Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We have had some warm and sunny weather here (Brownsville, Texas) and I've been itching to get out and dig around. I stopped off the highway and quickly turned up these cuties.

A pretty Patchnose snake (one of two)..
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A great looking Oaxacan racer! (Coluber c. oaxacus)..
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And this colorful guy.. (he was behaving, but don't try this at home, kids!)..
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Also encountered was one mild-mannered diamondback rattler, about 4 feet long, but I wasn't carrying her back to the Toyota for photos, no matter how nice she was acting. I guess collecting has officially started here..
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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

what direction from brownsville were you? i am from mission and under the impression that there are very few, if any atrox in the vacinity of the river. just trying to satisy a little personal curiosity. on a side note, i saw a blue indigo a couple miles north of san perlita last weekend.
thanks
mike

Hey Mike, I was actually in Brownsville, (north edge).. We've seen 5 or 6 indigo snakes since the SNOW DAY, none are blue that I've seen, many are very black, and a lot have brown faces ... plus a lot of other herps..

I've lived and herped in the Valley all of my life and I'd say there are plenty of Atrox along the river except in places where there's no habitat.. you'd be right in saying that the riparian forest areas aren't the best places to find a diamondback (not much of that habitat left anyway) but in more open areas they are still there.

Up until just a few years ago I would regularly get calls from people in west Brownsville, including the Amigoland Mall area right on the river, about rattlesnakes.. of course many were misidentified ratsnakes, but a lot were atrox... I worked a job in the 80's that took me to the pumping stations for municipalities and irrigation districts all the way from here to Eagle Pass, everywhere I went there were populations of atrox right down to the water.

Be safe..
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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

i did whitewing research from los ebanos to harlingen along the river a couple summers ago and never saw atrox. i looked, especially near los ebanos but never saw any. only saw rat snakes, indigos, bulls, racers(not speckled), patchnose and the like. never did find any mexican hognose or milks, whitch are what i really wanted. i was told that there were no atrox between 83 and the river, but i highly doubted this and always wanted to find one.

i have never found a mexican milk or a mexican hognose, untill this past summer, i found a DOR of each species in one weekend. the annuleta was south of encino on 281 and the hognose was just north of mccook. good luck herpin'

Very cool Gus. I went down a while back to see if I could find a Northern Cat-Eyed Snake to photograph but no luck. Pretty coral snake you got there. I found two this year in Dimmit County (first one pictured). I haven't got the Juevos to free hand one though
JP

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Snakes of Hudspeth County, Texas

... how's this?
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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

that you guys in the southwest have to choose from? It's bad enough you've got bairdi, lindheimeri and subocs, but when even the oddball rearfang stuff is that cool looking, then it's just time to give up looking for snakes up here in New England. It's just not fair.

Beautiful animal. How long is that snake, about?

John

.. 34"? a female. Here's a shot of a pair in the 24" range.
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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

As I ranted before, I certainly envy guys like you and Jason down there in the southwest. One of these days I've got to spend some time there and see all these great herps. Thanks for posting all those fine photos and entertaining the rest of us in the cruel white north.
John

Great picture! Someday.."sigh".
I tried looking for three days to no avail. I'll probably try again this spring. Nuther question for ya; what exotics have you found down there? I've heard that there were a few gecko spps. possibly established. (besides the med. Gecko). Thanks,
Jason
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Snakes of Hudspeth County, Texas

Oh, yeah, remember to look on both sides of the small bridge just before Sarita...seems to be a fairly large population but cut off as That's the only place I saw them from Ricardo to Raymondville. Lots of Texas Glossys and Corals 2m2c Ribbons and Leopard frogs and some Bulls. In the early morning and late afternoon it's Indigo galore from sept to mid Nov. It's just too bad it is a slaughterhouse of a road. Tons of atrox, too.
Good herping, Todd

nice micrurus, jason , BUT, not as nice as that killer annulata you found last year!!!/jon

Thanks, The season to find another should be here in a month or so..
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Snakes of Hudspeth County, Texas

Hey, jpenny, try the teeny town of Sarita in April on 77S. I saw 13 dor before i finally photoed one aor. I saw a total of 22 on the night of April 11th, 17 dor and 5 aor and one swooped by a barn owl.
Todd Hughes

Now that would be impressive. Never even heard of that kind of luck. I met a couple of guys from FL last summer down here. They went out in Val Verde County the night after I met them and found 5 aor Alterna! now thats luck! I live one hour from there in Uvalde and my luck is usually horrible. But it's still fun looking....I'll give Sarita a try.
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Snakes of Hudspeth County, Texas

are yall saying that you seen Northern Cat-Eyed Snakes in sarita? if this is true please email me at mleidner@yahoo.com . i live in kingsville texas and have a PHD friend that works for www.ntri.tamuk.edu and wants to document cat-eyeds in sarita as a range extension for the species. if you could please email me with any range information you have on cat-eyeds. thank you.