Reptile & Amphibian Forums

well, just a couple days ago i got back from a big graduation trip to florida mainly, in which i had 2 big herper friends join me. we started off in the keys, then hit the everglades, and moved our way back up into south carolina before coming back home to raleigh. heres some of what we came across.

giant day geckos (found more than 20)

bark anoles (this is just a hatchling, found many more adults)

brown anoles (all over the place)

eastern fence lizards

mole skinks

slender glass lizards

tokay geckos (nothings wrong with his eye, just from the light)

gators (picked this lil guy off the road, sorry its fuzzy)

oak toads (once again, fuzzy)

cottonmouths (snake encountered most often on the trip)

copperheads (much more aggressive than other venomous we saw)

ringnecks (beautiful colors)

corns (weird how they can be so docile in captivity)

rosy rats

garters

scarlets

green waters

and now on to some of the better finds (for snakes, at least)

eastern hognoses

mud snakes (one missing an eye, which didnt slow her down at all)

red phase mangrove water (big!!!)

canebrakes (this one was INCREDIBLY pink, doesnt show in the pic)

and in the everglades we lucked out by coming across 2 burmese pythons within an hour. never thought we would actually see one in the wild.

and i hope it's not too out of line for around here, but after spending so many hours on the road, we really got a laugh out of this one.

hope you enjoyed it! we came across a lot more (tegus, iguanas, other anoles, crocodiles, water dragons, basilisks, MOQUITOS!!!, ribbon snakes, banded watersnakes, yellow rat snakes, racers, etc., but that's all i covered in my pics, perhaps ill have more for you later when i get my friend's pics...

WOW, you have really awesome pics. I can't wait untill i can go and do what you did. It seems like so much fun!

John

Very cool… the Tokay and Python are awesome!! I would dig finding those in the wild. By the way your name is not Mark Marton is it??????

haha...no, but close.

mike martin

and in the everglades we lucked out by coming across 2 burmese pythons within an hour. never thought we would actually see one in the wild.

I hope you removed them from the wild! I would rather see someone make boots out of them than have that wild population of Burms in the everglades really take hold.
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Chris Harrison
Does anyone else here think that these scrolling signature lines are stupid?

It's getting to the point where people are taking trips to South Florida targeting exotics! While that would be fun, it's also a little disheartening. Do normal DNR regulations (ie permits, licenses) apply to collecting introduced species? We didn't have the heart to euthanize the Cuban treefrogs encountered in Venice, Fl, so now we have new pet frogs. I didn't consider this at the time, but I was curious if we were breaking the law by collecting the large tree frogs.

Later

Matt

Many years ago, Joe Berraducci (of THe Shed)and I collected 25 good sized Cubans under a single piece of plywood leaning against an abandoned shed. I can still remember how my eyes were burning on the way back to the shop to put them up.
Jim McLean

yes, we removed them. thinking about breeding the pair, otherwise might sell them to someone (if they want to tame them), or like you said, skin them. park rangers shoot them on site. i dont think there are laws about collecting exotics, but you might wanna check up on that. as we were road cruising the everglades natl park, we were pulled over by a ranger for driving behavior (you know how you have to swerve like mad to miss snakes and frogs and whatnot), and we were searched because she saw all the equipment in our car, including snake bags and deli cups. it's against regulations to have that stuff on park grounds, but she searched and saw we only had day geckos and a bark anole. all exotics, no problem. we got off with a warning. this was also a first to us, but you arent allowed to use any lights to view stuff at night, besides your headlights. of course, we explained that we were only photographing what we saw in the park, so she checked out our pics and saw we were telling the truth. so we got a hotel after that and left all of our collection gear behind so as to obey the rules. the officers were VERY friendly.

as for cubans, they're so widespread across southern florida now its useless to euthanize just a couple. we even met an older couple in the keys who gave us a tour of their yard/garden and all the herps within. they had the biggest cubans i have seen yet.

Gr8t post, lots to be concerned about...Tokays/Burmese/nile monitors/etc. Poor Florida....lets just hope the indigos gobble all of them....unlikely!
For those who couldnt load the entire string of jpgs...

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Cheers, RxR

hey man, great job on that trip and post. my wife and i are obsessed with florida, and we try going down as much as possible. she doesn't get into the herping like i do so i don't have an opportunity to go all out with it while we're down there. but the funny thing about florida is you really don't have to look hard to find the herps, whether they're native or exotic. i went out one night outside our hotel in the middle of town (stuart) after a rain and found eastern narrowmouth toads, cuban treefrogs, and other species ALL OVER the parking lot. it would've been impossible to drive through without hitting a lot of them. i've also caught sand skinks, green, bark and brown anoles (who HASN'T caught them, i know), florida red-bellied turtles, florida cricket frogs, and some geckos. i was just wondering, besides the everglades, what other parks did you go to, if any? where did you go in the keys? i'm especially interested in the giant day geckos, basilisks, and water dragons. where did you go to see all of these??