Jealous of all you guys with snakes around the house. Last time I saw a snake on property was almost 10 years ago. My grandma lives out in the country and I used to find garter snakes, hog-nosed, blue racers, rat snakes and more when I was a kid. Not much there any more, either.
Everyone is quick to kill snakes. I argue with co-workers all the time, they love killing rattlesnakes and running them over. Hell my mom killed a kingsnake when I was little bc it got in her birdhouse and ate some baby birds.
neighbor took this of my side yard today. Black racer Owsley ? Bonus points to the neighbor for the lizard
Yep, racer. Rat snakes rarely periscope like that. Female Cuban brown anole for the lizard. AstroTurf for the grass.
Wife wanted a place for the boys to walk/crawl around and this was as far as I was willing to go in a rental. Also we are North Florida af these days. So it fits
FYI - if you have Cuban tree frogs around your place (they’re all over Jax, unsure where you are) thoroughly wash your hands if you have to handle them, as they release an extremely irritating mucus that is hell on your eyes/mouth/nose.
FWC always recommended rubbing orajel on them, but we’d come across so many that we’d spend more time doing that than completing our surveys. They didn’t seem to have too much impact on green tree frogs, but decimated squirrel tree frog numbers. Playing god is never fun, and there’s a lot of thought they came here on their own via hurricane debris, but they’re a full blown plague in certain places now. https://ufwildlife.ifas.ufl.edu/citizen_sci.shtml
I read that exact site when I first encountered one when we moved here last year. And talked with some folks at UF IFAS about it when I gave a talk to the forestry club this winter. I'm all about the reporting.
Idiots with pythons as pets have probably caused so much destruction to the ecosystem. Aren't they still a huge problem in the everglades?
Yeah, Burmese are the biggest problem there. Just read an article about Tegus in FL are becoming a problem now too.
I remember reading some scary ass article about like rock pythons and Indian pythons cross breeding down there and being more resistant to the cold or something.
Damn. Florida is so fucked with exotic animals. Snakes on land, Lionfish in the oceans, piranhas and snakeheads in the waters.
I’ll never forget seeing a python cross the road when I was living in Gainesville. I was driving back woods between Gainesville and Alachua and dodged what I thought was a limb in the road. Quickly pulled u turn in the road to see it slither off into the woods.
Looks like a rat snake, but not sure. Almost looks like it's got a patern near it's belly, could be sand.
This cool little dude ran in the house when I let the dogs out. Had to save him from my pointer. What do I have here Owsley ?
Eastern fence lizard (Sceloporus undulatus). As you said, super cool (and extremely fast) lizards. Note the blue ventral coloring, suggesting this is a male. Also lends the nickname “blue bellies”
Yeah, super fast. If he wouldn't have trapped himself in a corner, I probably never would have gotten him. I wanted to check him out longer, but I also didn't want to stress him out too bad, so I snapped a couple pics and sent him on his way. Pretty sure that's the first time I've seen one. Are they fairly rare or no?
I used to catch those all the time on my farm as a kid. They would be on the oak trees and were almost impossible to spot. I found a ton of babies on a tree one day. /cool story
They aren’t rare, but they tend to be found in “microhabitats” typified by dry soils, pine/scrub forest, and rock outcrops.
Little bit of both, honestly. EDB’s prefer more xeric sandy scrub and longleaf savanna habitats inhabited by gopher tortoises whereas canebrakes like more dense forest, rock outcrops, and higher elevations. You’ll occasionally find them overlapping within coastal plain habitats (Apalachicola National Forest probably being the last true stronghold with healthy populations of each), but natural intergrades just don’t happen very frequently in the snake world. You’ll see it more often in king snakes and rat snakes than anything else in the US.
I’m not sure where this one came from, but that would be my guess. It’s part of a radio telemetry study.
I feel like teaching rattlesnakes to use electronics is a great way to usher in a wave of serpent overlords.
Just found this guy on the neighbor’s wall. Cuban knight anole. Biggest one I’ve seen in a long time. I’ll post another pic for context because the glass blocks in that window are about 6” each.
There’s nothing out there like iBird as far as I know (I also haven’t looked.) I’ve got a bunch of different field guides I’ve collected over the years, and there are also some good Reddit’s out there for herpetology and snake ID. Anything in particular you’re looking for/interested in?