Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey, I love the stories you guys have posted. Here's mine:

It was 1971 and I was still in high school, had never seen an alterna, but was already hooked on them even though the only pic I'd ever seen was the one in Wright and Wright. From what I read, they were poorly known and extremely rare so while I dreamed someday of seeing one, I wasn't expecting to ever find one.
Well, a friend, mentor, father figure who was totally hooked on snakes invited me on a trip with another herper in the summer of 71. We looped thru Arizona and on into West Texas. An old timer who'd actually found one gave us a locality in the Bend area and we gave it a try, heading out on one of those perfect warm moonless nights where the desert smelled like creosote, the cicadas were singing, and you knew there were snakes out. Sure enough, before dark, we found a big blacktail and a moment later, a suboc. By then , it had turned completely dark and as we rounded a bend in the road, there was a small snake moving quickly across the road. It looked like nothing any of us had ever seen. We were such novices that my companions hesitated at first to even pick it up until I yelled "alterna!" Whoops, hollers, dancing, the works. Handling that snake was like nothing I'd ever experienced -- it felt like the most precious jewel in the world. I was so hooked. So that's it.. they are so common you find them your first night on your first trip -- you just have to get the blacktails and subocs out of the way first!

Ha! It took me 3 more years and a LOT of nights before I found the next one so I learned it wasn't THAT easy. I did not find one on my own until one night when I came across the female in the pic below that I got off the Big Hill. That one I almost forgot to put the emergency brake on in my truck I was so excited. --Henry W

That's great Henry! I love hearing those stories. I've always been enamored with the old "snake frontier" stories. Having the opportunity to find something that's poorly known is a real rush. I liked the old days of heading out on any given stretch of highway with no idea as to what you might find. Those years of driving down the road with an old field guide in hand in order to identify what you saw were some of the most exciting. I remember sitting in Dr. Degenhardt’s office many years ago and listening to him recount the alterna he’d seen while working in Big Bend National Park back in the early 50’s. I would have loved to see the Bend back then.

Thanks for sharing!

That is very cool Henry. Do you have any photos of the first one you found in '71?? Thanks for sharing. BA

I may have some whole body shots somewhere but this is the only shot I could find easily. This is my first, collected in June of 1971. --HW

And then, about 2 or three years after finding that one, Henry continued the mentoring traditon and dragged a completely clueless, but enthusiastic 9th grader to be, down to the Bend (and later on the same trip to the Huachucas)for a couple of glorious days and nights.What was he thinking to put up with me, and what were my parents thinking to let me go off on a trip with a senior in highschool when I was 4 years younger. Simple answer-because it was Henry and because I have great parents.
We stayed half way down in a hotel in Ardmore OK and watched Richard Nixon's resignation speech. At the Bend we stayed in the little cottages in the basin for I think six bucks a night,, and Henry gave me a whirlwind intro to the park and the area and we visited the park ranger Gary Easterla?-who had gallon jars in his closets with blairs and alterna phases and caelenops. I had never seen any of those and they were breathtaking. We found a Lepidus curled up right, perfectly centered in a depression in the burro mesa pour off, found atrox and scutes and blacktails and of course two of my beloved subocs, one at Big Hill on the River Road. Still havent' found my first "one" but don't really care. Haven't quite earned one yet. Putt in less than 50 total nights hunting often in poor conditons. Seen em caught all around, was down there during the 4 banger and the Simpsons, but not my time yet. Sort of fantasize finding my first one in the Gap walking around down by Andy's, if he is still down there.Gives my something to think about on a cold bleak winter day. Thanks Henry ,Merry Christmas to be for you and yours.

Thanks for the kind words, Frank. That was a fun trip for 2 crazy highschoolers to do. Man, I'd never let my kids do a trip like that as a junior in high school! Different world now, I guess.

We need to meet down in the Bend sometime and find, I mean "observe", that first alterna for you. Maybe it will be like the one in the bush I found...they can be where you least expect them! --Henry W

First, great post. I wanted to ask, the alterna from Mexico, One of the tags said August. Is that when alterna move there? Is the observation season different than ours here?

I am sure anything will move ahead of a good front. Just curious on what your thoughts were for good ol' Mexico.

Did you observe any thayeri?

Best Wishes,

Steven Owens

I haven't really hunted that many nights in those areas (actually, I never hunted the stretch just north of Saltillo because the traffic was too deadly -- I found the 2 DORs there passing through). My gut feeling is that they are fairly abundant animals in that area just north of Saltillo. I probably only hunted a total of 5 nights in the Cuesta la Muralla locality and my friends Ron Savage and Steve Hale maybe did a total of an additional 10-15 nights. Out of that, we saw 5 AOR and DOR there and I field collected one there. We found animals in June, July, and August so I can't address a most common time to collect there. Seems like the June breeding season would be the best but I really don't know if it is the same there or not.

As to thayori, yes, I found a number of them. When I have time, I'll post a few pics and tell a story of the scariest one.
Cheers,
HW

I would love to see some thayeri and hear the stories.

Thanks so much Henry. Story time please. Curl up by the fire, grap a stick and Mallow.

I am up for some "tales from the cut".

Best Wishes,

Steven Owens

Hope this doesn't get me booted from the forum for talking thayori instead of alterna....

No pics tonight but maybe later this week. Bet you never thought a mexicana could be scary...

This was around 1980. My friend Bruce Smith and I had been on the road quite a while in Texas and mainly in Mexico (we were legit - had a permit). We were being chased by a hurricane that was coming in on the Gulf coast of northern Mexico and bringing extremely heavy rains thru the region. Our focus was on the Lampropeltis in the eastern Sierra Madre and we were spending time in highland Nuevo Leon cruising and field collecting. We had already found a heartbreaking knockout brilliant red blotched thayori DOR that looked for all the world like a midwest syspila and were hoping we could come up with a live version. We decided to try a different road that particular night, one that heads east across the highlands and then down through canyons as it heads toward the coastal plain. It wasn't too long before we saw a fast moving 3' snake whipping across the road. It was an obvious tricolor and we dashed out with high hopes. It took a minute to make out the pattern it was thrashing so hard -- Bruce had welder's gloves and he carefully grabbed it -- I wasn't going to touch it -- it turned out to be a large and very deadly looking coral snake. Not exactly what we were after but we picked it up for photos and released it later.

On we went, finding nothing and getting rather discouraged. After a long time driving with nothing and turning back, we'd just come onto the highlands again and there was another fast-moving snake. We could see it was another tricolor. We jumped out, expecting another coral snake but as we got close, we could tell it was not at all like the coral we'd seen earlier. The thing was moving so fast it was really hard to see WHAT the heck it was. I yelled to Bruce: "What the Hell is it?" I think I reached down to grab it and Bruce stopped me -- we were both worried it was poisonous. It's band sequence was red touch black but I wracked my brain for anything that fit what we were seeing. It had very distinct rings that were very different from the Micrurus and of course it did not have the band sequence. But then I thought I remembered some poisonous tricolor species further south that had the red touch black sequence. Could this be a new species like that one? Did I want to risk my life to find out?! Bruce had left his gloves in the truck and the thing was about to get away from us. What would you do? At this point, we did not even vaguely think it was a thayori. The band pattern was simply too regular for a mex and the head was way more triangulum looking, at least the little we thought we could see. At that moment, Bruce said he was sure it had to be a kingsnake of some sort and grabbed it. It promptly turned around and bit him and we got a look first hand at it's teeth -- no fangs!

Of course you know by now that this was a thayori. There had not been any that looked like this as far as we knew and we wondered if it was a triangulum/mex hybrid or something. It was a very cool snake. I would like to show photos but unfortunately have none of it so you will have to take my word for how it looked. I'll post shots of other thayori we found later. So that's the scariest mex I ever found... The reality is that by that time after camping for a month or so, Bruce and I undoubtedly looked much scarier than any snake. --Henry W

So the Thayeri looked a bit "mex-mex"? Is that what made the band counts so "regular"?

Thanks very much for the story. I good one and yes scary...

I will be the first to admit I don't know squat about the hot stuff south of the border.

Best Wishes,

Steven Owens

The bands on the animal were much more even and regular than any mex mex I have seen. In addition, there was no gray on the animal, it was just black-yellow-red. The snake acted jumpy and fast like an annulata (but was definitely not that) and it had the sort of faded or blackened look of some of the large triangulums you see further south. Bruce and I jokingly called it a Microangulum. I did not do scale counts at the time and shortly after that got out of herps entirely as I pursued my career in archaeology. I think it ended up with Steve Hale and presumably the University of Arizona pickled collection when it died (that was my intent). Has anyone seen anything like this produced from captive-bred thayori? To give you an idea of how weird we thought it was, we were actually very careful putting it with other snakes as it sure looked like a species that would be chowing down on its brethren. In hindsight, maybe it really wasn't a thayori -- maybe it was a new species of triangulum. I'd sure like to go find another! --HW

I would certainly like to go with you!!! Until then, and until I find my first alterna, I will have to tough it out with the Black Gap duo I picked up from Chris Garcia this year. The male is a real mellow fellow but she is a baaaad girl! Here they both are, him being nice and she is just naughty, I tried to take some artsy Christmas shots and she sent Santa's snowy village into turmoil! She's gettin' nuthin' for Christmas....'cept all the tlc she can stand! OOOH, but I love dem bad girls! I gotta give her credit for tryin to make nice with Santa later, he digs his new necktie from west Texas!

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Todd Hughes

>>We had already found a heartbreaking knockout brilliant red blotched thayori DOR that looked for all the world like a midwest syspila

Henry,
I need a general vicinity of the animal you mention above? Can you e-mail an approximate locality?
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http://www.hcu-tx.org

Sure, Joe. I need to consolidate my field notes which has been on my list for a while. Will send when I get things together. --Henry W

Cool story. Can't wait for some pics.