Ontario's Herpetofauna

 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...

May rolled around intriguingly quickly in 2018. But it brought some incredible herping moments with it!  My first herp adventure was right on May 1st, where I went on a search for Ontario's endangered Spotted Turtle with a close friend of mine. Though we didn't find our target this time around, we did see an extremely red-coloured Eastern Garter Snake, and a lovely Snapping Turtle. Eastern Gartersnake A few other trips in early May to a couple of local gold mines produced many breeding frog species, and some basking snakes along a creek! The highlights were a particularly pretty American Toad, an in-situ Northern Water Snake, and a handful of endangered Queen Snakes. American Toad Northern Watersnake Queensnake By the second week of May, I had began working as an intern at Ontario Nature. I was desperately excited because they were hoping to use my herp knowledge and enthusiasm in surveys for species of reptiles and amphibians across Ontario. And it didn't disappoint. Right...

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, ...