Ontario's Herpetofauna

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...

 Summer of 2018 was nothing short of amazing. It was filled with cool snakes, and some awesome amphibians too. In late June, I started out with a trip to a local spot in extreme southern Ontario that is home to an endangered rattlesnake, the Eastern Massasauga. On my first attempt, I was able to spot a beautiful golden-brown sauga basking in the afternoon sun. I went back the next day with my friends and researchers, and we were able to observe 4 others. Three of the snakes on the second day were gravid females, and were captured and collected to be taken into the lab where they gave birth. This was done so under appropriate permits and intensive protocols to ensure all of the snakes were safely handled and kept. Once the babies were born, the adults and neonates were put back into the wild. Eastern Massasauga Eastern Massasauga Along with the sole Massasauga that was observed on the first day, I managed to slip in a bit of extra herping time back at the Niagara Gorge to find the N...

Well, it certainly has been a long time since I last posted on this blog. My last update was on a trip I had taken down to Florida with my good friend Taylor over the Christmas and New Years holidays of 2018. As you can imagine, a lot has happened since then. Since I was finally been able to find out how to log back into the blog, I have decided to fast-track it back up to the current date by summing up the last 3.5 years in a series of posts that recap large chunks of each year. I'll try to keep them short and sweet while still capturing key highlights. Without further ado, here is what happened in early Spring of 2018, after returning from Florida. It was mid-February when I was able to see my first herps of 2018, and it wasn't a mudpuppy! (An aquatic salamander more readily spotted in the depths of winter). All thanks to a crazy warm spell, we had an abundance of warm rain fall on February 20th which I knew would bring out some salamanders.  Sure enough, the night came and, ...