Reptile Fight Club - West Coast Herping vs. East Coast Herping

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

Justin and Chuck tackle the most controversial topics in herpetoculture. The co-hosts or guests take one side of the issue and try to hold their own in a no-holds-barred contest of intellect. Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!In this episode, we are coming at you from the field. The MPR network debates west coast herping vs. east coast herping. Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comFollow Chuck Poland  on IG @ChuckNorriswinsFollow MPR Network on:FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQMore ways to support the shows.Swag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to a rather special episode of Reptile Fight Club. My name's Nipper Reid, and I have the absolute pleasure to be cruising in a vehicle with the lovely Robert Stone, the even lovelier Eric Burke, the rather fabulous Dustin Graham, and your usual host, the inimitable Justin... Doolander. So tonight, if you forgive the background noises, as I say, we are cruising up and down looking for various reptiles. We're in wonderful Utah, which has been very kind to us.

And tonight's topic is going to be about field herping. We're going to debate which is best, East Coast or West Coast herping. So if we could perform a towing course, who's going to call it? Dustin, you go for it. Tails. Hey, Siri. Hey, Siri. Hey, Siri. Can you flip a coin?

It's tails. All right. You win. Nice. So what's it going to be? So... In favor of... Do we want to do the flip?

What's that? Do we want to flip? You get to choose. You get to choose. You get to choose. You're the man. You're under pressure. Well, I will say, I am a fan of the West Coast, being from the West Coast, so I'm going to go with that. All right.

Let's do it. Okay, state your argument for why. I'm going to defer. You're going to defer? Oh, yeah. He's going to defer. So Eric and Rob You guys

Go for it Okay well Hold on Define the terms Okay Can we give West Texas to the west You guys can give

Like East Texas Kansas Everything East of the Mississippi So you got like Central United States Except for West Texas Does that work

Yeah Okay Alright I'm gonna start with this Number one We have crocodilians You got like central United States except for West Texas. Does that work? Yeah. Okay. All right, I'm going to start with this. Number one, we have crocodilians. Number two, we have indigo snakes. Yeah, if we're limited to West Texas, correct. Okay, we'll take it. That's our split line.

That was a snake. Not a what? It was not a snake. That was like a glow stick. Nippers been partying out there. Um, well, I, I, I have heard both. Um, and, uh, definitely they're different environments. I think the advantage that you have on the East Coast is that, uh, you are, um, there's so much cover, you know, if you are willing to put in the work and get out there and flip, you can find a tremendous amount of snakes in, uh, you know, a day of herping. Whereas, in my experience, herping on the West Coast,

where you may find one example of a species. Right. So I think maybe a way to frame that, right, is just that the carrying capacity of the environments of the East Coast seem to be higher, at least amongst animals that are above ground, so that we have a greater capacity to find them. The water, the, you know, inherent water in that situation just leads to an abundance of organisms in a way that we don't really have in the west. Yeah, I think we can definitely can see that because, you know, we definitely have a seasonality out here in the West. We have to wait until the right times of year, like, you know, May. May is always tricky because you want to schedule like five different

herb trips because that's about the only time you can get good herping in some of these places. I mean, you can find stuff other times, but yeah. And, and even in the best situation or circumstances, you can get skunked like we did in Southeastern Utah. But, um, so, but you know, I, I think, uh, I, I've always been, you know, a desert rat. I think Dustin would, would fall into that category as well yes definitely definitely a desert rat so uh you know we have a little bit of a preference for that maybe and and you know it's a little more open a little more visible you can see stuff kind of uh a ways off and and be able to uh road cruise and things like that you don't have to be searching through tick infested woods to find

your targets so i think that's one benefit we have in the west coast yeah and i mean you guys may have crocodilians but we have a wide variety of rattlesnakes and i mean what is more american than a nice rattlesnake an american alligator i was just about to say, and Justin and Dustin have clearly won the arguments. And, uh, I mean, yes, I will concede that. Timbers and Eastern Diamondbacks as the quintessential, well, I love the Montaigne rattlesnakes and they're my favorites. I would say that the quintessential American rattlesnakes, at least with throughout American history, have been the timber and the eastern diamondback. Because they're on the flex.

Yeah, that's true. And the eastern diamondback is the largest species in the United States, so you kind of score a point for impressive size. But, I don't know, diversity, definitely Wes takes the lead there. Yes, I will concede that. You guys might be able to get out and flip board lines, but what's better than hiking up something in situ? What we've been in right now, this crazy red rock cliffs and just this beautiful scenery.

Not only are you going to get out and enjoy the reptiles, but you get to enjoy nature, you get to enjoy birds, fish, anything that you can find. Well, we do have birds. And we do have fish. Yeah, but if you're just going to a board line and flipping boards, I mean. Well, yeah, I will give you that. But I don't know if it's necessarily my, the herping that I have done is not, has been exactly the same. Except I would say it's almost harder.

Because I feel that you have heat sorry we're coming up on some stopped vehicles but we don't know if they're herping or just stopped it looks like they're just stopped darn it okay sorry go ahead i can edit that no that's that's part of it, right? Yeah, most of the herping that I have done in the U.S. has been, I mean, on the East Coast, has been hiking, like, through the Pine Barrens, up in the Poconos. I don't really do the board flipping thing. But yes, it is quite prominent in the East Coast. Probably more so, I would say, than what I've seen in the West Coast.

Well, I don't know. I would say there's some places in the West Coast where board lines are useful. Yeah, California. I mean, I've heard some environments in California where if you didn't have a borderline, you're not finding jack because it's so thick and lush or it's dead. And, you know, so, yeah, so you got to have a borderline there or else you're not finding much. And, you know, other things, artificial cover and like in the Pacific Northwest can also be very useful. You know, flipping rubber boas or something or, you know, things out there. You know, I think we can have some places out here with board lines that work pretty well.

But for the most part, you know, I don't know, hiking up that Lutosis yesterday and, again, another one today in the natural environment, just sitting there. It's hard to beat taking a picture of an animal where you would envision it being versus under a board. It's not the best photo opportunities. And then once you find something under a board, it's like you're taking a picture of it on bare dirt. There's not really much scenic place to to take the picture so it's kind of downside that way but i guess that applies to both as we've kind of gone over there we also have although you have a diversity with rattlesnakes we have the diversity with vipers because we have rattlesnakes, copperheads, which you guys also have. West eggs here in the West. But we also have cottonmouths.

Yeah. Yeah. I think overall you're going to get the entire reptile experience from crocodilians to lizards to turtles to skinks to snakes to venomous. But I don't know. This is the question that I pose. And is it that I enjoy the West Coast because it's different than my backyard? And I would be curious, you know, if, if that's what, uh, why I enjoy coming here because it's so different. Um, but, uh, I still love my backyard. I, I think, you know, I've hurt a little bit in the East coast. So in Florida and Georgia, I've gone out and, uh, I, I think the, um, take a left here. I think the trick was, or the thing I didn't enjoy was the, the, the like all the, you just get dirty and wet and gross, you know, like, and the desert's a little more clean.

And I've always kind of liked cleaner herping. I wasn't really a fan of the mountains, but I'm kind of getting into that a little more clean and I've always kind of liked cleaner herping. I wasn't really a fan of the mountains, but I'm kind of getting into that a little bit more, but you know, when we're up in the mountains, we're falling in the rivers and stuff like that. So again, as a desert rat, you know, the sand is, is pretty clean. Cheat grass is the devil's seed, but what do you do? You know, you gotta put up with some invasives, I guess, but that's a topic for another fight club. Um, but you know, I think, uh, the, the, that you get a little, a little more messy, more ticks, things like that. And the East coast I would think would put a damper on her being to some extent.

To exaggerate Eric's point, certainly the amphibian diversity in the East Coast is way higher, particularly salamanders. So that's for sure. Myself, I'm also a desert person naturally, but I can certainly appreciate the several of the lines of argument here about walking up herbs and ticks because you are playing upon my predilection to dislike ticks and preferring hiking up critters. So I don't think you can garner those points solely for yourselves. As Eric highlighted, we at least relative to to hiking that's something that i'm uh also a fan of in in either case in terms of ticks i would have solidly given that to you except for the fact that today well uh photographing a coach whip i was attacked by several ticks

i would say attacked is a strong word. Nip or sought. If it's a tick, it's attacking. If it's a tick and it's on you, it's attacking. I'd say finally inconvenienced, maybe not attacked. We're talking blood-sucking ectoparasites. I'm not really up for debate on that one. Did it burrow its head? It was looking.

All right. its head it was looking all right um i think i think the big uh benefit of herping in the west is is more public lands um you know in some place like in west texas even i mean i guess that's part of us but i'm not gonna i'm gonna throw it under the bus for this part of the argument and lump it in with a lot of the east coast is that everything's private land and so you're relegated to herping on uh you know parks and and public places like that versus out here where we have plenty of public land we can herp wherever we want to some extent you know there is some private land but a lot of open uh federal lands that you can go out and herp on to your heart's content. Whereas in a lot of the East States, you're stuck on the roads or a few public parks.

Pennsylvania and New Jersey have quite a few. I'm going to disagree with that. I mean, the Poconos itself, we have the Appalachian Trail that goes up the entire East Coast. You know, I don't know I I kind of see it well I guess my bias is west Texas but that was the thing that kind of bummed me out is this there's so much land and you can't herp it because it's not public land but yeah craning your neck on the side of the road was not very fun but fun. But what do you do? Okay, we're going to pause for station identification, and we'll be back with you in a minute. And we're back!

Back on the road. All right. Do you remember where we were? Oh, private land, public lands, being able to herb. I don't know. I think that scores a point for the West Coast. But you may have different ideas. Being able to herb. I don't know. I think that scores a point for the West Coast. You may have different ideas.

Utah has more national parks than any other state in the country, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We got some good ones. One thing that I do love about Arizona is that I'm a fan of reptiles from Mexico and we do get a few species that are supposed to be tropical that we get down in the in the deserts and in just barely coming up into the United States and I think that's a pretty cool point the east coast I mean other than the invasives has North America or American endemics and we get a little bit of the uh the tropical stuff coming up something you don't get to see every day if you can can find them. If you can find them.

Yeah. And we spent a long time looking for those fine snakes and craning our necks up in the trees. But it took me about, what, a couple days in Costa Rica, and one found me pretty easily. So a lot easier to find out in the tropics versus otherwise. All right. lot easier to find where, you know, out in the tropics versus, uh, otherwise, but, um, all right, well, you guys got another point for, uh, point of contention for the East Coast?

He wants to just pass. We're just, uh, starting to cruise. We're, we're out looking for sidewinders tonight, so hopefully they're not going to follow us too closely. I noticed how they took that little shot to say that the West Coast is better with the sidewinders. Well played, sir. Well played. Heck yeah. I mean, what snakes sidewind that are in the United States other than on the West Coast?

I can't argue with that one. I will have to give you the point this is interesting habitat it's like really brushy or something um yeah i think we just kind of follow this road and see if we can see something they said it's uh mostly neighborhoods but yeah they just found a cow king on this road, so that's kind of cool. That wasn't him? I didn't think so. Who's that in front? There's a front.

Toad. Apparently, Dustin doesn't let us stop for Toad, so he just hates those amphibians, so, you know, he just... That's why he hates these. That's why he hates these cows. Hell no. Wait, we do have hellbenders.

Oh, good point. Well made. Mic drop. That was a low blow, man. Is that something? I had to come back from the sidewinder. I will say, there's a few West Coast locations that are top herping destinations of the world. Southern Arizona comes to mind. West Texas comes to mind. are west coast locations that are top herping destinations of the world uh southern arizona

comes to mind west texas comes to mind uh west texas is what the uh mecca of field herping i can go through some there's a uh that's paint oh we're having fun here and we're back um but yeah i mean west texas is there's a whole culture around finding alternative. I mean, it's, like I said, it's the mecca. What's that in the left? Oh, pink. Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of times we, so we were out in southeast Utah and we were looking for the midget fader rattlesnakes, uh, criticalis con color and, um, didn't, didn't find any, you know, and we were out looking today for Gila monsters and struck out, man, there are a lot of cans on this road. Um, so we didn't see any of those either, but we saw some fresh tracks and, you know, it kind of gets your

heart racing and gives you hope. But I think I, you know, I was thinking if it was easy to find them, nobody would really care about them kind of along the same lines of the alternate. It becomes like a, a cult thing. You know, you want to go find this hard to find animal and, and kind of have that, um, I don't know, prestige or that experience of finding that animal. It's kind of makes it exciting once you finally get that white whale or whatever you're chasing and things. So, I don't know. That's part of the fun of herping, I think, to be able to find stuff that's hard to find or keep trying even when you're unable to find it.

So, nothing. I guess I would say, I mean, I don't know what else that I can use. I think on the East Coast, particularly the Southeast, you have a much longer season of potential activity, where at least there's some time of day that you could potentially find basically any species that you're looking for in a way that is clearly not the case out here with our con color experience where we've had a ton of rain out here the conditions seem perfect we're in not only good general habitat but very good specific habitat and there's just no snakes going at all i think we're probably two or three weeks

early um but it's difficult to split that with then helas that you're trying to um it's where may is the perfect time i'm gonna take you with me we're gonna look at this toad i forgot we're recording oh cool it's a little spade foot. Is that a great basin? Yeah. Okay. Let's pause this. Okay. You know, they were just saying the East coast had so much better amphibians, but we just saw some pretty freaking cool amphibians. Woodhouse's toad and a nice little spade foot toad. Um, so. Snippers highlighted. How many salamanders do you have here in the state of Utah? Um, you know, an amazing salamanders do you have here in the state of Utah? You know... An amazing salamander.

Who needs more when you've got such a cool salamander? Salamanders are cool, that's true. I mean, there's some really cool... I mean, that's definitely a point for the East Coast, but, you know, who's into those snot lizards anyway? I don't know. How very dare you. To go off of Rob's point a bit I think that

the windows open a little bit longer and I think that because there is no cover your herping is really limited to the evening or the early morning where herping in the east coast you could pretty much go all day and night because there's a lot more cover. Yeah, and the temperature may be a little along the same lines

and the humidity may be more. Yeah, you may get dirty. You may be wet, but you're going to be able to be out in the field and possibly see it's probably why you get such a high count of of uh snakes on the east coast um way way way fewer ticks but not zero that is true zero that is true that is true, there's a real easy way to get around the ticks. Wear a long-sleeve shirt. Hurt the West Coast.

Well, you could do that too. And then tuck your pants in your boots. You'll be all right. I got another, I guess, response for your bragging about all the salamanders and about all the turtles and stuff. We've got heloderma and we've also got uh the horned lizards the you don't got much in that area right yeah that's a west coast that's one thing that's very true i love the west coast lizards i mean with your invasives

you got some cool diversity but uh our natives are pretty cool man sclopperas are awesome yeah collard lizards are awesome fritosoma awesome I can't argue with that they are cool tortoises too I guess you guys have the one species but we've got two species

or three because you've got the desert tortoises split into two. We have snapping turtles. We have snapping turtles. They're invasive. Oh. Oh!

Are we counting invasives? Because we have pythons. I guess if we're counting invasives, there was an invasive alligator in Arizona that lived in this warm hot springs area for quite a while. So I guess we can chalk up some crocodilians. I'm not sure a single animal counts as a crocodile. Yeah, we also have crocodiles. He was pretty stunted.

Yeah, that's true. What else do we got on the west coast? Go ahead. The other thing I was going to say is like to Dustin's point, I will give him that there's many, many places in the West that is herping meccas and people come from all around the world. But I think that when people think of one of the coolest biodiversities of the US, the Everglades has to be at the top of that list. That's on the East Coast. Well, I would take Southern Arizona over to Florida any day. But, you know, that's just my preference.

So I can't argue that Florida is not a cool place. But, I mean, it's been heavily modified. Again, there's only a few parks and places where you can go see kind of the natural order of things, whereas most of it's been turned into fields and, you know, that kind of thing, and flattened for homes and stuff like that as we drive through a neighborhood. But I guess that's happening everywhere. I was going to say, didn't we just drive through? Exactly what you're talking about.

And then we just hit a dead end. I'm not sure where we are or where we need to go. We'll go back this way and then take a... Yeah. The thing that I would say is that for me, herping the West has been an awesome experience because it's completely different than anything that I'm used this point to you guys, but it showed me that what we have here right in the States is sometimes some of the coolest reptiles in the world that people would come, like my buddy next to me on the left here, would come across the world to see them. I completely agree with Eric. I mean, I've been fortunate enough to herp around the world, and I would keep coming back to the US.

Now, I can't comment on this argument because I've only herped west coast, not east coast, but what I've seen on the west coast is outstanding in terms of the different species, just completely different habitats within a relatively close area. The only thing I will say is the food is terrible here. OK, pizza toast. It's worth it for the herbs, but oh, my days.

But, I mean, when you're not herping, the scenery here is incredible, the massive open vistas and the rock formations. Yeah, just outstanding. I mean, I'll be able to come here further because I'm going to be going to Florida, herping with these guys in a few months' time. But I'll be very surprised if Florida herping is as fully immersive and um almost soothing as being in the desert yeah yeah it's hard to beat the the calm quiet of the desert with yeah open skies, stars. Yeah, it's wonderful out here. You know, you guys might have invasive pythons, but we have two species of endemic boa, the rosy and rubber boa, in the West.

So I would add that to the list of cool things that we have. Point for the West. You do not. I told you this was going to be difficult for me. Yeah. And, you know, I think there are a fair good diversity of habitats. I mean, we do have some, you know, kind of rainforest-y type stuff in the Pacific Northwest, you know, where you can find a reasonable diversity of salamanders and, and things up there. There's a great diversity of salamanders in Northern California.

Yeah. Yeah. That kind of fits in that same, same niche and, and or nipper. And you've got all sorts of different biomes up in the mountains versus the deserts and things like that. So we've got quite a difference in habitats here as well. But I will say the idea of seasonality is pretty strong in the west. Yeah, I think, I think, you know, like I said earlier, it's, the temperature is a lot tougher out here for sure, so I think that, you know, the window to see it is a little shorter, but I would say that I think that, um, if you're on the west coast, you should check out the East Coast because I've been on the East Coast and I came to the West Coast and came to love everything that's out here because it's a different experience than what I'm used to. And I guess at the end of the whole thing, like I'm saying, the U.S. has some amazing reptiles that are some of the coolest in the world.

And I think sometimes, at least for myself, I take it for granted because I'm too busy trying to see exotic locations rather than what's right here at home. Yeah, that's a fair point. I think we do that a lot. You know, like I feel like I've done more herping in Australia than in my backyard in some ways. So it's been nice with the pandemic to kind of correct that and get out on these trips with you guys. And it's been a wonderful experience. I mean, we've seen a lot of cool stuff together and it's been a lot of fun. So we might have to pause this to try to figure out where we want where we need to

go or uh this is just like a mess of neighborhood roads so one sec let me pause this for a bit all right this program is being brought to you by mutton power lifting gloves if you're gonna lift some weight use mutton's Choice powerlifting gloves. Oh, I messed that up, didn't I? Mutton's Choice powerlifting gloves. The only gloves I use. Okay, I think another thing, East Coast versus West Coast, is the population density is much larger on the East Coast. Similar, like in Australia, I didn't enjoy herping the east

coast as much just because there's so many towns and cities and people and you have to you know spend an hour just getting out of town whereas if you go into western australia or western you know the united states you're out of town pretty quick and you can get on to the business of herping instead of spending several hours driving outside of the city center or, you know, rural areas that surround that. So I think, uh, uh, this is not the best road. Um, you know, I think the West coast has that going for it, where it's a little more spread out, a little more, uh, wild lands, uh, even though it's changing and developing more and more like the area we're herping in right now, which used to be beautiful habitat, but I guess there weren't roads going through it. But hopefully we can see something on a dirt road out here.

Wouldn't be unheard of. Okay. But yeah, I think that's probably a point for the West Coast as things are a little more spread out, less population density, less development. Stop, stop, stop. Where? Okay, one sec. And we're back.

Do you care to respond to the population density, or is that just conceding a point? I would concede that point. That is, I can't argue that that's, that's accurate. Um, take a right. I don't think that goes anywhere. I think it connects up. Um, okay. Thank you.

I mean, there are certain, I guess the one pushback, there are areas that you wouldn't expect. So like New Jersey, actually, there's a lot more open space than I ever would have anticipated. Go straight, yeah. In the Pine Barrens specifically, which is obviously ideal habitat for all the critters that are in that region. So I think generally that's trueters that are in that region. So, um, I think generally that's, that's true. And I appreciate that point. I think that's totally fair, but the, uh, it's not as universal as I think we West coasters presume. Yeah. Pennsylvania is a pretty big state and a a lot of the population density is right in the southeast corner of Pennsylvania.

And you do have a lot of open... What was that? Little mouse. Round little mouse. But I do understand the point, and I can't really argue with it I mean we do have our population like LA is just one big giant mess of people but

yeah outside of LA there's some really nice herping to be done but you have to drive a few hours to get outside of LA is that those guys I think so oh they got something oh is that those guys? I think so. Oh, they got something.

Oh. Looks like they're... Yeah. What do they got? They're getting out. Yep. Jump out. What's going on, guys? I don't know.

Cool. What is it? I don't know. Let's go see. Okay, we're stopping again. Alright, we got a banded gecko. Very cool. See this one.

It does look female. Good for me. Alright, speaking of cool west coast lizards, we just found a banded gecko. At least our group did. It wasn't our car. We've got to find some, guys. Oh, we found toads. That works.

Alright. Well, have we beat a dead horse? You got any more points for the East Coast? Anything else cool about it? What's that? The same thing. Oh. Another team.

No. I feel like I'm doing my home team a disservice and letting them down. But, yeah, I don't know. I got nothing other than what I've – I think those are fair points. You got the numbers, potential for numbers, greater opportunity within a season, a little bit less specificity, a little bit less dead time, particularly down south. But, yeah, I mean, all of us here certainly fully appreciate western herping i mean heck we're doing it right now yeah it's hard to hard to argue against what

we're actually in the process of doing but okay that's i hope to uh to uh herp all over the u.s to be able to have a better understanding of all the different environments and reptiles all over um and i feel like i've over the past couple of years i spent more time on the west coast than the east coast but as niffer said we're about to do some proper herping in florida and uh hopefully we find some real cool stuff down there so and pennsylvania i'm excited to come out to her well not herp fest what's it called it's carpet fest one of those things i don't know it's like it's only 10 years old i mean it's not like some um or is it just the backside of this thing i'm not sure so yeah that'll be fun to see see some of

the east coast stuff but i mean you know the lizard diversity the um rattlesnake diversity boas the ease of uh herping the spread out and public lands that you can herp on um i think sum up nicely for the west coast I just gotta say the best place to herp is your backyard get out, enjoy nature enjoy everything that it has to offer I mean all the cool animals all the cool scenery

and just go well said I think that Dustin's point if you spend the time herping in your backyard quiet nipper I know I have to do it more often. Yes. But you get to do it way, you know, on a more consistent basis.

And you get to see more of the seasonal changes or more behaviors that you might not have noticed. Whereas here we're getting a snapshot, at least for me, I'm getting a snapshot of this week of what it's like to be here out west in Utah. So, yeah. Yeah, we've had some pretty great experiences out here. I don't know if we want to maybe talk about a few, maybe hit the highlight of your trip so far. Rob, do you want to start us out? Sure. Well, I mean, all the, you know, it's tough. We've had a great experience just in terms of the,

um, all the hikes to Dustin's point earlier, you know, really, really epic adventure type stuff. Um, which I think is a big part of this right especially if we we had a specific target and con color over in eastern utah that was the front half of the trip and um we were foreclosed from going at least via the north to the grand canyon for abysses so um the fact that we were able to fill our time with exceptional experiences that people do entirely separate from looking for animals um really kind of it kind of makes that moment beyond just the joy of being with the group that being said i think my favorite The pyros were certainly a favorite, and the two leutosis between yesterday and today, that light background with the real dark blotching on the back, really spectacular.

I will say that Rob plans a fantastic trip, and he will include a lot of really cool hikes you know in suitable habitat where you can have the chance of finding the animals but also if you don't find anything you still have a fantastic hike and enjoy the nature and beauty around you so um kudos to rob for planning another epic trip never what Bert, what do you think? Can I echo what you just said? Rob's planning has made this an unforgettable experience for me. Just, as you said, not even the herping, which has been excellent, but the other experiences, you know, they're unrepeatable.

It's just an amazing area. The scenery and the hikes and the canyoning and the stuff that we've got to do you know it's memories for life for me species wise you know what i'm going to say it's the lotosis particularly the second one that uh justin found was just an absolute beast of a snake um fabulous markings and in such a cool environment um and i really like the little toads the spadefoot's really amazing uh even the spotted toads which i know are fairly common but for me you know you know i've seen them in arizona i've seen them here i think i think they're fabulous at the end of the day the best thing is always the company, though. And Wendy's root beer is my new drug of choice.

All right, Eric. Yeah, pretty much for Nipper as far as the species go, yeah, that second leutosis was amazing. And how Justin found it was pretty cool as he thought a rock was a tortoise. And then he's like, Oh, look rattlesnake, which was, was pretty awesome. And to the other point, I've been on every herb trip with Rob, except for one. Um, and it just get better and better and uh every time i have an experience that uh hopefully when i'm old i can look back on you are old well when i'm older i can look back on and say uh wow that was a great time uh particularly uh the you know going You know, going through that canyon. With a wild horse? Yeah, was quite the experience.

Because for me, that's something that I, it's so foreign to what I'm used to on the East Coast. So it's so magical for me to see that. And then dipping my feet in that cold water took, oh man, if you want to take away the pain in your feet, that's the way to do it. It was fabulous. Yeah, great trip. Great guys. All right, Dustin. Lutosis are cool.

Pyros are cool. But I think that Utah trimorphodon. I knew it was a possibility, but kind of didn't really think it's gonna happen but it did but yeah it's just been an awesome trip so far i mean i've only been on a few of these trips with these guys but it's just always a blast it's always fun see amazing stuff amazing company sometimes the food's good, other than what Nipper says, but, you know. We had burgers for breakfast. That's what I said, sometimes. Yeah, I'd echo everything everybody said.

I mean, this is, isn't that where we, is that the dead end or no? Oh, we came here, yeah. It's just been a lot of fun, and we have a lot of laughs and just great times. The canyons were epic. I mean, I grew up down here, so I've done a lot of this, and it's always fun to kind of show people your backyard and have that experience together and

and then uh you know remember that down the road so this is another just great example of that and it was fun uh watching dustin stay dry in little wild horse canyon and even though i slipped on one part and stuck a foot in so um we tried, we tried to Spider-Man our way over the water, but it sounds like we should have just jumped in with Eric because it was very soothing and spa-like. So next time, I guess, I guess I did wade through one part after my foot got wet. I'm like, Oh, well I'm, I'm wet. So. Did you have the opposite effect where that's where your foot started to hurt? I don't know. That's a good question. My foot is still numb three days later, but I think it's getting better. You can come out to the East Coast and dip your foot in our water and you'll have a magical experience.

There you go. I just can't get over that, uh, leutosis. That was really, uh, just a beautiful snake. So white and with the black head stamp and the really bold, uh, patterns. And, um, so I think that was one of my favorites. It's also fun to see, uh, big lizards. So, uh, seeing the collared lizards, uh, Dustin and I were, we're driving along. We saw kind of, of uh they're out for something oh man why do we keep missing these things oh they're just shining um but we uh

we spot i saw a lizard on a rock and i'm like oh that's a that looks like a collared lizard so we stop oh one second we're gonna communicate here it's probably worth noting yeah okay dustin just said we did 28 miles uh looking for uh the crotalis concolor for the 28 miles of hiking for 28 miles of hiking and so with uh yeah through some really fantastic habitat so it was not very painful yeah it was really great so um we're gonna get out and go try to hike up a sidewinder which i've never oh i've done we've done that in california i almost stepped on one great outlet but uh yeah epic trip um still have another day or two to go and uh so should be uh should be one for the books for sure so looking forward to the next one wait finish your uh oh yeah so i saw a lizard on a rock and uh you can shut her down

um so and uh so we get out of the car and we're running through the field going to see it and and dustin's like oh it jumped down I'm like no it didn't it's still there and he's like wait what rock are you looking at and I was looking at a further rock and he was looking at the closer rock and there were two collared lizards one on each rock and so we ran past the first rock where that that lizard dipped and then we went to the second rock and he was still up top but then he left and ran and then we didn't get him but we came back to the first rock and the female was just there at the base of the rock. So I reached down and picked her up and we got some nice pictures.

So that was kind of fun. Always cool to see. Proud to fight us for sure. But yeah. So anyway, that's been another Reptile Fight Club. And I hope you enjoyed it despite all the interruptions and such. But check us next week and we'll do this again so thanks for listening you gotta have a tagline nipper i got a tagline well you've been thinking you gotta you gotta do chuck proud here

okay and my tagline will be why twix is so small in America? They're half the size of UK. Oh, really? They are. That is strange. That is strange. All right. Don't buy an American Twix. Don't buy an American Twix.

Buy a European Twix. All right. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you again next week. Thank you. We'll see you next time. Bye.