Herping in Sangamon County, Illinois

Graham's Crayfish Snake and Northern Water Snake: PC Yatin Kalki

Date:
May 13th 2015

Species Found:

1. Northern Water Snake (Nerodia sipedon sipedon)
2. Graham's Crayfish Snake (Regina grahamii)

The Trip:

Tom Anton, a herpetologist in Illinois, had told us about the paper he was working on that documented the prevalence of Graham's Crayfish Snakes in Illinois. Regina grahamii is listed as a 'Threatened' Species in Illinois but Tom believes it should be listed as 'Endangered' because numbers have really declined and now it is one of the rarest snakes in Illinois. He gave us a few locations and wanted us to check whether Regina grahamii were present there. One morning, Doug, Tristan and I headed to Sangamon County to look for Graham's Crayfish Snakes. The amount of effort spent searching for grahamii was also relevant to his paper and we had to document all other species we found as well.

Our first location was a lake shore right next to a boat dock. We concentrated on the rocks around the edges and soon Doug found a hatchling Northern Water Snake that was only about 6 inches long and pretty skinny looking. We thought that was interesting until Tristan walked up on a big mating ball of Northern Water Snakes that had at least 6 individuals. They started to disperse as soon as they saw us but we caught one to photograph for the record. Tristan found another one tangled in an old fishing net and he cut it free with some scissors a local fisherman had. I was walking the bank and saw a large, fat female Northern Water Snake. The snakes were now alerted to our presence so she took off deep into the water as soon as she saw me. I walked a little longer, seeing the occasional Northern Water Snake jump into the water, and then turned around to walk back. To my surprise, there were 3 male Northern Water Snakes crawling up onto the exact same rock the large female had jumped off of. I concluded that they had picked up the scent of the female and were hoping to mate with her, too bad they had just missed her. We didn't see any grahamii at this spot so we decided to move on. We tallied up a total of 12 distinct individual Northern Water Snakes seen here.

Northern Water Snake: PC Yatin Kalki

Northern Water Snake: PC Yatin Kalki

Northern Water Snake: PC Yatin Kalki

The next spot was also a rocky shoreline, and it had a few more fishermen than the last. We saw a few more Northern Water Snakes on the rocks and in the water and we photographed one for the record. A curious fisherman asked why we were catching snakes. Doug explained that we were looking for Graham's Crayfish Snakes and described what they looked like. "Oh, somebody caught a snake that looked just like that last week at The Place [name changed]. The Place has got all kinds of snakes." said the fisherman. This sounded like a pretty good lead, but you always have to be skeptical when dealing with locals, as there is a fair amount of ignorance in the world when it comes to snakes. Further down the bank, we spotted a bunch of water snakes basking on the rocks. Our strategy of walking along the shoreline and catching snakes wasn't proving very successful. We only caught 1 in 10 snakes and the snakes that we did manage to catch were either injured or stupidly slow. We decided to change our technique, and walk perpendicular to the shoreline and sneak up on the snakes from behind. This proved to work a little better. First, Tristan jumped on a large female Northern Water Snake and carried the angry, snapping snake further inland to photograph. I tried my luck and jumped on 3 males. Limited by my 2 hands, I grabbed the tails of 2 of them while the third one got away. Both the snakes that I had put their heads into crevices between the rocks and started pushing deeper. I called for Tristan to help me pull these snakes out but he was still busy with his large female. We waited for Doug to show up so that he could take Tristan's snake and Tristan could help me with my 2. While I was waiting with the tails in my hands, I spotted another large female coiled up under a rock close to my feet. Once Doug showed up, I got Tristan to grab the large female, which was about the same size as the first one he had caught. After he had delivered the snake to Doug, he tried to help me move the rocks around the snakes that had dug into the crevices. The males were just too deep in there so we decided to let them go rather than risk hurting them. Still, we had caught 2 out of 5 snakes which was better than our previous capture rate. We went back inland to photograph our large female Northern Water Snakes.

Northern Water Snake: PC Yatin Kalki

Northern Water Snakes: PC Yatin Kalki

While we were busy photographing the Water Snakes, Doug called us over because he saw a snake that wasn't a Northern Water Snake. He had already got a few photos of it from far away but he didn't want to attempt to capture it, in case it escaped. Tristan saw it and immediately jumped to try and grab it but it went underwater and we lost it. We tried moving all the rocks around where it went down and we found a heavy plastic bag. To everyone's surprise, there was another large female Northern Water Snake inside, about the same size as the 2 we had. We took it inland to photograph. When Tristan inspected Doug's photo, he exclaimed "That was a grahamii!" None of us had ever seen a Graham's Crayfish Snake before today, mostly because it is one of the rarest snakes in Illinois, so we were pretty disappointed that it had escaped.

We moved to the next spot, a nature park where someone had seen Graham's Crayfish Snakes basking on the low branches of trees. We spent about an hour walking through there but all we found was a Water Snake basking on the branch over the water. We decided that it was time to check out that lead that the fisherman had given us so we drove to The Place and started looking around. Tristan and I walked out of the car and in less than a minute we walked up on a snake hiding under a rock. A single coil was sticking out from under the rock and it didn't have the characteristic pattern of a Northern Water Snake. We had high hopes. To make sure this snake didn't get away, we decided that Tristan would grab the coil and I would flip the rock and secure the snake. We did just that and we both screamed "grahamii!" as soon as the snake was visible. Doug was still in the car getting ready to come out and look with us. He was ecstatic when he saw the snake in our hands. It had been a long-time goal of Tristan's to get good photos of a Graham's Crayfish Snake so he started setting up his flashes and camera. Meanwhile, I took a photo of the snake and sent it to Chris Phillips, the herpetologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey. I then bagged the snake and decided to look for more. Tristan was now on the phone with Tom Anton, who I guessed would have been the most excited of all about our find, considering he had been looking for this species for a good chunk of his life.

Graham's Crayfish Snake: PC Yatin Kalki

Graham's Crayfish Snake: PC Yatin Kalki

Doug called me and I went over. 2 meters in front of him, he had another grahamii sitting on a rock near the water, this time a juvenile. He told me to be there for backup, he wanted to attempt to catch this snake. I went around the side, ready to jump on the snake in case it decided to make a run for it while Doug calculated the best way to approach the snake without it seeing him. He sneaked up on it from behind a larger rock and put his hand on top of it. He had caught his first grahamii. Doug sat down to get his own photos while I moved on, looking for more snakes.While I walked along the bank, the following things happened. A large Northern Water Snake slid into the water right in front of me, a medium sized male grahamii was periscoping from under a rock but it too went underwater as soon as it saw me, and a large female grahamii jumped into the water from under a rock before I could even get a good look at it. While photographing the first grahamii, Tristan heard the sound of scales on rocks and pulled another grahamii out from under a rock. This place was crawling with grahamii! Good thing we listened to that fisherman.

Graham's Crayfish Snake: PC Tristan Schramer

Graham's Crayfish Snake: PC Tristan Schramer

Graham's Crayfish Snake: PC Tristan Schramer

Graham's Crayfish Snake: PC Tristan Schramer

Graham's Crayfish Snake: PC Tristan Schramer

We got a good amount of photos and started to tally up the total number of snakes seen. We counted 6 Graham's Crayfish Snakes and 37 Northern Water Snakes. Now, we have good evidence that this place is prime habitat for Regina grahamii. It can be protected as a safe haven for this Threatened Species.