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Posted by Gerry Binczik on June 19, 2002 at 20:51:41:
In Reply to: Top 5 of all time... posted by Rodgers M. on June 19, 2002 at 17:14:14:
In no particular order:
- An eastern milksnake I found beneath a small board on the MN/WI border many years ago - the first "tricolor" I ever caught and kept!
- This time a true tricolor, a scarlet kingsnake I found curled up mostly beneath the leaf litter (with just enough red showing!) here in northcentral FL last spring, on an early evening herp hunt the specific purpose of which was to find scarlet kingsnakes by visually scanning the leaf litter as I hiked along in the woods. I'd found my very first scarlet king in such a setting quite by accident some weeks before, inspiring me to try, but I didn't really think it would work.
- A big, aberrant and to my mind particularly pretty Sonoran lyre snake (she had no pattern whatsoever on her head) I found road cruising in the desert beneath the Chiricahuas many years ago. Evoked a lot of memories of my time in the area every time I looked at her, and she was a great pet for many years until the UF vet school killed her when I brought her in for treatment.
- Also in the Chiricahuas many years ago, a lovely blacktailed rattlesnake which gave me much more than a reasonable amount of time to correct a very foolish mistake I'd made. While herp hunting alone one afternoon I'd put my foot somewhere I shouldn't have on a talus slope, prompting its noisy alarm, and then I compounded my error(s) by taking a long moment to figure out that the sound was coming from right at my feet - in fact, from under that rock... where... that tongue was flicking out... right next to my ankle! Taught me a valuable lesson at no cost, that snake did, and I'll always appreciate it.
- An eyelash viper I found road cruising in Tikal National Park, Guatemala, a few years ago. It was the first record of its kind (and perhaps still the only one?) not only for the park but also for that whole part of the country, and an astonishingly beautiful little creature to boot. But its real value to me was how it crystallized my memories of ALL the herps and other wildlife I encountered while living in the park.
I DO have pictures of some of these, but only in the form of 35mm slides. One of these days I'll finally get a scanner, though, and then you folks will have to suffer through a rather lengthy show!
Gerry
