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…
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Our big group, swelled even larger by the addition of Alex and Nhut, landed at Hanoi and made their way to a hotel in the old French quarter of the city. How exciting to visit a place that for years seemed completely out of reach! We were heading out of Hanoi the next morning, but this day and night were ours to explore and enjoy the old quarter. In the morning we boarded a chartered bus and headed south and east to Cuc Phuong, Vietnam’s oldest national park, which is situated on line of forested, karsty hills. We checked in with park headquarters, and then rode the last leg down the park road for twenty klicks, terminating at a little…
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I retired from the University of Illinois on May 1st. On the 23rd I boarded a flight to Kuala Lumpur, kicking off a 31 day excursion to 5 countries in southeast Asia. Malaysia was my first stop, and I met up with friends Dan, Kevin, Adam, and Kurt. During our stay, we herped upland and lowland forests. On our first night in KL we herped a nearby forest with great success. Our first herp was a Peter’s bow-fingered gecko, Cyrtodactylus consobrinus. Kurt spotted a snake in a small tree – a blue bronzeback, Dendrelaphis cyanochloris. This species inflates its body to show a brilliant blue on the tips of the scales, but it was tough to get the snake to…
