Reptile & Amphibian Forums

any tips on finding rough greens and scarlet kings. i hunt an area known by fellow students to be full of scarlet kings. i'm reluctant to pull a bunch of bark like they do, and when i do i only find ringnecks anyway. know of any other methods for these small kings?

more importantly i NEED to find a rough green next season. i find 'em fresh DOR sometimes during the day but never a live one. i've heard you can look through thick verdant vegetation near streams and ponds but it's never produced for me. any tips (after rain, road cruising, night spotlighting) would be appreciated.

i probably found 50 or so snakes on the georgia piedmont last season but the vast majority were canebrakes and copperheads while night roadcruising. best finds were a huge copper, huge 4.5 foot canebrake, big eastern king, and my favorite of all time a scarlet snake.

Wish I could help but in S. Florida we have a very different Bioclime for greens. I commonly find them in the everglades crossing roads and sometimes sitting on pine tree branches.
Scarletts are under bark or ground debris (human generated). Especially old rotten tree trunks (pine)that have separated and left a space between bark and wood. You can also find scarletts at night climbing trees.
Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

for greens,
go to a known area and look in shrubs near water.

Agreed. Especially vines and creepers of sorts along creeks and streams. If you sit and just stare, often their shape just sort of pops out at you. They aren't really uncommon, just not easily seen. I went years without seeing any, found 2 in 2 days, then havn't seen one in about 6 months. Andy
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Andy Maddox
AIM: SurfAndSkimTx04
MSN: Poloboy32486@hotmail.com
Houston Herp Key
The Reptizone

Burgundy baby, With your blue eyed soul, You play the hits and I'm on that roll, Capricorn sister, Freddie Mercury, Jupiter Child cry

It often takes a keen eye to spot these buggers amongst the greenery, but it can be done. They're fairly common here in central OK, probably more so than most people think since they're almost invisible in vegetation. They have been described as almost semi-aquatic, but I rarely see them right at the water's edge. More often, they're 20-30 feet or so from the nearest water. They seem to like climbing in relatively short vegetation, but I've also seen a fair share of them on the ground. One trick is to look in areas where the greenery is interrupted on the ground by bare soil, rocks, etc. - where their camouflage deserts them and they become prominently visible. Trails and paths through areas of vegetation are good places to look; keep an eye on the path itself. In the same vein, you might try looking as early into the season as possible, on the first warm days before much of the vegetation has reawakened and the foliage is still relatively bare. Good luck.
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MichaelB