Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello all,
My brother and I are planing a trip donwn to new mexico the last week of October, and the plan so far is to leave Denver colorado and head south to hopefully Las Cruces area. does anyone know of any good websites i can go to to brush up on the herp life in that area? or any helpfull hints on areas or when to look? the primary target species we hope to see is Ringneck snakes, longnose snakes, texas banded geckos, or if we are really lucky a Lyre snake, or maybe possibly a trans pecos ratsnake.
we are all for photography and unless we see plentiful amounts of a species we will not remove anything from its natural habitat. even then it would most likely be inverts like turantulas and centipedes. so far my plan for colorado's herps is i take my laptop with me on our herping trips and whenever i see something i bring a notebook and keep a of log the time of day/night, the size of the animal, the temprature(i keep a little temp gun in my pocket), and weather conditions. i hope to get the National geographic's 3D topo map program and a GPS sometime to help with more accurate sighting markers but for now its just doin it by hand.

Late October is kind of late for roadhunting in southern NM. Nightime lows could be in the 40s by that time and daytime highs should only be in the mid 70s. Right after dusk might be OK, but it will probably get pretty cold very fast.

You can still find herps, however. Lizards and snakes will be out in the day. Rattlesnakes will probably be around their dens basking during the day. You can find Ringnecks active in the late afternoon by hiking around in rocky areas in the foothills and mountains.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Hey, I wish I could denver and head to southern New Mexico, but i'd find this book that pretty much tells you all about new mexico herp life, it's called "Amphibians and Reptiles of New Mexico" i can't remeber all the authors but i know one of them is Charlie Painter, also the www.reptilesofaz.com would be good, just look in the southeastern corner of the state and you can almost apply every species of herps their near Las Cruces, but a word of advice is this, head to the Chiricuas and Huachucas in Southeastern Arizona, the herpings much better.

If you head a couple hours west towards the Guadalupe Mountains, I may be able to help.

nmherper(at)hotmail(dot)com

hey thanks for the help everyone, i do have another couple questions though. we have a very limited budget ever since school started again and we were planning on staying for a week or so but it sounds almost like holding off until next spring would be better than using a ton of money and time when its to cold. or am i mistaken and it will still be worth it but some of the more sensitive species will be hidden? im new to researching new mexico so i dont really know what the best time of year is to go or when the best time of day/night is. i would imagine that it would be very similar to colorado though. if we were to go this year what would be the primary species of both snake and lizard that would be active right now? or does anyone know of indicator species? like whenever my brother and i go out up here we have found that once the woodhouses toads stop showing up that you can pretty much call it a night and hit the sac until morning. once again thank you all for the help youve already given.

I would say spring would be a better bet. There is still plenty of stuff in October, but you are limited to diurnal stuff mainly. Unless you know of some dens, stuff starts becoming harder to find. Last year I went out on Oct 16 and found a gopher snake, coachwhip, and a blacktail rattlesnake. The last snake of the year for me was an atrox at the beginning of December.

Southeast New Mexico is the lowest elevation in the state. I believe near the TX border it dips below 3000'. Generally the temperatures are warmer earlier and later in the year than other parts of the state.

Hey once again thank you all for the help you have given me.

due to the time of year, school, work, and all my brother and i have decided to postpone our herping trip from denver to Las Cruces until spring, which brings a whole bunch of new questions. like whats the best month in spring to see everything, or where should we head since we are going to plan for a longer trip, around a week to a week and a half long. should we go into Arazona? or would hitting southern texas be better? or is it just a preferance of species and habitat? if i start planning now i can get the program for whatever state and have my laptop all ready and set up. Erik you mentioned the Guadalupe mountians, would that be a good spot to go or would you wanna help us? or does anyone know of roads that go through the desert that we can look on at night? up here it seems like if you dont see roadkill then dont even bother looking at night on that road.
i kindda wanna find a texas banded gecko so i can compair it in the wild to captive bread leapord geckos. along with all the other species i had mentioned earlyer that we hope to photograph.

wow that was kindda long.. anyway thanks in advance for the help