Posted by:
varanid
at Mon Oct 5 22:14:46 2009 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by varanid ]
Prairies and diamondbacks are the most common snakes I find up here, so your odds are good. They're pretty much all over. There's two prairie dog towns that have populations--one's near WT campus, in Canyon (which is near Palo Duro Canyon), and there's one in wildcat bluff, which I mentioned earlier. There's a dog town establishing itself in city limits, on some recently disturbed land (near a new strip mall) but it hasn't picked up resident snakes yet. It may not cause it's right of the interstate. Those have been my best bets. They actually have a trail leading out to the dog town in wildcat bluff. It's a real easy walk--like 1/3 of a mile--and odds are good of finding at least one rattler if you go during mid morning.
In palo duro, road cruising works for rattlers; they're all over the park and I've seen them on every trail I've tried. Although, I don't see them every time, I'd say about 2/3 of the times I go out I find at least one. I find mostly atrox out in the canyon, mostly prairies out in Wildcat bluff. I've only found a few rattlers (all atrox) out in Buffalo Lake, but I've been there less often than the others.
We in theory have massasauga out here too--Western I think--but I've never found one so have no real advice on that. Those, lined snakes, and our resident lampropeltis (I think we have 3 species of those) are the only species that occur here I haven't found since I moved out in 2002. I'm about to give up hope on those.
You might want to talk to Matlack or Kazmier at WT college too. Kazmeir can be kind of cranky, but he's a wealth of herping knowledge and has a huge ongoing study of local rattlesnake populations. I *wouldn't* say paul sent you cause I don't think he likes me very much :D I was a smart-a$$ in our herpetology class and managed to get really sick on a class herping trip. Dude has a tank of sirens in his office, and a freaking fly river turtle in his collection in the basement (I think it got seized by F&W and he wound up with it). If he'll give you a tour, he's got some amazing animals, including a good group of rattlesnakes.
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RE: Road trip - varanid, Mon Oct 5 22:14:46 2009