About a year and 0ne half ago, we HMK and I decided to have some fun and investigate N.A. vinesnakes, JUST FOR FUN, as in something different. As they "ARE" the very rarest(least known about) of the diurnal terrestrial active snakes. That is, most other snakes that do this type of activity are thought of as common, like racers, garders, waters, even cryptic species like the greensnakes.

So to answer your question, its IBT was 93F. But in the last year, we have seen them from mid-mourning to just at dark, in a fairly wide range of temps from very cold days and to all but the hottest days. Consider this local is approx 5000 &-, ft. At this time, the night lows are in the high thirties and low forties, daytime highs in the eighties. Which is only of minor concern. More importantly, the ground surface temps are still soaring way over 100F, averaging 145 to 160F in the sun.

I am sure they will move over the surface in every month of the year, but almost nothing have been recorded on this species. It appears to be actively moving about in the same conditions as mountain patchnose which are known to move over the surface year-a-round.

In our first year of casual investigation, I found ten individuals in two localities. Compared to 15 greenrats in the same area, 19 patchnose in the same area and times(all three) These three were the most commonly encountered species in this area. Our investigation at this time was to survey the road, no field collecting, which is highly prejudiced. With field collecting you can sway the results by how you look. Although this last greenrat was not on the road, I was. hahahahahahahhaha. Sonoran racers were next followed by lyresnakes, blackheaded snakes, gophersnakes, blacktailed rattlesnakes, tiger rattlesnakes, western diamondback rattlesnakes, garders, hooknose, coralsnakes, hmmmmmmm probably a couple more species. We mostly looked from mid-day, my other field partner gets off work at 1 pm, Until dark.

As mentioned, this is a casual investigation, I think I went there, around ten times this year. So basically ten, half days.

Also I missed the best time of the year, as I was on my real study site at that time.

I mentioned two locals, which is odd, because they are 7 miles apart, and are two different mountain ranges. Whats odd is, the mountains are continous??????????? That is, they are not broken up by a division like a river or valley.

I have a question for you, what kind of habitat do you think vinesnakes and greenrats, for that matter, occur in? Thanks FR

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