Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Photos from this week.
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.. this next one was photographed in south Brownsville, Texas.
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Interesting snakes.
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Have fun, be safe.
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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

Gus, how do you find the time? Lovin' the split blotches on those Brazos Island rats. What have you found of Mex milks down your way?
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Todd Hughes

>>Gus, how do you find the time? Lovin' the split blotches on those Brazos Island rats. What have you found of Mex milks down your way?
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>>Todd Hughes

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Well, it's a 30 minute drive from here to the South Jetty (north end of Brazos island).. I can put a fishing rod in the truck and have that as a backup-plan, which can also become the primary plan. So it doesn't have to take take that much time to go check things out (but of of course it does, you're right).
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Finding Milksnakes in Cameron county is increasingly difficult and hasn't been easy for many years. The area north of state HWY 100 and east of a line roughly from Los Fresnos to Arroyo city contains a few sites. Flipping milksnakes in deep South Texas anywhere, except for perhaps the barrier island populations, is a multi-year project with a window of opportunity each season that is very narrow. In the 'good old days' it was possible to encounter a milksnake in Cameron and Willacy counties active at practically any time of the year if the conditions were favorable (not too cold or too dry).. I got a milksnake as recently as 2002 in January out on a clay road in northern Cameron county, a friend and I were putting out a hog-trap. The snake was in full view in the middle of the day. Though certainly May-September are the prime months for seeing Mexican milksnakes across most of the area.
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I know you didn't ask for this much info but here goes anyway.. This is an exceptionally difficult year for early collecting. We have a short season for flipping snakes in any year (usuallly February-March), the remperatures have been OK, we had a nice cold front last night.. but the soil moisture in most places is way too low and it's been extremely dry and windy. Once a piece of tin or a pile of roofing has been disturbed it loses that seal or whatever that holds the moisture on the surface and in the layers and the animals leave and don't come back.. so it's a one-shot deal.
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Then too we have all tthe other problems.. development, canal maintenance, industrial agriculture techniques.. and fire ants! Unless you know exactly where to go it is increasingly hard to see a representative group of herptiles in deep south Texas and may be almost impossible if you don't have access to private land.
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Good herpin'
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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

Haha, Gus, any light you shed is good, in any amount! As it is in the deep south, so it is in the central coastal south. It has been a pretty good winter for moisture, but not often enough. I completely understand about the seals being broken, and watch the herptiles fade into the cracked hard clay that passes as soil in Nueces county. I had three dor milks on 77S in kennedy county and three more in Kleberg. I usually turn back from a cruise at Raymondville, but sometimes my job takes me down into Brownsville or the island. I am always on short time on a working trip, so the cruise along 77 is what I enjoy most. Yep, private land and leases are the way of the field herping future, I guess.
Thanks for the skinny on the milks, the island populations here are still here, but the mainland milks have always been hard for me to find. The Mustang Island milks look to be an intergrade pop with amaura.Post em up when you get a chance, your pics are always good!
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Todd Hughes

Neat Snakes from a very cool area.

John

Very nice snakes, Gus! Thanks for posting those photos. Pantherophis (Elaphe) emoryi "meahllmorum" is my favorite snake of South Texas. Those Brazos Island animals are very interesting, and I would love to see them in the wild some day.

-Toby Brock
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The Ratsnake Foundation

Southwestern Center for Herpetological Research

That first one has some crazy-shaped dorsal blotches,
but they're all really nice looking snakes.

Tim

Gus, always love seein' those Brazos Island ratsnakes. One of the prettiest..

Thanks...Terry

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Ratsnake Foundation

Cool, never seen rats from the far south

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Herp Conservation Unlimited