reptiles
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Snake Book
Snakes of the Eastern United States by Whit Gibbons is an excellent addition to the natural history bookshelf. It’s sumptuously well-illustrated by many photographers. Here’s the skinny on our snakes: there are 63 species of snakes native in the eastern US. There’s a serious north-south gradient: Maine has 10 native species (one of which, the…
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Autotomy
Lizards can shed their tails to escape predators, including the two-legged kind. This is called autotomy (“self-severing” or self amputation): reptiles, amphibians, spiders, mollusks, even some mammals have various forms of it. The lizard tail situation is probably the best known manifestation of this adaption. There will be some regeneration, as you can see here,…
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Whose Woods?
In Sweden, the woods belong to the red wood ants (Formica). They build large mounds, are essential forest managers, and aren’t afraid of taking on bigger critters.A young Kopparödla or Slowworm (Anguis fragilis) is being taken down. (Movie) Duncan takes a closer look at one of the mounds. This was the last we saw of…
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The Snappers Are Restless
One of the gigantic Chelydra serpentina of Brooklyn.Another? There were at least two big ones in this pond. But note the difference in leech positions. By the way, just look at all the parasitic life-forms latched onto this one’s head and neck! Crowd-sourcing these pictures to Twitter, I found some suggestions that these were Placobdella…
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Garters
Does this snake have a head at both ends?Eastern Garter Snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis).And another. Great Swamp NWR. I wanted to turn these into Ribbon Snakes. They were, after all, on tiny islands in the swamp. But look at the black marks on the sides of their faces. Ribbon Snakes, which are in the same…
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Yellowbelly
On a 40F day, a single turtle is observed on the edge of the Sylvan Water. What’s this, though? Not a Red-eared Slider (Trachemys scripta elegans), by far the most common turtle across the city. I once counted 70 basking along the Lullwater in Prospect Park. This is a Yellow-bellied Slider (Trachemys scripta scripta). As…
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Make Your Own Metaphors
Turtle with a leech latched onto its…brain? Some people say the Senator from Oligarchy, Mitch McConnell, whose career is based on an infusion of foreign cash, looks like a turtle. I wouldn’t want to insult a turtle with that comparison. But the miserable old cynic sure acts like a leech on democracy… so there’s that.
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November Slider
Recently on Valley Water… a lone Red-eared slider was enjoying the freakish day. * I no more enjoy writing about the human excrement that is Donald Trump than you do reading about it. When he tweeted the disgusting Britain First tweets yesterday, giving aid and comfort to yet more fascists — the murderer of MP…
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Ssss
Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis), the only species of snake I’ve ever run into in New York City. And that hasn’t been all that frequently. But they’re out there. And this lovely specimen was in the Bronx. * It’s tremendously unfair to animals to compare them to people. Pig, snake, rat, insect, etc. Yesterday, Orange Spray-on-Tan…
Backyard and Beyond 