Reptile & Amphibian Forums

As I'm sure Bob mentions on his website: greeri are found on the eastern slopes of the southern part of the Sierra Madre Occidental, and it's outlying sierras. The majority of animals you've seen in the pet trade come from the areas in and around highway 40.

In contrast to the steep cliffs and barrancas that characterize the western slopes (webbi habitat), the eastern portions of the 40 cut through slight plateaus and terrain that is comparatively "flat". Don't get me wrong, there are some steep canyons, but the point is that you can actually hunt there without fearing that you might fall to your death The habitat is mainly grass savannah studded with pine-oak forest.

An adult greeri was found just to the left of where this photo was taken, coiled beneath a large clump of bunchgrass.

Our reason for visiting is usually to observe the species of Crotalus in the area. However, in the process - or during moments of boredom - we look for these:

This adult Lampropeltis greeri was discovered beneath the bunchgrass mentioned above.

This adult pair was found in a vertical rock crack.

To the left of the habitat photo below, a small adult greeri was also found in a rock crevice.

-JJ

An interesting pattern this brings to mind is that both leonis phase thayeri and greeri (which superficially resemble leonis patterns) are found in the rain shadow of both mountain chains. Likewise milksnake phase thayeri and webbi (which are superficially milksnake like in pattern) are found on the more mesic side of the mountain chains.

While it would seem to make sense, the greeri from the Sierra Laurel in Aguascalientes & Jalisco don't fit that pattern.

Additionally, the sample of webbi is really just too darn small. Of the three we've seen, one was similar to Rob Bryson's juvie snake, one was almost completely banded (probably the snake you're most familiar with - the live animal on bob's site), and one was sort of intermediate, with large saddles.

To add something to the mix, the "mexicana" I posted below was found in habitat like this:

JJ

I would guess that it is like alterna were you find mostly alterna phase in some areas, mostly Blair's phase in some areas and then in some areas you find both Blair's and alterna phases together.

Chris Rodriguez and I arrived at a spot at 2PM. By the time it started to rain around 6:30PM we had found 3 willardi meridionalis, 1 pricei pricei & 4 greeri.

My feeling is that if you were to focus on greeri and spend all your time looking for them, it would be completely reasonable for one hunter to turn 10 in a day. The areas where we hunt are generally better for the Crotalus species than Lampro hunting.

JJ

Awesome snakes and habitat. What is the most number of greeri you have seen in a day and between how many hunters?
It looks similar to zonata hunting. The most zonata we have found in a day was 21 between 3 hunters but most of them were in an area where we had been many times and seen the same ones before.

np