Missouri Trip

[ont_herper]

I spent 5 days herping MO with some herping buddies and 1/2 a day at snake road Illinois looking at salamanders. I had never herped MO so I didnt know what to expect. Well as my list will illustrate I had an awesome time, finding 62 species/sub-species and found around 122 snakes.

Snakes

5 - Red Milk Snakes
4 - Speckled Kings
2 - Osage Copperheads
3 - Flat Headed Snakes
10 - Yellow Bellied Racer
4 - W. Worm Snakes
5 - Rough Earth Snakes
1 - Smooth Earth Snake
1 - Rough Green Snake
2 - Black Rat Snakes
8 - Diamondbacked Water Snakes
3 - N. Water Snake
6 - Yellow-bellied Water Snakes
18 - Broad-banded Water Snakes
3 - W. Cottonmouths
30 - Prarie Ringnecks
1 - Mississippi Ringneck
1 - Northern/Miss. Ringneck
5 - W. Ribbon Snakes
2 - Red Sided Garter
4 - E. Garter
4 - Lined Snake

Salamanders

1 - Ringed Salamander
19 - W. Slimy
1 - E. Slimy, are the Slimys in S. Illinois Eastern?
2 - Smallmouthed
2 - S. Redbacked
2 - Zig-zag
1 - Long Tailed
1 - Long tailed/dark sided hybird

We wanted to photograph cave and long-tailed salamanders but unfortunatly ran out of film before finding a long-tailed.

Lizards

50 - N. Fence Lizard
20+ - Prarie Racer Runner
2 - 6-lined Racer Runner

Skinks

3 - 5-lined
1 - Coal
TMTC - Ground

Turtles

4 - 3-toed Box
2 - Ornate, 1 might have been a 3-toed
1 - River Cooter
4 - Mississippi Mud
3 - Stinkpots, common musk
1 - Midland Painted
1 - Midland Smooth Softshell
3 - Common Snapper
TMTC - S. Painted
TMTC - Red Eared Slider
1 - Alligator Snapper, If I had of caught or photographed it would have probably been the biggest ever recorded in MO

Frogs, Most ID's based on calls

1 - Narrowmouthed Toad
Blanchards Cricket
Dwarf Am.
Am. toad
Woodhouse
Fowlers
W. Chorus
Gray Tree
Copes Tree
Plains Leopard
S. Leopard
Peepers
Bull
Green

Also interesting, to say the least, one afternoon I was flipping a rock and put my finger down on a scorpian and was stung. It sent a sharp pain up my hand followed by hours of a throbbing finger. Being the dedicated herper I am, I continued searching b/c I didn't want to miss anything. A couple hours later I flipped another rock only to realize I put my fingers within inches of a beautiful black widow spider!!

Also saw a gray fox while road cruising and numerous other mamals.

I got some awesome pics which I will attempt to post soon once I resize etc

Dan