Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is actually an experiment in posting multiple pics,lol. These are some gravid female cerbs from this year. They often congregate at certain sites to gestate.

They also all seem to go into shed in the exact same week. Thes sites seem tobe the same sites that the females were born at and probably represent several generations of mothers/daughters/siblings. I have even seen non-gravid females siblings join in the piles for short periods before they move on to forage.

A few will use individual gestation sites.

and another,

Gestation usually runs from egress in May till late Aug. or Sept. when the babies are born.

a basking pile.

I would have loved to see a good shot of that light colored animal to the left. It looks like a lutosus from that photo.

There were six females that used this rock and an adjacent rock all summer. The light colored lutosus looking female has a daughter that is even lighter and looks much like a scute at first glance. These snakes were very wary and tough to get pics of, which is a bit unusual as cerbs usually lay perfectly quiet and let everything pass them by. An elk trail passes very close to this site and a bear/bears pass through this area about twice each season and tear things up pretty good, so this might account for their nervousness.

There is another denning area that I didn't get to this summer(I only have time to keep track of 3-4 each season) that has several very beautiful cinnamon colored females with white or yellow interspacing. They remind me a lot of some of the prettier oreganus I have seen. I plan to include that one next summer and hopefully can get some good pics of color variations.

I look forward to seeing some of those shots next year.

Would you consider the color variation a normal phenomena within a cerb population or an abbarency? I know they can vary from shades of brown to gray to jet black but that photo was the first I have seen of that color.

Of course it also varies from one population to another. I would say the northernmost populations along the Mogollon Rim seem to display the most variation and variation seems to decrease as you go south.

in shed.

with rear third hanging out.

just hangin' out.