Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was wodering if anyone knows any good spots for herping in SW MO.... Jasper County to be specific. Also, I was wondering if anyone knew what species I can honestly expect to find. My target species for this spring are.....Black rat, emoryi, prairie king, and speckled king. I was also wondering if these species will stay in a "pocket" of ideal habitat.... There is a small vally that is basically a hilly limestone outcropping with a stream flowing through the center (just a trickle mostly) and surrounded by woods. Would emoryi possibly form a small population here? My main goal is emoryi this spring. Where is the best place to look? Last spring/summer I found ringnecks, browns, 1 speckled king hatchling, stripe backed scorpions, and a "texas" tarantula. Thanks for any and all help!
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0.1 Snow Corn "Hope"
1.0 Ball Python "Wilson" (Castaway)
1. Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Chunk" (Goonies)
.1 Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Peaches"
0.0.1 Mexican Black Kingsnake "Onyx"

I did some digging and actually found a snapshot of the Jasper County locale speckled I described. We kept him for about a week. We weren't planning on keeping him anyway but he refused to eat (not surprised) so we released him pretty quickly.

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0.1 Snow Corn "Hope"
1.0 Ball Python "Wilson" (Castaway)
1. Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Chunk" (Goonies)
.1 Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Peaches"
0.0.1 Mexican Black Kingsnake "Onyx"

Emori (GPR ) are in my opinion hard to find in Mo. I exclusively hunted areas of the Springfield and Bull Shores and Table Rock area and have never found them. All others you listed plus the milk snake has been found by me and others but not emory. Most of the speckled has eaten for me when I kept them . Good luck.
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I may be old , cantankerous, crabby, and cynical, but......

~SW Missouri is a great area for all on your list accept emoryi. You want to look around abandoned farmsteads for the holbrooki, calligaster and obsoleta. Look for fallen road signs along highways...Milks can also be found around abandoned farmsteads failry easily. You want to look for farmsteads with a lot of fallen wood and debris and sun exposure is key (that means to look for them on top of hillsides where the woods have thinned out a bit). I have found emoryi in Missouri. I found one in Cass County and I know of a few more found on a single powerline cut in Cambden County. You need to realize that Missouri was once primarily covered in prairie habitat and there were herps that utilized this (emoryi, collared lizards etc). Most of this habitat has been overloaded with trees and this has caused a major decrease in prairie herps. So what you must do is seek out areas with relictual prairie to find emoryi. You can do this by getting a map of geographic biomes in Missouri from the MDC or MDOT...Good luck...

So would an area with several collard lizards be a good place to find emoryi? The valley I mentined I found about 7 collards last spring. BTW VERY cool pic. Was that an emoryi vernaculum?
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0.1 Snow Corn "Hope"
1.0 Ball Python "Wilson" (Castaway)
1. Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Chunk" (Goonies)
.1 Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Peaches"
0.0.1 Mexican Black Kingsnake "Onyx"