| More than 5 inches of rain in not too many days time has kept herps surface active here, and have shown me some interesting things in a couple of forays. Unfortunately, the camera is not always along for the ride—the saddest misses were very attractive speckled king and partially twin-spotted prairie king. Did get to document some unusual syspila activity though. Many rocks are currently soggy-bottomed and were vacant, except for the occasional toad, such as this fellow, in situ:
On the highest piece of ground in an area, under unlikely cover for our syspila, tin:
In situ
And playing with macro,
Lampropeltis t. syspila
Other tins produced reptiles also:
Stubby tailed red-sided garter, Thamnophis sirtalis
Many beautiful but empty rocks later, I lifted one and notice a flash of color along the side—not under but alongside the rock. This large "blue" syspila would have been very attractive a few days later:
One of the few snakes actually under a rock—the largest C. constrictor that I have seen retaining this much of the juvenile coloration/pattern, at over 2’:
Yellow-bellied racer, Coluber constrictor flaviventris
One more, this pretty syspila continued the strange trend, under a board:
In situ
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