Posted by:
JediKnight1971
at Wed Nov 25 11:49:53 2009 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by JediKnight1971 ]
Bob, talk about taking a stroll down memory lane! The very first light blairs that I saw was in the collection of a school teacher in Crane and was from this particular locality. What a stunning animal!
D.Wuerch and I obtained permission from Ms. Speck who owned several canyons on the northeast side of the mesa. We went there in September of '94 to scope it out, and while we didn't see any alterna that night, we saw several other species, including A.c.pictigaster, B. subocularis, and C. molossus.
It was also where I saw my first alterna in the wild ('95), and although I was not the collector (Wuerch took that honor!), it was still a rush.
When I moved to an area about 2 hours from this locality in 1996, this was one of the areas that I would frequent with regularity. In 1997, I took a good friend of mine from SA to look for alterna, and on his first night out, we found 2!
There were (and yes, I said WERE) three main areas to hunt there on that mesa. The most popular for all of the commercial guys from Lubbock was the west side (radio towers area). There were several found there, including a neat-looking almost alterna phase that Hollister and McAdams found. Most from the west side were always dark blairs with muddy orange. That road was closed down in the late 90's.
The east side was always tricky due to land owners who did not appreciate "hunters" on that road. That held true with the local authorities as well, especially when they were told by McAdams that alterna from there were rare and worth up to $1,000 apiece. The road itself was really neat, nearly one full mile of continuous cuts up the mesa. Most of the animals from this area were also dark blairs, but ones with clean orange showed up from time to time, as well a couple of light blairs. I was there the night Shane caught those two, I was on my way to El Paso and stopped on King Mtn. to see if anything was moving. The light one that they found was really nice. This road was closed sometime around 2003 when they started putting up the wind turbines.
The last area to hunt was by far the most productive for me. It was the Speck Ranch on the northeast side, and although we only got to go out there for a couple of years before Ms. Speck passed, we saw several alterna and most of them were light blairs. On any given night, it would not be uncommon to see up to a dozen pics and 4-5 molossus.
Here are some "old-school" pics from back in the day:
My first alterna to see (not collect) in the wild:
Here is her mate that we obtained in '98:
Here are a couple from the east side road that were pretty typical for this mesa:
Here is the Hollister/McAdams female from the west side (radio towers):
And a couple more from the west side:
Hope you enjoyed my stroll...
Happy herpin'...
MP
And a co
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RE: king's mountain locale - JediKnight1971, Wed Nov 25 11:49:53 2009