Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am helping my friend move his business to the Carson City area and was wondering if there were rubber boas in this area? I know they are on the western side of the Sierra Nevada range, but I don't know if they exist on the eastern side of the range facing Carson City. Any information would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Ken

Richard Hoyer reads that forum pretty often and if anyone knows, it will certainly be Richard.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

lol
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Shane's Herp Lifelist
http://www.geocities.com/shane77@sbcglobal.net/my_page.html

Ken,
Late last night I replied to your e-mail but this morning received notice that the message failed to be delivered due to a permanent error.

The only area I have looked for C. bottae in Nevada is in the Ruby Mts., Elko county and southeast of Elko, Nevada. One year I surveyed 4 - 5 specimens someone else found in that region. But I have conducted searches in eastern Calif. north of Bishop and furthern north in the Lee Vining area not all that far from the Nevada border. The species occurs all along the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mts. from Tulare County northward through Nevada and northern Calif. I do not know at what elevation the species begins to show up in the Carson City region.

Carson City is at about 4600 ft. elevation and although the species may not get into the city limits, it would be by guess that it occurs within a mile or two west of the city at somewhat higher elevation. The older literature and conventional wisdom indicate the species is only associated with coniferous forest habitats and open mt. meadows near streams, etc. What is not well known is that the species commonly occurs in semi-arid sagebrush-grassland habitats similar to what occurs in the Carson City area. The species also occur even where there is some cactus such as on the southern Kern Plateau in Tulare county, the Scodie Mts. east of Lake Isabella in Kern county, and north of Bishop in Inyo and Mono counties.

In 2004 I examined most of the specimens in the preserved collection at the University of Nevada, Reno. Most of their specimens originated from Calif. They only have 7 specimens from Nevada, 5 from Washoe (north of Reno) and one each from Nye and Lander counties. There are specimens from Nevada in other institutional collections so to get a more accurate picture of where the species has been found in Nevada, one would have to obtain the printouts of the species in such collections.

Nevada is likely to be a classical case in which few records occur thereby giving researchers and wildlife biologists the mistaken impression that the species is rare in Nevada. Having driven through a good share of Nevada, it would be my view that the species is far more widely distributed in that state than is currently documented.

One person to possibly contact with respect to the boas on the eastern slopes of the Sierras is Jerry Hartley of Fernley, Nevada just west of Reno. He can commonly be found posting on the Rosy, Rubber, and Sand Boa forum by the name of "trivirgata". His latest post was on Nov. 25th I believe.

Richard F. Hoyer

I visited Carson City. Very arid around there. More of a rattlesnake place IMO. Then the tour took us from Carson City over to that side of Lake Tahoe, where I went horseback riding. The guide told me that rubber boas have been reported in the hills we were riding in. There were groves of pines, then clearings with lots of exposed rock. Looked like great RB habitat to me, if indeed they do occur there. Alot of wonderful country there, that is for sure.

But I agree with Chris, maybe Richard can set you straight.