Here's my most recent late season herping in the Wichita Mnts. just across the border in Oklahoma. The pickins' is a gettin' slim for herping right now too.
I found this beautiful male Eastern Collared basking on a big rock at the top of the canyon. He quickly dived in between the rocks and we began a 45 minute chess match to see who was the best. He was smart. At one point I started to make headway on getting him out, by placing sticks behind him and on either side of him...moving him forward a little at a time. Then I would try to see if I could reach him. He opened his mouth and kept it that way, with his top jaw and bottom jaw wedged into the rocks so I couldn't get him forward any further....So I just placed a twig in his open mouth and poked his tongue a little, causing him to bite down hard. I pulled him out by the stick and that was the end of that. I was so focused on the lizard, I didn't realize my female companion had laid down under a tree to take a nap!
He also bit very hard, drawing blood on my little finger as I was showing her this lizard's teeth, and the massive jaw muscles at the back of the head. Like the head of a viper, only with big muscles instead of venom glands!
We stopped later at one of those roadside stores that advertise rattlesnakes as an attraction. So I paid my dollar to give them so advise on keeping 2 male and 2 female Western Diamondbacks in a larger accomodation than a 20 gallon, with an incandecent 60watt bulb for heat. They should have been paying me. I had to tell them what species of rattlesnake they were and how to tell male from female. Sorry, I was so wrapped up in the conditions of the snakes that I forgot to get pictures. Next Diamondback I catch, I promise.
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"A man that should call everything by it's right name, would hardly pass the streets without being knocked down as a common enemy." The Complete Works of George Savile, First Marquess of Halifax 1912,246
