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To be fair, most of the lizards you see in Florida are going to be invasive brown anoles or non-native house geckos. If Florida were more ecologically pure, you'd usually only see lizards if you were walking in more wild areas. When I go looking for reptiles and amphibians in Florida in the state and national forests, I see lizards but they aren't everywhere.
OneTwentySix fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Feb 3, 2017 |
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Feb 3, 2017 04:27
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Skinks in the SE are nuts - you can guess broadhead by size, but there are a bunch of species you can only ID by range and counting scales and tiny things like that.
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Apr 24, 2017 16:19
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Mak0rz posted:There are insects you can only ID by looking at their genitals under a microscope. Skinks need to step up their game Don't remind me, I loved invert zoology, but I still have nightmares IDing spiders.
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Apr 24, 2017 17:56
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Salamanders are my thing, though you happened to pick two tricky groups for me - Desmogs because they all look alike, and Plethodon because there are a ton I've never seen personally, but here goes. Your first salamander is a northern dusky salamander, Desmognathus fuscus - I could be wrong - IDing Desmogs is a pain and I usually don't bother in the field, but the lack of a line from the eye to the jaw rules out seal salamanders, and it doesn't match AM mountain duskies in appearance. Costal ridges is a bitch, so I'd only use that when you can get a really good count, and Desmogs don't really offer this. Definitely not Ambystoma - I don't know how to explain it, but their bodies and heads are shaped differently. The next one is a Plethodon. Variability makes this a bit tricky, though, especially since I haven't ever seen most of the possible species in person. Pennsylvania has four dark Plethodon - electromorphus, wehrlei, hoffmani, glutinosus, plus cinereus which has a dark phase. All of those salamanders should have flecking or spotting, except wehrlei, which rarely skips the spots. You also have a really good picture to count costal ridges in the album (http://i.imgur.com/RWSGHgo.jpg), despite what I said earlier - and I get 16, which confirms wehrlei - the others all have 18+. Not sure how you got 19 - you want to count the ridges from between the front and hind legs and ignore the rest. Finally, the toes in the back are webbed, which of those species is unique to wehrlei. Not a Hemidactylium - those are small, more colorful salamanders with a constriction at the base of the tail - also extremely rare unless you're lucky or are looking for them (in which case, they can be fairly common). I was actually supposed to go looking for Hemis yesterday, though it might be too late, and then got food poisoning. Here's one from a few years ago with eggs: 
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May 9, 2017 02:41
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Those are common toads, Bufo bufo. Not a lot of amphibian diversity in much of Europe, unfortunately - the majority of any toad photos you see from Europe are going to be Bufo bufo.
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May 22, 2017 02:41
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I was just in that exact area in April. I have some photos I'll have to post, saw tons of snakes.
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May 25, 2017 19:26
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Snakes will cohabitate, but the majority of snakes aren't social - they just happen to be there for the same reason - it looks like a good basking site with nearby food. Milk snakes do eat other snakes, though, so that's kinda crazy on the garter, but it's not uncommon to find two or more snakes of multiple species together at the same spot - rattlesnakes and copperheads frequently share dens, for example. Rattlesnakes actually are social - there's some neat research being done on rattlesnake social behavior. It's usually the mother and her offspring - they'll share basking spots for months after birth, as well as some other neat behaviors.
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Jul 14, 2017 22:21
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It's a Cuban tree frog, an invasive species that eats natives.
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Sep 12, 2017 03:03
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Sexing box turtles is really easy. Females have brown or yellow eyes, males will have red or orange eyes (in most cases); you can see the eyes in your photos, so you sexed them right. Males will also have a concave plastron (bottom part of the shell), which makes it easier to stay on the female during mating.
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Sep 26, 2017 18:58
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That is a wood frog! They can actually freeze solid and then thaw out and wake up fine; this is one of the reasons they're one of the most northern occurring frogs in the world - you can find them in parts of Alaska.
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Oct 13, 2017 19:46
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Most venomous snakes are pretty calm. If you don't step on them or pick them up, they're going to let you be. I stepped over a copperhead I didn't see this summer, my foot was within six inches of him, and he let me be. I repaid him by relocating him to somewhere with fewer people (and then two more over the week - they were hunting cicadas I think). There's a risk of stepping on them if they're around, but generally speaking, if there's in the area, they're going to be around. Keep that in mind, watch yourself when you're outside, and never stick your hands or feet somewhere you can't see, and you should be good.
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Dec 15, 2017 05:40
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I've always thought that Duke of Cornwall was a pretty good title.
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Aug 2, 2018 17:24
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free hubcaps posted:Went for a walk this morning on an old colonial farm turned land trust property, the only other traveler I encountered on the paths was this little beaut Looks like a he, male box turtles tend to have red or orange eyes while females have brown or yellow. In the future, it's generally a good idea to not move box turtles unless they're in immediate danger, and then to only move them a short distance away. I'm sure he was fine from how you moved him, but he knew where he was and what he was trying to do, so moving him probably cost him a bit of time and effort to get back to where he was headed - or maybe you took him right where he was headed. Generally speaking, though, he's at least 20-30 years old and is likely to be much older, so typically box turtles know what they're doing as far as survival goes and are best left to do their thing. Relocating box turtles tends to be fatal, though, so if anyone ever sees a box turtle somewhere - crossing the road, maybe - and wants to help it, it's best to get send them in the direction they were heading and let them do their thing. Moving a box turtle more than a couple hundred feet tends to result in the turtle dying, since it doesn't know where to find the things it needs and may exhaust itself trying to find home. OneTwentySix fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Aug 3, 2018 |
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Aug 3, 2018 17:52
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I'm a hobbyist herpetologist, but I've participated in a number of studies and projects and most of my closer friends are professionals.
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Aug 9, 2018 21:19
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Looks like a watch.
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Aug 25, 2018 20:15
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That isn't realistic! Patterning suggests a spadefoot toad, but they have vertical pupils.
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Sep 12, 2018 16:42
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The lizard is some sort of fence lizard, Sceloporus spp.; either a western fence lizard or a sagebrush lizard.
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Oct 24, 2018 15:50
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A Pack of Kobolds posted:I like to think that fence lizard means that they will buy stolen property. Unfortunately, it's not quite as cool - these are just lizards that sword fight. Potential BFF posted:That's a 10/10 frog. This looks like a gray fox to me. They're really neat - I think I've seen one live gray fox and a body in the woods once, vs. maybe twenty-five or so red foxes in my life. They can climb trees!
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Oct 29, 2018 16:24
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Cottonmouths put on a big show, and they have some strong venom that can kill you if it goes untreated or you have an allergic reaction, but they don't want to bite you. Here's a really good video where this guy disproves a number of cottonmouth myths. He goes through a lot of effort to get one to bite him, and here's what it takes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=314N7xIeRR8&t=735s I've had similar experiences. In Florida, I was chasing a watersnake and realized that I needed to be more careful since the area I was in looked really good for cottonmouths. I stopped, and when I glanced around, found two within a foot of me. Neither made the least bit of an aggressive action towards me. The other cottons I've found have all been the same - I've moved a few across the road with my snake hook and they mostly just ignore me in the process. Don't step on them or mess with them and you're fine.
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Nov 6, 2018 17:39
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This is why you should just go out and look for snakes. More fun that way.
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Nov 8, 2018 02:37
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CaptainSarcastic posted:I try to avoid killing most things, but I make a few exceptions. Why crane flies? They're odd-looking, but completely harmless.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:16
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When you know them well enough, you can just kind of glance at a picture and "crocodile!" jumps right out - there are a ton of tiny differences. Head shape is drastically different, too.
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Feb 3, 2019 16:31
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the yeti posted:Desmognathus...something or other? ( That looks like a leadback Plethodon cinereus (redback salamander) to me. Leadbacks are a very rare to extremely common (depending on location) color morph.
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Apr 11, 2019 18:32
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I haven’t gotten down to counting toes and intracostal wrinkles and such yet.)
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They're northern two lined salamanders. Desmognathus have different head shapes and coloration and are usually a black or brown without a whole lot of obvious identifying characteristics to distinguish from other Desmogs. Those salamanders are yellowish brown with two dark lines and fairly slender heads without the Desmog face. It's hard to pick up on, but if you look at lots of photos of each genus, things start to stand out.
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Apr 28, 2019 14:48
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Or you can put it into a test tube and start a colony! I have two carpenter ant queens at the moment, one has some brood that will hatch soon.
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Jun 8, 2019 06:37
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vortmax posted:
Sceloporus undulatus, an eastern fence lizard. Pretty common in some areas, males will have bright blue underside flaps that they use to communicate.
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Jul 6, 2019 06:14
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That's a Cuban tree frog, an invasive species that is decimating our native frogs.
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Aug 3, 2019 20:59
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If you find a mated queen, they're really neat for ant farms. I have a handful of queens sitting on brood/1-3 workers right now, and they're overall just fun to watch - there have been some neat threads on the forums, too.
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Aug 28, 2019 20:09
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my cat is norris posted:This toad friend still needs an ID. Any guesses? Looks like a California toad, Anaxyrus boreas, to me. I'm not an expert on west coast animals, but the two toads in that rough area are California toads and Yosemite toads. Yosemite toads don't typically have the line down the center.
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Oct 9, 2019 15:47
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I did the same thing. After seeing enough pictures or animals, you learn the differences, but I don't see western animals often. Basically, I just went through , narrowed it down by range, and then compared diagnostic features.
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Oct 12, 2019 04:54
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BOOTY-ADE posted:Hope he got better It's really rare to find spotted salamanders outside the breeding season, even if you flip rocks and logs. I've only seen them three or so times late season like that, and only once without flipping. They're common, but spend most of their time deep underground. Nice find! Edit: quoted wrong post, hate phone posting!
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Sep 18, 2020 17:36
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ArcMage posted:Went to get some worms for snake, found a newt. That's a redback salamander. They can be really common, sometimes with hundreds inhabiting one log (only saw that once, though). What kind of snake are you feeding worms to? I used to have a little dekay's snake that was really fun and she was a blast to feed worms to.
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May 13, 2021 07:19
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