North Carolina

On my fall reading week this year I decided to take advantage of my free time to drive south to North Carolina to visit my family and do some herping. I know that this post isn't about Ontario herps but it brings in some much appreciated diversity! As most serious herpers and herpetologists know, herping while traveling is one of the most amazing and fun things you can do. You get to see new habitats and ecosystems of wherever you go and you get to observe new and unique herpetofauna within them!

During my stay in NC I was only able to see a few herp species due to the time restriction of 3 days and flood damage from Hurricane Matthew that had just swept past.

My first day herping started out with these species in the Croatan National Forest:


Green Anole

Green Anole

Cottonmouth

Cottonmouth

Cottonmouth

Cottonmouth

Cottonmouth

Cottonmouth

American Alligator

Ground Skink

Ground Skink

Ground Skink

Southern Cricket Frog

Southern Cricket Frog

Southern Cricket Frog

Southern Cricket Frog

On day two I traveled out to Hyde County specifically in search of Pygmy Rattlesnakes:


Carolina Pygmy Rattlesnake

Carolina Pygmy Rattlesnake

Carolina Pygmy Rattlesnake

Carolina Pygmy Rattlesnake

Carolina Pygmy Rattlesnake

Carolina Pygmy Rattlesnake


but of course I searched for more herps and found a couple other species in the county:


Southern Leopard Frog

DOR Eastern Mud Turtle?
Rough Earth Snake

Rough Earth Snake

Rough Earth Snake


For the last day I met up with some fellow herpers down in the sandhills region of NC. My hopes were high with ambitions to see something crazy like a coachwhip, pine snake, or southern hognose but really I would have been happy with any lifer (I still couldn't believe I hadn't seen a black racer by this point! and I never did...). Instead I only found one snake after spending the whole day searching and it was one that I can find regularly back home in Ontario; the Eastern Hognose Snake. Still, with it being one of my favourite species, it was a great find:


Eastern Hognose

Eastern Hognose


And it put on a hoggy rear fang threat display which I had never previously gotten to witness:


Eastern Hognose

Eastern Hognose

Eastern Hognose

Eastern Hognose
Other species I found throughout my time in NC that I didn't photograph:
- Common Snapping Turtle
- Yellowbelly Slider
- Five-lined/Broad Headed Skink?
- Northern Cricket Frog

All in all I had a great trip. but I will most definitely need to revisit North Carolina sometime in the near future!

Cheers for now,

Ryan Wolfe

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Early Emergence

Image
2018 started off with some intense weather fluctuations. By mid February we were seeing nights where the temperature would remain positive 5 degrees Celsius or more in the Hamilton-Wentworth Region. And some of these nights had large amounts of rainfall. Although it was only February, I knew that this weather would bring out some early rising amphibians. Particularly the Ambystomid species (mole salamanders). So on February 19th, when the weather was just right, myself and my friend Billy Olds grabbed our flashlights and went out into the night to look for amphibians. When we first arrived on location I was pretty confident that we would find at least 1 or 2 salamanders. But as we walked through the forest across an abundance of ice and snow and past vernal pools that were still completely frozen, that confidence started to diminish. We had even checked the pool where I often see Ambystoma maculatum (Spotted Salamanders) and Ambystma jeffersonianum x laterale (Jefferson x Blue-spot
Read more

A Trip to the Sunshine State - Part 2

Image
During the middle of our stay we herped Central Florida for a day and then went down to the Everglades to look for reptiles and amphibians there. Unfortunately we had some very cold weather and didn't find as many species as expected in the glades.  Here's what we found: Blue Tail Mole Skink Blue Tail Mole Skink Eastern Narrow-mouthed Toad Florida Sand Skink Southern Black Racer Florida Cottonmouth Everglades Racer Peninsula Cooter Add caption We also had some neat bird observations - here are a few I was able to capture on camera Gallinule Add caption And then back to herps... American Alligator American Crocodile Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake - juvenile recently hit but still alive on the road American Alligator - juvenile American Alligator - juvenile Chicken Turtle Eastern Gartersnake R. Wolfe
Read more

Time to Catch Up: Fall 2018 - BC and Greece!

Image
Spring and summer of 2018 were amazing. I saw some incredible herps within Ontario, which you can see in my previous blog posts on the 2018 season. Fall was slightly different. There were still amazing reptiles and amphibians seen, but they were not from Ontario! Travels took me to the west in Canada and all the way to Greece where I had the privilege of observing some of their native herps. In early fall, I travelled to British Columbia for the Canadian Herpetological Society conference. A group of friends and I were scheduled to be there for the weekend, but headed out to the province a few days early to try and do some hiking and herping of our own before the conference started. After landing in BC, we headed straight for the Okanagan Valley. Probably the coolest observation of the trip was on our drive, and it wasn't even a herp. It was a MOUNTAIN LION! The big beautiful animal was sitting on the edge of a major highway and all our passengers in the car got to catch a glimpse o
Read more