Into the world of reptiles

...or maybe not. This summer my student and I are starting a new research project, well a couple of new projects, about ribbon snakes and horned lizards (but not their interactions with each other, which are likely minimal). The horned lizard project is waiting on babies to hatch, so I will describe that project at a later time. But we are getting started on our ribbon snake project!

Some background: Western Ribbon snakes have 4 distinct color morphs in Texas, which are currently recognized as subspecies: Western Ribbon snake (Thamnophis proximus proximus, orange stripe with a dark back), Arid Land Ribbon snake (T. proximus diabolicus, orange strip with a brown back), Gulf Coast Ribbon snake (T. proximus orarius, pale stripe with a dark back) and the Redstripe Ribbon snake (T. proximus rubrilineatus, red stripe with a dark back) (Rossman, 1961, Werler and Dixon, 2000). The pale, red, and orange stripe/brown back color morphs are geographically isolated but seem to broadly overlap with the orange stripe/dark back morph. The subspecies readily interbreed and preliminary molecular studies suggest these subspecies designation may not be valid and all color morphs are one species (Allen 2005). In some ways, that makes the presence of these distinctive geographic patches of color morphs more interesting. How is this variation in color maintained if the subspecies regularly breed with each other? How much variability exists in different populations? Where are these color morphs now compared to where they were historically?

To create maps and quantify differences in color, we will use geo-referenced photos posted on iNaturalist of Western Ribbon snakes and all subspecies in Texas. We sorted through the photos and restricted the data to  live animals because color changes rapidly after death. We are working on mapping observations of each color morph to look for any geographic patterns in relation to color morph. For photos taken in the snake's natural habitat we will also do some image analysis to see how well the species blend in to their environments.

To fill in the gaps we are in the process of finding study sites where we can set up small traps and look for basking snakes. The snakes are small (about 20-30 inches), semi-aquatic, and eat small amphibians and fish. Setting minnow traps in the water should increase our chance of seeing snakes! When we find them, we will take photos with a color standard to quantify the color of each snake. This process involves a lot of emails and hiking around parks, nature preserves, and private property looking for ponds and other water bodies.

We started wandering parks last week looking for snakes and study sites! While we didn't find any of our study species yet and not all of the places seem like good habitat, we did find some other fun things!

One of our hopeful sites is a nature park just south east of San Antonio. It was gorgeous, so many wildflowers, a pond, and lots of baby toads! Can you spot the toad in this photo below (HINT: it is the color of the mud. Answer at the end)?

 
We think the beetle above was some kind of longhorn beetle, but we were mostly impressed with the size of its legs!

Sensitive plants will close their leaves when touched! 

More tiny toads! Soooo tiny! 

At another park in North San Antonio, we found lots of snails! But not a lot of snakes...or great habitat...

Prairie Rabdotus
 identified by the Seek App from iNaturalist!

We saw multiple kinds of snails, briefly considered switching to an easier study organism...It has been really rainy lately, so the snails were all over the trees, shrubs, and downed wood. It was an interesting behavior.

Probably the most unexpected find:

I am fairly confident that does not belong in a stream in Texas! (It was fake)

All of the rain did make the spiderwebs more visible, though we still rand into a bunch! Luckily we saw this large orb weaver and managed to duck under their web. Not one I would have wanted to accidentally have on my hat!

We did manage to spot a couple of water snakes at Bulverde Oaks Nature Preserve! This area is closed to the public except for guided hikes once a month. Look closely in the water under the branches in the photo below, you can just make out the snake's body! We also found this larger toad (than the ones we have mostly seen lately) which had some unique gold markings on its back. It is a Gulf Coast Toad (Incilius nebulifer), which are common in the area.

 

At Palmetto State Park we found tiny toads, a rough green snake (Opheodrys aestivus), a few southern leopard frogs (Rana sphenocephala), and lots of animal tracks in the mud.  We noticed an odd behavior from the toads, they were running instead of hopping! They looked a bit like beetles also running around. My student and I got really excited about it and may conduct a mini experiment on it in the future. There are some other species of toad that run, but not many that I know of. And, in my previous experience, the adults usually hop.

Super tiny toad at the top of my fingers

The rough green snake surprised us on one of the hiking trails, and it slithered into the brush next to the path. Then it started to move vertically into the vines, it was an impressive move. As it continued to climb, it gently swayed side to side, likely mimicking a branch moving in the breeze.

We saw a few different animal tracks, the deer and raccoons (like little hands!) were the easiest to distinguish. But this first picture on the left has me stumped. It looks like three toes right next to each other. Maybe an incomplete armadillo track?

We saw a few different mushrooms after all the rain we have gotten over the past several days. The ones below were identified by Seek (by iNaturalist) as Trooping Crumble Cap (Coprinellus disseminatus). One of the Leopard frogs calmly posed for a few pictures (surprisingly).

Going to Beuscher State Park was a fun visit home for me, my mom even joined us! The tiny toad here were hopping, not running like at other places! So even more questions about what might be going on...these were a little bit bigger, so maybe that's why?

On our way to Bastrop County, we helped a large turtle cross the road (probably a red-eared slider, Trachemys scripta elegans). In the excitement, we both forgot our phones to grab a picture or to ID it... but we did find another turtle in the park of a similar size...

We also saw baby cricket frogs (Acris blanchardi)! They were about the size of my thumbnail. The adults are only about an inch to 1.5 inches long. They have a lot of color variation, as an example, the one on the left has a green patch, while the one on the right has some orange markings. These two were found no more than a foot apart!

This week we will get started on setting out minnow traps, so hopefully I will have some photos of my study species to share soon!

From the beginning photos, here is the toad!

 

Sources: 

Allen, L. S. (2005). Phylogeography of five subspecies of western ribbon snakes (Thamnophis proximus) in the United States and Middle America. Master’s Thesis. The University of Texas at Arlington.

Rossman, D. A. (1961). A Taxonomic study of the Sauritus groups of the Gartersnakes, Genus Thamnophis Fitzinger. Doctoral Dissertation. 

Werler, J. E.  and Dixon, J. R. (2000). Texas Snakes: Identification, Distribution, and Natural History. University of Texas Press. 544 pages