When October wanes and November approaches, I start to wonder about when my herping season will end. What will be the last herp of the year? Can I see one more new thing, or have I already added the last new species? And most importantly, how can I prolong my herping season? I’ve been working for most of this year on a book project (one of the reasons blog posts here have been scarce) and needed to meet with my co-author, Josh Holbrook. The last week of October I made the nine-hour drive to Josh’s home in western North Carolina. Josh teaches biology at Montreat College, nestled in a picturesque valley along the edge of the Pisgah National Forest, and…
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The neonate tzabcan had crawled out of a cornfield, and was making its way to dense forest on the other side of the road when it was smashed flat against the pavement by a passing vehicle. We stopped to take a look at the unfortunate little rattlesnake; I took a photo voucher and a data point, and we went back to road-cruising. After passing that spot several times, Matt and Tim wanted out of the car, figuring that Mama Tzabcan, or siblings of the squashed snake, might still be over in that field. Their flashlights and headlamps disappeared from view as I whipped a u-turn and road-cruised solo for a while, maximizing our efforts. Five miles down the road I…
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One of the hallmark activities of field herping, driving on (preferably) lonely roads at night can be incredibly productive at times. In the United States there are some famous and infamous roads for road cruising; Mexico is chock full of them, and other countries have their share. I’m here to tell you about an unusual one, a singular road in a place more suitable for dugout canoes than tires on asphalt. Iquitos, former headquarters of Peru’s long-defunct rubber boom and home to nearly a half million humans, is a land-locked island on the Amazon River. There are no roads to Iquitos – one arrives there by boat, or by air. All things necessary for life in Iquitos arrive in the…
