Herping the Big Sky

Cole Grover · Oct 22, 2013

Presented here is a new posting format debuted on another forum. Cole Grover and Dell Despain will be making this post together, with Dell posting in black and Cole posting in blue. This post will detail a spring adventure in the field by Cole, Dell, our new buddy Trey, and Dell’s daughter Emma. Our goal with this posting scheme is to keep down the redundancy. Hopefully everyone enjoys! Credit should go to Crazins (aka Marisa Ishimatsu) for coming up with the multiple speakers in one post.

I'll jump back in here with a few habitat shots to provide a sense of place. Things are starting to green up around here, following an unbelievably dry winter and spring.<O

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Here's Dell and Trey doing what we do. Those are the highest mountains in the state of Montana in the background.<O

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We had a very busy day of hunting, and the time flew by as a result. Here's what we found. The day was warm, but not hot. It was also partly overcast. I think we were all surprised at the number of Coluber, Pituophis, and Crotalus seen "out on the crawl" that day.<O

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First snake of the day was a Yellow bellied racer, Coluber constrictor. I failed to photograph even one of the over a dozen we found, but this from a few years ago will have to do.<O

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We found a number of C. viridis out basking on this beautiful day.<O

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I obviously ended up with quite a few "similar" shots, so I'll attempt to keep repeats to a minimum<O

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Here's one of the multiple viridis seen that day in situ, as spotted by "Eagle Eye" Trey.<O

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Find the snake!<O

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There it is!<O

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And a little closer.<O

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Indeed we were having great weather, which made for some great herping.<O

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Beartooth Mountains from the hillsides we were hunting in. <O

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Aaaah, the Beartooths...<O

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With the warmth and recent moisture, many of the plants were coming into bloom. I'm a bit of a xerophyte/succulent aficionado in addition to being a herper, so I was thrilled to see Escobaria [Coryphantha] missouriensis in bloom with smokin' peach/orange flowers. <O

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The weather was so nice and the rocks had just the right amount of moisture for a number of Salamanders to be up and soaking up radiant heat.<O

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Tiger Salamander, Ambystoma mavortium melanostictum.<O

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I snapped a few photos of this darker critter, too<O

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This mavortium was particularly bright looking.<O

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Agreed. It was a nice contrast to the drab bugger above<O

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We found over 10 Bull snakes, which I never get tired of.<O

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Bull snake, Pituophis catenifer<O

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I took the time to photograph a number of them. Our Bull Snakes tend to be high-contrast, with lots of rusty-tinted blotches.<O

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Here's a different animal, as flipped<O

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Dell's daughter is a trooper. She can put up with conditions in the field that most grown-*** men would shun. Here she is with one of the day's Pituophis.<O

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For Cole and I it's Milk snakes that motivate us, and lucky for us he flipped this bright animal.<O

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Pale Milk snake, Lampropeltis triangulum multistrata.<O

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Of course, I photographed the milk, too... for a few minutes, anyway. My camera battery died shortly thereafter. Here are the results.<O

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A little different shot.<O

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Trey wanted to see a Horned Lizard, and we went to work in a little different spot to try and find these fat little gargoyles. We quickly found a neonate from last year.<O

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Greater Short-horned lizard, Phrynosoma hernandesi.<O

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Then another. <O

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And a couple of adults. <O

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We always enjoy these spiky little guys.<O

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I'll round this out with a few more habitat shots, for those who care.<O

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-Cole <O

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-Dell

sde · Oct 22, 2013

Nice post, thanks! I love the shots of the Tiger salamander, a species I have never found and would love to. Thanks for sharing its much appreciated! :happy: - Seth

Azhael · Oct 23, 2013

Wonderful pictures, thank you for sharing!
I apreciate the habitat shots and the (albeit limited) flora, that´s how i like my herping reports

JoshBA · Oct 23, 2013

I actually happen to live somewhat close to that area, so I'll definitely have to go down there and check it out! Awesome pictures of some of the native herps!

Cole Grover · Oct 24, 2013

Thanks, guys. I see photobucket has done "spectacular" things to the photos...

Seth,
Ambystomatids in general are pretty neat animals, but the tigrinum complex animals (including tigrinum, mavortium, velasci, etc.) are at the top of my list.

Rodrigo,
Glad you like the habitats and plants. I'll be sure to include more of that in future field posts - just for you, amigo. The species of cactus shown generally has much more subdued coloring to its flowers, so that specimen was really a stand-out.

Josh,
I spend quite a bit of time in the field around the state, though the south-central part is generally my focus since its where I'm located. Monarch is a nice area. I like the Little Belts in general, though. Plus, you've got that nifty brewery just north of you!

-Cole

Jefferson · Oct 26, 2013

Nice finds. I've always wanted to get out to the Big Sky area to just see the wide-open prairie, but those Tigers wouldn't hurt either. Keep it up, and look out for the Grizzlies!

Kaysie · Oct 27, 2013

I think this spring we should have a Northern Prairie get-together. There aren't that many of us that live up here.

Cole Grover · Oct 28, 2013

Jefferson,
Thanks. Ambystoma mavortium is the only species of Caudate we have in this part of the state, but they're always a pleasure to see. It takes several hours of driving to get into the range of our other species, though in all honesty, it takes several hour of driving to get much of anywhere around here!

Kaysie,
What part of ND are you in? I've spent some time herping in the western part of ND (focusing on a particular state record... unfortunately thus far to no avail), but haven't done much except drive through the eastern half of the state. I'm in the field around here as much as possible during the spring.

-Cole

Kaysie · Oct 29, 2013

Cole Grover said:
though in all honesty, it takes several hour of driving to get much of anywhere around here!

Ain't that the truth! Everything is at least 3 hours away. Oh, and in that 3 hours, you probably won't see another gas station (or... anything really, save for grass and cows), so you better fill up now!

I live east of Minot. I'm juuust on the border of A.m.mavortium and A.m.diaboli. I found 1 diaboli (probably an intergrade) this summer, and I'd like to head east and try to find some more.

Herping the Big Sky

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