Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just thought I'd post a couple of new images. Here's one of my favorite Langtry alternas collected by a California herpetologist who nearly died on the trip back home (asleep at the wheel, rolled his car in AZ). Sadly this animal and 3-4 others perished and I heard he had a long and painful recovery. The alterna deserves to be remembered! It is one of the very few wild-caught light phase black-headed alterna morphs I've seen. Collecting data: May 14 at 11:05pm, 2.7 mi E of Langtry on 90. This was in the late 1970s. If the collector is around still, I'd love to touch bases after all these years. I won't name names here without his permission although others here probably know him.

--Henry W.

Henry, Thanks for posting the photo. I've never seen a black capped alterna morph from anywhere except Loma Alta. Very cool.
BA

That's a nice snake from that area. Funny thing is that most people don't seem to spend too much time collecting east of Langtry like they do collecting west of Langtry. The area that snake is from is around the Eagles Nest area which has a history of producing some nice alterna morphs.

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Steve W.

That certainly beats the vast majority of those Blair thingies found in and around Langtry. Great snake, too bad that it met an early demise, at least the finder did not. Thanks for taking the time to post this blast from the past Henry.

DB

I remember that snake. I believe that my dad has a photo of that snake, along with two other alterna morphs found around Langtry that same week (alterna morphs are few and far between around Langtry). I will have to look go over and look at my dad's pics and refresh my memory. One of my all time favorite animals that I have seen.

I just talked to my dad. I had my story a little messed up (I was eight at the time so you have to cut me a little slack). There were only two snakes and the other one came from over by Comstock. Your snake in the picture was collected right in front of my dad. He was sick. He still has never found an alterna morph at Langtry, and he has found a couple of hundred from there over the years. I will try to scan a copy of his pic and post.

Bob, Thanks for clarifying my obviously feeble memory! I am pleasantly amazed at the knowledge still out there of herping from so long ago. --Henry W

Hi Henry,

You have two different snakes and two different people combined together in your memory. The snake pictured in your post has the correct location and date, but it was found by Mike Geiger (aka the Delaware kid). The snake was a juvenile female, and one of two alterna morphs Mike found on that trip. The other was an adult male from near Pandale that became known as the "Geiger Blue". That individual later became infamous as Tom Boyden's hatband.

The snake that perished in the car accident outside Gila Bend, AZ was an adult female found on the dirt Pandale road just over the RR tracks starting up the south slope of "Blair's Hill". That snake was taken in June 17 1978 by Brian McGurty and myself. At the end of our trip I went on to Dallas and Brian attempted to make a straight drive back to CA, during which he fell asleep at the wheel. The resulting single-car accident led to the snakes we had found on that trip laying out in the desert for more than 12 hours before being recovered. All but one of the eleven had already died from heat. A post mortem photo of this alterna can be seen in the Val Verde gallery on this page. It was submitted by Craig Hodgson.

I hope this unravels the story for you. I'm amazed that anyone remembers things from that far back. It also reminds me that some of us are getting old.

Cheers,
Bob Haase

That is the same story that my dad told me this afternoon.

You have a remarkeable memory for alterna! Do you happen to recall where the following snake was collected?

Looks like a Pumpville to me
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"And the rest is all in his head"

Is that one of Bryan's Iraan animals?

Happy herpin'...

MP

It looks to me like somewhere around Sanderson. It's remarkably similar to some of the ones you have produced from north of town animals.

So what's the story/locality of this snake Damon?

DB

Bob apparently caught it and another back in the late
90’s. Maybe he’ll be able to enlighten us as to
where.

Bob?

But I want to see what Bob remembers

This one goes with it:

Lance
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Herp Conservation Unlimited

Awesome looking snake, Anyone would love to find that. It is amazing that the "gods" can remember the individual stories of snakes collected 30 years ago.
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South Texas Herps

just.....WOW......did pops tell you how mhch he offered the del kid?????......i think mike gave it to ron savage ?????.....to breed i think it died during hiber....opps brumation.....verification???

I don't think Ron ever had an animal like that. Just for kicks, here's one animal he found, given we were talking about klauberi earlier. Can you guys guess where its from? --HW

Henry,

Is that a Durango klauberi? Looks like a greeri too, but I know that Ron used to catch rattlesnakes with gloves. That's an OLD picture.

Cheers,

Terry Vandeventer

yup! looks like a Durango klauberi

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http://www.hcu-tx.org

Yeah, its a Durango. --HW