After our daytime photo session with the tree-loving Tropidolaemus, we spent the day making a long drive south to the Krabi area. As we got closer to the border with Malaysia, we began to see more Muslim influences among the people there, and in the food choices available to us. Travel means rolling with the changes and embracing new things, and for my part, banana roti for breakfast was easily embraceable. That night we engaged in some city herping, visiting an old temple that was once out in the countryside, but was now surrounded on all sides by a rapidly expanding urban area. We parked on a nearby street and immediately upon entering the property we encountered our first serpent,…
-
-
After a good night’s sleep and a good breakfast, we were ready to get back at it. From here on out, our days had a repeatable pattern – drive a bit, herp in appropriate habitat, drive some more, and then herp again after dark. We would be up in the hills and down on the coast, bouncing back and forth as we made our way south. The food was good, the people were friendly, and the countryside had no end of things to look at as we went along. The karst limestone escarpments were spectacular, and I was looking forward to seeing more of them in the light of day. This morning we stopped at several temples up in the…
-
While in Peru back in January of 2023, I was having a conversation with Pete Mooney about possible herp trip collaborations. Pete and I have herped together in a number of places, including Peru, and a delightful trip to Cuba a few years earlier. “I’m so jealous of your southern Thailand trip,” I said, speaking of an adventure Pete had the previous year. At the time I had been to Thailand twice, but had not visited the southern peninsula region. As it turned out, Pete was open for a second visit, and so we set the wheels in motion for a June expedition. As with previous visits, we made our arrangements through TonTan Travel. Our friends Tony and Tan specialize…
-
Here’s another ‘pod blog’, providing supplemental material for Episode 124: Herp Science Sunday with Justin Lee. In this episode of HSS, Dr. Alex Krohn and I had a conversation with Justin Lee, currently working on his PhD at the University of Michigan. The bulk of our conversation centered around the genus Oligodon, of which Justin is a subject matter expert. Justin has authored and co-authored a number of papers on Kukri snakes, describing new species, and producing an updated phylogeny of Oligodon in 2024. The material I am presenting here, including some of my Oligodon photos, supports the podcast episode; if you haven’t listened yet, I think it’s an entertaining segment featuring a very cool snake genus, and an up-and-coming…
-
…”dear friends, once more…” I haven’t posted here since the second week of January in 2022, which was also the week I received my first Covid vaccination. You would think that being retired and house-bound by a pandemic would afford ample opportunities to get some writing done, but hard times are not always the best crucible for creativity, despite what you hear. And I was pouring a lot of effort into my then-new podcast, which easily absorbed all of my free time and creative energy. No complaints about that, but I had little left in the tank for the written word, not even for the Hot Stove Herping posts, heavy with thrill and chill but light on research and thoughtful…
-
There are many ways to discover amphibians and reptiles – you can road-cruise for them, flip rocks and logs and trash, or even just walk them up. But if you haven’t made use of boardwalks, you’re missing out. There are a lot of boardwalks out there in parks, preserves, and natural areas, and birders make good use of them. As it happens I’ve spotted a number of interesting herps from boardwalks crowded with birders, all of them looking up or out while my focus is considerably closer to the ground. Boardwalks typically allow access to wet areas like swamps or marshes, and this past April I spent some time at a swamp boardwalk in the Jean Lafitte National Historic Park…
-
In early July of 2020 I made my way west to Otero County, Colorado, to participate in the annual COPARC herp survey. Otero is in the eastern portion of the state and part of it encompasses the Comanche National Grasslands. The grasslands are cut by a number of canyons, and the Purgatoire River passes through it. I had last visited the area in 2007, when I did a little herping and hiked down into Picketwire Canyon to see the dinosaur trackways there. I was going back to help survey the county for amphibians and reptiles, which consisted of hiking canyons and shallow rivers during the day, and road-cruising at night. Fifty-plus people showed up for the survey, which is the…
