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welcome to another herping adventure, I'm Mike...and I'm Chris
i've left maryland behind to come down and visit my brother for
some herping in florida something we both enjoy
and we're just visiting a local swamp near his house hoping to find some
cool critters today
yep that's right the habitat we have here is predominantly cypress
swamp
it's fairly common habitat here in florida
and we're really hoping to capitalize on seeing lots of uh... herptiles today
uh... we're gonna mostly see lots of frogs um... good amount of snakes
possibly an alligator or a turtle
on the tail end of that but definitely our most common species is gonna be
frogs here in the swamp
right well let's get to it lets do some herping
while gators
may not live in sewers in New York
they sure do live in the sewers in Florida
so we just started our hike and walked up on this Dusky Pigmy Rattlesnake
sunning itself on this rock
this is one of the first cool but sunny days we've had here
since summer kind of on ended here in florida
these guys tend to be more diurnal and this is pretty normal behavior for it to be out
during the day
we see a lot of these in the swamps and they tend to be fairly common
so we might see moreas our journey goes on for the day
we found a large
larger dusky pygmy rattlesnake
we'll try to give you a good example of just how big it is we're gonna show it
next to Stephanie's boot
so you can get and idea just how small they are
and by small
it's very small
but this would be considered a large adult
what we have here is a Peninsula Ribbon Snake
this one is pretty small it's a sub-species of ribbon snakes
that's pretty common in this area as well
alright sometimes to find a variety of reptiles and amphibians a little positive thing it's a little road trip
is required
today we're going to be heading down to southern florida
Thats right Michael souther Florida hold a lot of native and invasive species
we'll check out areas around Miami and the Everglades to see what we might find down there
we found our first invasive species a brown basilisk
he's fast too...
he's fast as can be look
he's in that guys tire
get out of the tire!!!
there he goes on his hind legs!!!
what we have found is an Everglades Racer
very similar to the southern black racer or northern racers we have
at home in maryland
this ones pretty calm it's early in the morning
it's still pretty cold
he's not really aggressive right now
these guys are pretty typical rodent eaters eating pretty much whatever they can find
including other reptiles
what we have here is a florida banded water snake it's another
a sub-species of the southern water snake this one is really fired up right now
very similar to the other water snakes we have in the region and primarily
they'll eat other things when they can get them like frogs
but they're pretty cool snake fun to play with unless they musk you it smells
pretty bad
I think it smells like rotten tangerines a lot of our water snake musk
but that's just my own take on it
but they are definitely fun to get a hold of
alright I just found this brown water snake
hanging out near a little spillway down here in the Everglades
thought him neat, he's pretty cool has a uniquely shaped head
very different from a lot of the other water snakes, if you can see that there see there's this
unique looking snake
we'll put this guy right back where we found him by this tree
we've made the trip down to southern florida and hit flamingo down in the everglades we've
come to visit
some crocodiles
that have been sighted in the area
yes they are a really cool species they are the second native species of crocodilian in
the united states and are actually considered very highly endangered
so there's a lot of protection to protect these animals they even have the
american alligator which is in my opinion very common still listed as a threatened species
because of direct similarities to this animal so of you want to go ahead and zoom in
it's hanging out here behind us on the bank across this canal
lets get a close look at this croc here
another method used to find reptiles and amphibians is road cruising
tonight we jumped in the car and are headed towards a couple back dirt roads just a little after sunset
seems to be a really good time
to find some critters because the roads are still warm and they are attracted to them especially the
critters that are more active nocturnally
we just found a mud snake check this cool thing out
OH!!! He is fiesty
wow, it's glossy
beautiful, what do these things eat?
well they usually eat
aquatic salamanders like amphiumas and sirens they tend not to bite
you can see he's just nuzzling me, one thing they actually do
is that they stab you with the tail tip here
they are really heavy and he is constricting me... look he musked!
ok we don't want to bug him too much we'll let him go in a minute
but this is a really awesome find
look at the color on his chin and checker-boarding on his belt
really cool snakes
YES!!! mud snake
just continuing
road cruising tonight and happened on one of these little guys a pig frog
they get quite a bit bigger than this and they are very popular
for frog gigging people like to eat these guys for frog legs
he just croaked at us
they look very similar to a bull frog but there are two distinguishing factors
on this frog the webbing on the toes
will extend out all the way covering the entire
long toe here
it wont do that on a bullfrog the webbing will stop
also on their rear end they have this white stripe
that runs acros,this is another way to distinguish a pig frog
of course you can only tell this way if you get a hold of it
once again
then placed in it
another fun critter we found tonight road cruising hope we find
more stuff
no joke theres a tick on this toad!
i'm not kidding
so we are stopping for a quick bite to eat and happened on this nasty little critter
the cane toad
giant toad whatever you want to call it a toad of many names
they are really nasty and produce a really nasty toxin from the massive parotid glands
I'll have to wash my hands after handling him
they are a big problem down here but a lot of fun to catch
fiesty
can you tame it???
did you see that?
we're here in Miami and we just found a
mangrove watersnake
a subspecies of southern water snake
they tend to be a little vicious, it's already tried to bite me a couple of times
but this one is calming down a little bit
it's a pretty nice one
really nice color, nice red underbelly, ther he goes trying to bite me again
what we have here is one of the world's smallest species of snakes the
invasive brahminy blind snake now found in southern florida
um... one interesting thing about this particular species of snakes is that they are
partenogenic
uh... they are all female and they can all reproduce
just cam up on a gopher tortoise here
outside it's burrow, there is a female inside the burrow, this one outside is a male
you often see this behavior in these guys
they are considered and endangered species in the state of florida primarily due to
habitat loss it's also believed there is a spread of respiratory disease in these animals
so we;re not going to get too close to it
don't want to disturb it's natural behavior
but these guys are always a fun treat to see, our biggest land tortoise
that we have
in the state here
alright we hoped you enjoyed our florida trip
we really had a great time
brother it;s been great having you come back and do it again soon
yeah it was great
cool until next time....see ya