Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was reading the posts below and was just wondering where you live that there are a couple of hundred lizards per acre to be collected? At least that is what I read in one post. I have herped from Florida to California, Texas to Alaska, and aside from dening snakes in Canada and the dredge piles in California in the spring. I have never seen hundreds of reptiles per acre of land anywhere. I guess I just live in and have visited the wrong areas or at the wrong time of year. I have seen toadlets and froglets by the thousands when they are first emerging from the water after their metamorphis from tadpoles in the spring. When I lived in Florida there were anoles everywhere, but; I seriously doubt that there were anywhere near that many per acre, maybe they were just really good at hiding. Jack

You hit thenail on the head-anytime you're out in the field, you're unlikely to actually see more than a tiny percentage of the lizards which actually inhabit the area of your search-they are both extremely wary, very alert, and very good at hiding....

Brad Chambers

I have about a quarter acre lot in St. Augustine (Northeast) Florida. It would not be a stretch to say there are at least two hundred anoles living on my 1/4 acre lot.

I also lived in St Augustine Florida and as I said they were abundant but must of hid very well during my many forays into the surrounding areas, I would see a great many lizards, I just wouldn't see them on each and every tree and bush, ( not that they weren't there). I never did go out with a UV light and look at night so maybe they were there by the hundreds or thousands. I started my herping in ST Augustine in the summer of 1977. I would visit my relatives in the shores. I saw my first wild Eastern Indigo on Wildwood dr that year. Way back when St Augustine was tiny. Jack

Was that before the brown anoles took over? There are still a few native green anoles, but they are out numbered 50 to 1 by the Cuban brown anole. Interesting tidbit about the invasion of the brown anole in the column on the left of the page...
http://invasions.bio.utk.edu/invaders/sagrei.html

I wonder when the population reached North Florida in significant numbers?

Where did you herp around here?

Thanks,
Tom

Hi Tom, from 1977 to 1990 I never saw a brown anole in ST Augustine. I first noticed one in the early ninties and basicly thought it was a less common species of anole that I had just never seen around before. Now in 2006 as you say, they are the more dominate species. I herped lots of different places in and around the area. In the late 70's and early 80's the shores had not expanded much past where shores blvd and deltona blvd met at the back part of the developement, but; shores blvd continued for a couple of miles out to Hwy 1. All that area was still pristine. On the east side of the road there wasn't any development at all, clear to the inland waterway and for the most part all the way down to road 206. I would go out to Hastings and cruise all the back roads and field access roads. In the little town of spuds on CR 207 there was a small land fill behind the town and beyond the land fill was lots of open unfenced, unposted land with lots of herp habitat. The area between wildwood rd and moultrie creek, and Hwy 1 was undeveloped and had several creeks and wetlands all through it. The train tracks that run along side Hwy 1 were a good spot because it gave access to a lot of inaccessable areas. I would ride my dirt bike along the tracks and stop at times to hunt around. Along Hwy 1 every once in a while they would bulldoze a couple of hundred acres and just leave these big debris piles every hundred yards or so. And then for years they wouldn't do anything more to the land. Well within six months to a year these piles became great herping areas. I saw most of gopher tortises on the west side of Hwy 1 along with almost of my Eastern Indigo sightings. But probably the best place I knew was an old dirt road that connected Cr 206 to CR 13 that went right through fish swamp, there was always something to be found on the road. Jack