Reptile & Amphibian Forums

as i explained to john in the previous thread, i found this little gal this afternoon (about 2pm) while cleaning some leaves at the base of my strawberry tiers. She was under the leaves and as she appears gravid, i suspect she may have been looking for a place to lay. i found one like it last year and believe that someone id. the pic i had taken of it as a coluber spinalis but i am not for sure. Shortly after finding her a thunderstorm came in so i could not get any good pics but snapped a couple of quick ones and will take her out tomorrow and get some much better ones. Just for info when i found her it was 70 degrees f. and the humidity was 88%.

the first pic is where she was found (at the base of the lower wall of bricks (under about 4 inches of chestnut leaves).

the other two shots are the head and belly and i apologize but if anyone is interested in this species i will get much better pics along with length/weight and any other info they might wish. Although i always release these native guys i may hold her back to see if i can get eggs from her and record clutch/ egg size, weight etc.

thanks,
don

Hey Don, that's Amphiesma vibakari. I found a couple while I was in Japan, but unfortunately I didn't get pics of either. Both that I saw were on the road, but apparently they're quite common in rice paddies that border forests and streams.
That's some garden you've got there!
I'm getting ready to leave for a weekend herp trip....hopefully this front that just blew through won't mess things up for road cruising. I'll have to finish my ratsnake report next week. Looking forward to some more Korea stuff!

Shane
-----
Lifelist

shane, thanks very much. i did not even consider that but only because i was trying to id by process of elimination and every time i saw asian KEELBACK i automatically thought of Rhabdophis tigrinus ( tiger keelback). according to the list i have the asian keelbacks are mostly found down south and cheju island which would account for me having only seen two in all this time as i am up north near the DMZ.

the pic only shows the upper half of the garden. I have to plant lots of veggies so my sulcattas don't eat me out of house and home. I also have lots of different fruit trees to help the grocery bill for some of my other guys like the blue tongues.

good luck on your field trip. hope you guys find lots of stuff.

thanks, Don