species I was interested in. So, you know, I don't think just having a popular, you know, anybody who's into reptiles, kind of the extent we are, is probably going to learn those tricks of the trade, if you want to call them that, in regards to locating different species. And I think that was a big thing about scientific publication before they realized that it could be potentially an avenue for people to either illicitly collect or to negatively impact a population.

They would give out locations and where they did their studies and things like that. So, and even if they didn't say the exact location, a lot of times their figures would have like a mountain range or something where you could tie it back to, especially in our modern day, tie it back to a physical location and find out, you know, where they were looking and things. And I think there was a really nice example of that with the Gila monster, um, publication from the, uh, maybe the eighties or nineties. And, uh, I was able to find the mountain, you know, find the topology of the, uh, the publication and link it to the

direct spot. And so I could see where Gila monsters were found in that study. And I I've spent a lot of time in that area where the publication was made. And I think I've only seen one Gila monster in that area in, you know, 20 years since I've been looking down there, since I've known about that spot. So just because you know where something has been found, especially in an old publication or in an old book, doesn't mean you're necessarily going to have any easier time finding them, even if you know the exact location where they were found. So you still have to put in the work and you still have to get lucky to some extent to be able to find these things. So that's why, you know, I guess maybe that's more on your side of they actually can be helpful, but at the same time, you know, maybe the population dynamics have changed or, you know, they're, they're not really locally abundant in

that spot anymore. And so, you know, you might spend a lot more time looking and less time finding, but it's hard to say. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I really do think that's sort of the key, I know in the herpological community, we have certain feelings around the USGS, but certainly their seven and a half and 15 minute topographical maps are super interesting. And all the more so that, so previously, and I'm sure you'll remember these days, you had to like order those maps and, you know, you'd have to, or go to the shops that would have, you know, specific ones. And there are obviously so many, depending on the level of granularity that you're looking at. But nowadays that's an entirely free online resource so that you can actually pull those up and they have all the different versions of them for a particular area.

So you can seek out the specific spot that's of interest, and then you can even see what the 15-minute map looked like that was published in 1890 for that area. So that you can take, like, Caulfield's stuff and say – you can look at it and say, okay, well, actually, you know, I think he even makes mention in there on occasion of, oh, I was in the Huachuca's in 19, when I went in 1924, well, I can pick up, you know, you can go online and you can find and even print out, you take it to FedEx Kinko's, it takes the big printer to be able to do it right. But, you know, you can print out the 15 minute topographical map for the Huachuca's from 1917 that almost certainly is what he was using as sort of his roadmap to that area and really get a sense for the habitatachuca's from 1917 that almost certainly is what he was using as sort of his roadmap to that area and really get a sense for the habitat and things. And I mean, that's just, it's amazing, right? Yet another example of the really cool resources that are available to us now.

For sure. Yeah. And I imagine the roads might be a little better condition and the vehicles we're traveling in will get us there a little quicker, too. So I can't imagine traveling around there in 1924. He's probably on horseback or something. But, yeah, it's pretty cool. At least some of it. All right. So I think, you know, we've covered some of the low-hanging fruit, the easy parts of the, you know, low hanging fruit, easy, easy parts of the topic. Um, I really kind of was more interested or interested in some of your thoughts regarding, um, the, uh,

oh man, now my mind blanked out. Um, the, the experiential type, um, aspects of, of books and kind of, I don't know if you had like, um, instances of that where you're, you know, the, the book is coming alive or, or you're getting, you know, something out of the book, even maybe if you're in a different spot. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the Kauffman books are really great for that. Right. And part of it is the, the narrative flow where he's really explaining in detail, sort of the experience of doing it in a way that, I mean, you feel like you're there, whether you've been to that. You know, it really it comes alive most if you've been to the spots that he's talking about. But even then, I mean, I think I've read the books, you know, a half dozen times, at least each and all that sort of thing.

So obviously it's creating a feeling in me. Um, either way, I just read that herping Texas book. I think we talked about last week or two weeks ago and I thought that does an excellent job as well. Um, Nipper just sent me a book from what it's 1961 snakes, snake dance, the snake dance of the Hopi Indians, which I've just started checking out. But yeah, super interesting, right? From Western lore press, you know, in celebration of our recent trip and our multiple Hopi rattlesnakes and things. So yeah, I'm eager to dig into that one. So that's really cool. So, yeah, I think the other thing that happens maybe because of the.

It's almost like I feel I feel like social media and YouTube, there's a natural tendency easy success where just the narrative form of a book almost works in the opposite direction, where maybe it sort of incentivizes playing up the challenge that went into it. I'm a little surprised that, you know, Nick hasn't written a book about field herping because that would seem to be a natural narrative flow for him. He always loves the grand adventure, you know, and this is all the things that happen. Maybe that's an idea for him. always loves the grand adventure you know and this is all the things that happen maybe that's an idea for him you should pitch it um it's like the the so i feel like there's some natural tendency to go in that direction in the written form and and maybe part of that is just we as readers then have more autonomy to picture it as being even more intense and uh more of a struggle in all the grand epic adventure. Whereas if we're just watching the YouTube video, well, they, you know, it couldn't have been that bad. They were still filming a YouTube video. They didn't even, you know, the camera's not even shaking.

Yeah. Right. And, and I think too, you know, you, you get the, almost the instant gratification nature of a YouTube where it's like, okay, we're hitting this area. You know, let's see what we find. Oh, we found everything we were looking for, you know, an end of video or, and if they don't find it, it's not on the internet, you know, so there's no, no point posting if they don't find what they're looking for. And so that's kind of another, you know, I like that, bringing that out about, you know, the book aspect of, you know, the challenge and the time it takes because it's long form. So you can do a little bit more and explain a little bit more and have more detail and you need to fill pages or else, you know, people are going to feel like they didn't get their money's worth with your pamphlet of a book.

Like we went looking for this and we eventually found it the end, you know, you want some details on, I'm sure. So I, I do think, you know, books are really, the book's always better than the movie, I guess we could say, you know, with the, um, in regards to YouTube and, and, you know, herping, I agree, uh, that, you know, it makes it seem like it's much easier than it is because herping can be pretty, pretty daunting and rigor, you know, just rough on you. And then you may not see anything, you know, or, or you might miss out on your target and it was really rough and you have to go back there again or something, you know, I know, I think everybody shared the same sentiment when we went down the Grand Canyon that was, thank goodness we found one. So we don't have to do that again.

But my, my daughters were like, okay, now you've been there. Now you can show us around. So I'm like, oh yeah, I would like to see it in the daytime i think that would be fun so um that was the only downside of doing it in the in the dark is you didn't get the views but for somebody uh with a little uh nervousness of heights that might be a better thing to uh not constantly see the heights and depths that await you if you misstep so i'm sure you guys were probably a little happy about that, but. Yeah, I don't know, honestly, whether that improves it or detracts, right? So instead it's a gaping black void. So I don't, I don't know. It's, I'd probably have to experience it to, to know, you know, with certainty certainty i think certainly that was part of my ideation

beyond the fact that this is the the process that i thought would maximize our chance of finding the animal but um you know was saying and i just for the record here and i've already clarified it with phil because i thought i really enjoyed the recap well the dual trip recap version that Nipper and Phil did together on Venom Exchange Radio. But just to clarify, so the camping spots in the Grand Canyon are exceedingly competitive. So, you know, Phil and Nipper went into a lot of conversation about, oh, you could stay down there at Cottonwood or, you know, all the various places that are down there. And as I understand it, it's sort of a lottery based system that opens up, you know, X number of months or a year before the date of a specific date. You're going to try and be there and all this stuff. So it's definitely doable. People absolutely do it. That being said, it's not it's not just like, oh, well, you just sort of turn up and I mean, you could cowboy camp off the thing and see if someone hassles you or they don't.

You know, it's not like someone that night would have, you know, would have would have been an issue for just sort of sleeping on the bench there for half an hour or whatever. But I think that's probably fine. But, yeah, just for the form of the thing that that's a highly competitive thing that people definitely do and are interested in. But accordingly, you know, and that speaks to it again, right? Maybe it wouldn't be my thing, but the value of going to places that people go to for its own sake, you know, when we're out doing this. There's definitely a cool aspect to that. But in this context, it makes it more challenging in terms of our flexibility. Yeah, that's very true. And I think, well, and just to correct the record, Phil mentioned that part of the Grand Canyon lies in Utah.

And unfortunately, that is not the case anymore. The original state of Deseret did encompass the Grand Canyon as well as San Diego and most of Arizona and most of Nevada. So when it became a state, they had to give up a lot of land to other future states or present states, I guess, to what it is now. But we still have five national parks, so it's nothing to shake a stick at. But is that a good, uh, advertisement for Utah? But, um, yeah, I think, uh, that, uh, you know, the idea of, um, and, and I think, you know, I know Eric's talked about it, you know, and, and also, uh, um, Keith, you know, writing a book about kind of your experiences and, um, you know, Keith's more maybe towards herpetocultural side. But I know Eric wants to write a book about his adventures in herp land. And I think probably all of us should

or have aspirations to do so, you know, to kind of put down on paper their adventures and their recollections of finding animals. And I think, you know, there is something to say about doing that sooner than later, because, you know, as we well see on the different reports and different people recounting the experience, it changes. And I know from my own experience that those things change in time as well. So, I mean, there is a possibility, and this may be a drawback to books, is that they're remembering it incorrectly or they're getting things out of order or you know they were they're a different month than they describe and so you might be basing things off of this faulty we got to go in may yeah yeah

yeah absolutely yeah and so certain oh go ahead well and, right? Changing climactic conditions and things, right? We're perpetually sort of seeing that where whatever would have been the, oh, the perfect time to go would be X. I mean, heck, we saw it last year with the overly, you know, what, probably double average that we, you know, between Utah and Colorado moisture, right? Versus this year, which is possibly even coming in under, you know, just sort of that variability. And if we said, oh, this is the time frame that you need to do, as opposed to really highlighting what it was about those conditions that, you know, to some extent probably will exist. It's just in any given year, but it's just going to be a question of how long within the year and what the timing looks like.

Those could be different. So certainly whatever happened in, you know, 1945, right. It's more important to know. I mean, the weather underground functionality is very cool. Nevertheless, I think probably better search is listening to the description. Yeah. And how much do we trust it? Even if it does. Right. Yeah. What, what, what weather station was it bouncing off of and how close was that to the site but i i agree you know like um with with the changing weather patterns and and even you know year to year um you might have hit on a perfect year i i bring up the uh the spotted leaf nose snake again because you know that one trip there were, they were everywhere. There was no shortage of spotted leaf nose snakes everywhere. And then in other trips,

we haven't turned them up. You know, it's, it's just one of those things where you either scratch your head or you do it enough that you figure out when they're out. And, you know, if you're reporting a single trip and it was a huge success, you might've just been really lucky and you just hit the exact day that everything was moving. And I mean, it seems like my Florida trip had a little bit of that aspect to it, you know, where everything was moving and people don't normally experience that. But to me where I have an N of two, you know, half the trips were fantastic and the other half were not so great, but you know, the, well, other than hiking through the Everglades section of the Everglades national park, where

we were the first time I went, um, what 10, 15 years ago, um, was there were a ton of alligators everywhere. So based on that experience, I was telling my wife, Heidi, oh, we're going to see a lot of alligators. They're going to be everywhere. And then we saw one, you know, grand total of one alligator. And so, you know, just year to year will vary too. And so, um, and that's, I think that, uh, really highlights, um, how important it is to visit different areas more than once. And, you know, especially if they're close to home or, or you want to, um, get to know the areas in the reptiles really well, I think multiple visits is,

is in order. And I think you're really good about doing that, you know, planning trips and going back to the same areas, maybe different times of year and things like that. Now it becomes more difficult if you're flying somewhere, especially if you're going over to Australia or something, you know, there's no real easy way to, whereas like outside right now, it's kind of overcast and a little bit rainy, whereas it was hot maybe two hours ago. So I'm thinking I'm going to go drive around as soon as we're done here. See if I can see something on the road, you know, cause that's what we're able to do. Yeah. When it's when it's close to home, we can drive 15 minutes or half an hour and go see some local stuff. So, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think the other point, you know, that kind of you were leading us to and then I diverted us by talking about whatever it always is. I think just as a either as a casual reader or someone who reads quite a bit, I do think there's just really something compelling about sort of those first person narratives to this to the venture that we enjoy.

Right. To the common common cause, even if we're not there, haven't been to that area or, you know, certainly not in those contexts, didn't, weren't a part of that trip or whatever. Just the, the joy in sort of, I think it's just a real, it's really compelling in its ability to put you into that place. Right. And that's sort of, it obviously is the skill of the author, but it's also just really is that common cause of saying, Hey, I can relate to this, uh, notion of this venture. Right. And really, uh, really have confidence and enjoy it. Yeah, for sure. I, I remember, um, on my first trip to Australia, I had recently read, um, that book stocking the plume serpent. Um, I can't remember who the author is. I was looking for it, but I can't see it bruce means i think was it bruce okay um yeah here it is bruce means yep and uh he was talking about finding green tree pythons and

i just happened to find myself in green tree python territory where he was looking and so you know we were um we'd spent time walking through the forest and looking for green trees and hadn't found any and then i remembered reading like he would just drive along the road and look into the, you know, forest and that's how they found them. And so I said, Hey, let's give this a try. And sure enough, you know, 10 minutes later we had our green tree python and we were staring at it, you know, in, in stunned silence. So, um, just really helpful to see those firsthand experiences, especially if you're in the same spot, um, you can, you know, get lucky, uh, like they did, or, um, you know, might not, might also not work. You know, there's plenty of people that go to the iron range and

when you can drive, there is not the best time to find green tree pythons there in a lot of cases. So, um, I thought that was kind of, kind of an interesting thing. Um, but yeah, I, I, I agree. I do like reading these, um, herp adventure type books, you know, where they're talking about their trips and their experiences and seeing the kind of highs and lows, you know, of like getting eaten by bugs. I think that would be a very important part of our stories. You know, you picking off a hundred or 300 seed ticks off your pant leg or your legs or whatever, and throwing them back onto me in the back seat, you know, those kinds of things is, is kind of what makes, you know, these herp trips. And, and it also gives people a better insight. And I mean, it is good to talk about them on the podcast and relay some

of those stories, but, um, you know, if you have time to really put it down on the page and really remember all the details and add everything, you know, that's, that's something, something special in the end. So I, I hope that you and Eric and everybody kind of goes through with writing those herp adventure books. Cause I think that'd be a really great read yeah yeah i kind of think maybe so one of the things that i really liked about that herping texas book is that it's actually two authors who so some of the narratives are trips they've taken singularly and some of them are trips they've taken together and actually the idea that it's sort of engendered in me in combination with the lost frogs and hot snakes is sort of some uh cross effort there of saying maybe the answer is

sort of uh almost i'd rather have it be that you know amongst the people that have gone on the trips each person writes about a different trip or several different trips or the trips to these different areas or whatever. And then, you know, I, or several of us could be the editor in that functionality of saying like, Hey, actually, so technically I want to hear your perspective more than I want to hear mine at the same time to maintain sort of as an audit on the accuracy of those sorts of, I don't know, that might be interesting. I'm just saying you get the multiple voices. And it makes it far more achievable, I think, you know, in terms of saying like, okay, and what's the point of focus, right?

And we've seen this, right? So Owen's point of focus on the Arizona trip that he had gone on was sort of the venture where we decided to put in some work after he'd put away a pound and a half burrito, right? So that, that was really the thing that was his you know focal point obviously you know he likes seeing the clobber eye and the willard eye and all this stuff but that was like to him that's the core memory of that trip whereas for me it's not you know because that wasn't it wasn't very successful we didn't find anything right i had to run to the bathroom before I exploded. Yeah, I wanted to choice voting sort of situation where it's like, which is the ones you want to talk about the most, you know, or whatever. Figure out who's whose favorite one that is.

Yeah. Yeah. So. So, yeah, I don't know. I think that's that's an interesting idea that was sort of an inspiration that I took from those things that I think might be a more practical, more doable version. You know, and it really does remind me, Craig Trumbauer's two books, right? More Than Stink Hunting and Even More Than Stink Hunting. He's talked about on both in the book and then on the podcast and privately or whatever, right?

That his motivation for writing it was mostly so that his, uh, relatives would understand sort of this thing that was so important to him, even more so than the fact that it's, you know, uh, he was inspired by Kaufeld and that, you know, he, he was touched by that and hope to touch other people, but really it was that that was his focus. And, um, you know, I think that's a goal that we can all sort of relate and aspire to and all that. For sure. Yeah. I remember, you know, hanging out with Casey Lazzik and hearing some of his stories and thinking, how cool would that be to read that in a book? And I kept, you know, kind of begging him almost like, dude, you need to write a book like write these stories down because i just can't get enough of them i just love hearing his stories and um and uh he said

well you know i kind of happened on about it and i'm like oh man how how sad is that that those stories are only you know gonna live in in my terrible memory of of what the stories you know were and uh instead of you know having that uh in a in a solid form to read and reread so i'll keep working on him because i really would just for just selfish reasons even if he only published you know a few uh copies with friends or something. Yeah, just to have that history and that legacy, you know, live on the page, I think is very helpful. And, you know, people like Caulfield, that's great. You know, that's really cool. And there's other people that will never write a book.

And they've had probably tenfold greater stories than Caulfield. Yeah, sure. And we'll never know about them because they didn't write them down or, you know, that kind of thing. probably tenfold greater stories. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, we'll never know about them because they didn't write them down or, you know, that kind of thing. So I think,

uh, you know, whoever's listening, if, if, if this strikes you right, write it down. Even if it's just for your family or your close friends,

but, um, maybe somebody down the road will say, no, this is really cool. Let's get this published and get it out there to the people. So I don't know. That's I guess my plug from this discussion is write those things down so people can enjoy them other than just the people who you experienced it with.

But I like that idea of doing kind of an edited compilation of trips that were experienced together. And then, you know, we could each kind of look over them and correct the record. I'm sure there will be. Things like that. Or just, yeah. Hey, what about this thing you forgot to say? Yeah. You forgot this funny story or this experience.

Yeah. I think that's really beneficial. And then everybody can author a chapter or two and yeah, it'd be really cool. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. Let's do it. Right. I think so. So for what it's worth as well, I would point out that I hadn't noted this at the time, but we had talked about it because an author in the lost frogs and hot snakes book is a professor at your university so actually the the uh the editor of the entire book is also an adjunct professor at your university who's that do you remember the

name or do you have a crump okay who adjunct professor in the department of biology at usu northern arizona oh wow she must be at northern arizona then and just an adjunct at usu that's interesting i i have i mean i know some people especially in the herb department where i go try to bother them and pick their brain or that kind of thing but um i only know a couple these days days. Like there was one really cool herb professor, Joe Mendelson. And I got to go on a herb trip because Ben Morrill was in the herb class. And so he's like, hey, can my friend come too? And so he got me invited to the herb trip and it was fantastic. I mean, we found all sorts of cool stuff and, and, uh, you know, got to know some different

areas and did a lot of herping on the Beaver Dam slope and stuff. So really cool trip. And we found some really great stuff, but, um, but just meeting Joe and hearing his stories was, you know, kind of one of those things where I hope he writes a book because he's got some crazy stories about, um, one was where he was on a herb trip out in the middle of nowhere in South Central America somewhere. And, uh, his, the, one of the students, graduate students brought a bag and said, ah, here's this. And it was like some harmless snake. He reached in the bag, pulled it out, right. As it bit him, he realized that was not a harmless snake. It was a very some harmless snake. He reached in the bag, pulled it out right as it bit him. He realized that was not a harmless snake.

It was a very venomous snake. And then he realized he was too far from any medical care to do anything about it. So he just sat on the edge of a cliff and watched the sunset and thinking, this might be my last sunset. You know, like, what else can I do? Just kind of the Zen moment of it is what it is. It's going to be what it's going to be. And obviously he survived to tell me the story, but you know, what a crazy experience that would be. And I'm of course, leaving out a lot of details, but you know, be interesting to remember what snake he thought, what the graduate student thought it was and what he, you know,

realized it was. And but yeah, cool, cool stories all around. And I'm sure these professors that are doing, you know, month long trips or whatever, we need different iguana species. So I'm sure she'd have some great stories and and, you know, we'll have to get her on. But I, you know, I I don't want to bring them on and make them fight with us. So I kind of like trying to figure out if if our podcast can fit other things other than fighting. But, you know, there may be some places we can get them to come on and discuss a topic, you know. So we'll have to see. Yeah, absolutely. there may be some places we can get them to come on and discuss a topic. I'll have to see. Yeah, absolutely. I know, Eric, and we've talked about this a bit,

but I've had some of that same ideation. Maybe we'll keep this feed clean and put it in other homes people would recognize that would make sense or whatever. And we can continue with our strong theme here, or we could not, you know, those are conversations to be decided going forward or whatever. But I think certainly there's, there's definitely a space for people that, you know, aren't, at least I know I'm not hearing elsewhere and I know have compelling and interesting stories that I'd like to hear. Yeah. Whether, whether or not they're willing to do a podcast remains to be seen, but we can, I'm sure.

That's why we got to ask a whole bunch, you know, to see how it goes. Yeah. And I bet Susanna would be game to come on and debate a topic too, because she's very, very knowledgeable, really just a cool researcher. I really enjoy visiting with her. So she's actually, uh, giving a talk, the plenary plenary talk at the biology of lizards conference that's going on right now. Yeah. Steve Sharp just gave his talk this afternoon on, uh, blunt-nosed leopard lizards, uh, the kind of that endangered population in California, they've been doing research on those. And so I, I, he invited me to go out there with him and said I could stay in his hotel and all that kind of stuff. And I just didn't have the time to make it out there. I'm really regretting not being able to do that because that would have been a cool trip. And then I guess he's staying, uh, afterwards to run a hurt course or, uh, in that area. So he'll be out there

for a few weeks and, Oh, wow. Yeah. It's going to be, uh, I'm sure it'll be a great experience for me. I think they found a really nice desert King last night. He said the rains haven't really hit yet. So he's hoping those monsoon rains will come through within the next week or two and hopefully improve the herping situation. But I'm really missing that out there. I wish I was there right now. But cool spot. I love that area, too. I mean, just that whole southern Arizona from the east to the west is just fantastic herping.

So, yep. Here I am in Northern Utah. Hopefully some of these, uh, rains coming through here are going to bring stuff out, but right now it's pretty slim pickings. Uh, well, any, any other ideas on this topic? Um, have we inspired the listener enough to write down their herp experiences? And maybe the answer, at least in part, right, is that at least for some of our source material, we can go back to our initial episodes when we came back. Just as you say, so much of it, it doesn't necessarily diminish the quality, but it probably diminishes the accuracy as time goes by. Yeah, for sure.

But yeah, I don't know, reliving and remembering those experiences. And, you know, you maybe don't think that somebody else would enjoy that or nobody wants to hear my stories. But, you know, reading Caulfield. Yeah, did I get it right this time? Yeah. I didn't say clobber. reports and, you know, some of these, uh, Bruce means, and some of the other, uh, kind of first narrative books are really, uh, get you excited about getting out there and, and hopefully having some of the same experiences, even if you don't, aren't able to necessarily rely on their spots or their narrative to help you find them easier, at least kind of the methods they use or the things can be

trans translatable and, and can help you be a better herper, you know, just reading their experiences. So, um, I don't know, cool topic. I like thinking about these things and, um, yeah, thanks for, uh, fighting with me and discussing these things. It's good stuff. Well, any exciting things you've run across over the last week or two in regards to herpetology, herpetoculture, anything like that? So this isn't from this week, but I had intended to mention it previously. So there was an Australian herpetoculture podcast from probably a month or six weeks ago now. But they were talking to a fellow who was doing quite a bit of field herping in Australia. And he had a whole story, you know, reminded me when we were talking about private when you were talking about W.A. and private land.

So the Strophorus trucks, right, is on private land or at least the vast majority of that very small localized habitat is. And, uh, he mentioned that they had one night up there whatever it was that he'd let him poke around that night. And they did to success and all that. So good on them. Good for them. Yeah, that's cool. Well, it's a good thing to think of if you're trying to get onto private land. Make sure you have appropriate gifts to get yourself there. I'm very excited to get back over to Australia. So October

can't come soon enough, but it should be a, should be a good time. But, um, I was talking with Steve the other day and he was talking about, um, Matt and he's like, Oh, you need to talk to Matt. And I'm like, I already have. And we're planning on going to a lot of the same places he went because he had a really amazing experience out there so hopefully we can make it to some of those spots but yeah yeah absolutely i know we're we're definitely uh yeah a lot of the same ideation and thought process and things i know he had talked to us beforehand and then he proceeded to do better than we've ever done up there so good on him but yeah you know mean, I'm also excited to spend more than a day in Kakadu because that was the extent of my Kakadu experience from before. All right.

Well, thanks again for listening. And thanks to Eric and Owen and the crew for all their support and for stitching these two sections of our podcast tonight together. Thanks for your help, Eric. And we'll catch you again next time for another episode of Reptile Fight Club.