Herpedex: All the Herps I Have Seen In The Wild: chorus frog

Showing posts with label chorus frog. Show all posts

Saturday, 29 August 2015

Fall Herping at the Kankakee Sands 1

Ornate Box Turtle: PC Tristan Schramer

Date:
August 29th 2015

Species Found:

Eastern Milk Snake (Lampropeltis trianglum triangulum)
Gray Treefrog (Hyla versicolor)
Fowler's Toad (Bufo fowleri)
Blue Racer (Coluber constrictor foxii)
Western Chorus Frog (Pseudacris triseriata)
Bull Snake (Pituophis catenefer sayi)
Common Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis)
Midland Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi wrightorum)
Ornate Box Turtle (Terrapene ornata)
Western Slender Glass Lizard (Ophiosaurus a. attenuatus)
Six-Lined Racerunner (Aspidoscelis sexlineata)
Western Fox Snake (Pantherophis vulpinus)
Northern Water Snake (Nerodia s. sipedon)

Background:
A herper from North Carolina named Thomas was in Illinois and wanted to see the herpetofauna of the state. A group of us met him at the Kankakee Sands to show him some snakes. Tristan and I had been to this spot a few times before and knew the area pretty well. We met some old friends: Conner, Culton, Matt and a few of Matt's coworkers, who would also look for herps with us.

The Trip:

By the time we pulled up, the herping had already begun and they had found a large Eastern Milk Snake under a wooden board. After introductions, most of us went to look for more snakes while others stayed to photograph the Milk Snake. In the next stretch, we found plenty of Gray Treefrogs and a few Fowler's Toads. Tristan found a Chorus Frog, a species that was pretty rare in these parts.

Eastern Milk Snake: PC Tristan Schramer

Gray Treefrog: PC Tristan Schramer

Western Chorus Frog: PC Tristan Schramer

Conner and one of Matt's coworkers each found Blue Racers under boards. Conner caught his while the other escaped into some thorny bushes. It was a beautiful specimen about 4 foot in length.

Blue Racer: PC Tristan Schramer

The next snake found was a 4.5 foot Bull Snake by Thomas. It was his first Bull Snake so he was pretty excited. Some others found a few Garter Snakes and a Brown Snake, species that were extremely common elsewhere but pretty rare in the Kankakee Sands.

While we were walking through the sand prairie, I saw the tail of a Glass Lizard zip between some bushes. I tried to locate the animal but it was long gone. While everyone was searching the area for the Glass Lizard, Matt found an Ornate Box Turtle. This was the highlight of the trip because Ornate Box Turtles are extremely hard to find and are even listed as a Threatened Species in Illinois. Tristan had seen every Kankakee Sands species except for the Ornate Box Turtle so when he found out, he was ecstatic.

Ornate Box Turtle: PC Tristan Schramer

Tristan and a few others stopped to photograph the turtle while I pressed on with a few others. We didn't find much else so we decided to move to another spot: a trailer nearby that had some tin and boards near it. There we found another Milk Snake and a Racerunner. Some of the other guys had never seen a Racerunner before but I had seen plenty.

Eastern Milk Snake: PC Tristan Schramer

Six-lined Racerunner: PC Tristan Schramer

Next we went to another spot: some disused railway tracks that were know to harbor Fox Snakes. On the way from the car to the tracks, I saw several dead Leopard Frogs and hatchling Snapping Turtles on the road. I had never seen a live Snapping Turtle so I looked in the area but didn't find anything. We got to the tracks and started flipping old ties, rocks and logs. I lifted a rock that was half buried in the ground and found 3 hatching Fox Snakes. Each was a little over 6 inches long and they had very calm temperaments. While everyone was passing around and inspecting the snakes, I lifted the another rock next to the previous one and found 2 more baby Fox Snakes. I had found a nest of baby Fox Snakes!

Hatchling Fox Snake: PC Tristan Schramer

Meanwhile, Thomas found a Northern Water Snake under a log. It was an average sized male and had the average temperament of a water snake: nasty. Matt and his coworkers found a 2 more Northern Water Snakes and 3 more baby Fox Snakes in a rock pile. We photographed the snakes and released them. Soon, Matt yelled for someone to help him. He had a huge Northern Water Snake by the tail but the majority of its body was tangled in a clump of plants. I ran over and located the snake's head. With one motion, I grabbed its neck before it could bite me, which it was desperately trying to do. I pulled it out of the plants and handed the snake to Matt. It was a 4.5 foot female.
On the way back, someone saw another Garter Snake disappear into a hole under the rails. We tried to locate it but we couldn't.

Northern Water Snake: PC Tristan Schramer

Trips to Kankakee are always fun but this one was even better because we got to see the Ornate Box Turtle, a beautiful rare species that nobody in our group had seen before.

Saturday, 4 April 2015

Herping in Will County, Illinois

Blue-spotted Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer

Date:
April 4th 2015

Species Found:

Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum)
Blue-spotted Salamander (Ambystoma laterale)
Western Chorus Frog (Pseudacris triseriata)
Eastern Newt (Notophthalamus viridescens)
Northern Green Frog (Lithobates clamitans melanota)

The Trip:

Tristan had herped in Will County before and found a lot of cool species that Noah and I had never seen. We decided to make a stop there after we were done helping with the mudpuppy research. We got there and started making our way toward the ponds. Deer were everywhere and what was weird was that these deer seemed to be more brave than the other deer I had seen. You could get as close as 10 meters to them before they ran away. We finally got to a pond and flipped a log by the water's edge. Surprisingly, 2 of the species we had come to find were sitting right there. A Spotted Salamander, which I had seen before, and a Blue-spotted Salamander, a new species for me. I was really excited to see my first Blue-spotted but I was just as excited about the Spotted because it had orange spots on its head, a trait that I had never seen before.

Salamander and Frog Habitat: PC Tristan Schramer

Under the first log we flipped: PC Tristan Schramer

We knew we would find more of these salamanders so we carried on without taking too many photos of these. The second log we flipped had a large gravid Spotted Salamander. It was the fattest salamander I had ever seen.

Gravid Female Spotted Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer

As we continued to look under logs, we found whole clumps of these salamanders, just crawling all over each other. We also found some salamanders living in the logs, under the bark.

Salamanders under log: PC Tristan Schramer

Salamander living in log: PC Tristan Schramer

We then settled down by a pond to photograph the salamanders. As pretty as they were, they were frustrating specimens to photograph. They just refused to sit still for longer than a second.

Spotted Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer

Blue-spotted Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer

Some of the salamanders we found had some weird lumps on their throats and bellies. We weren't sure what this was but we knew it wasn't good news. We took pictures of the affected areas to forward to herpetologists so that they would be able to find out what was wrong.

Diseased Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer

The background music to all of this was the deafening sound of Chorus Frogs calling. A small log that I flipped had a small Chorus Frog under it.

Western Chorus Frog: PC Yatin Kalki

Western Chorus Frog: PC Yatin Kalki

Western Chorus Frog: PC Yatin Kalki

Western Chorus Frog: PC Yatin Kalki

Western Chorus Frog: PC Tristan Schramer

We moved away from the small ponds and went to a large pond with lots of vegetation and algae in it. Tristan said that this would be a good place to find newts, an amphibian that I had never seen before. It took about 5 minutes for Tristan to catch a male Eastern Newt in his net. This was a new species for me so I took my time examining it. Its skin was much rougher than the skin of any salamander I had seen before. Newts are also known to be poisonous, but only when ingested. I had no plans of eating the newt so I was pretty safe. Tristan later caught a female with a large, fin-like tail.

Eastern Newt: PC Yatin Kalki

Eastern Newts: PC Yatin Kalki

Male Eastern Newt: PC Tristan Schramer

Female Eastern Newt: PC Tristan Schramer

Somehow Tristan managed to get pictures of the newt yawning. This was hilarious.

Yawning Newt: PC Tristan Schramer

At some point we caught a tadpole of a Northern Green Frog. It looked a lot like the Bullfrog tadpoles I had seen before but the spots were different.

Green Frog Tadpole: PC Yatin Kalki

Green Frog Tadpole: PC Yatin Kalki

This trip was pretty successful. I got 2 new species to add to my American Herp List, which now stood at 48 species.

UPDATE:
We sent the photos of the diseased salamanders to herpetologists Chris Phillips and Andrew Kuhns and wildlife veterinarian Matt Allender. According to them, the lumps were formed by "yellow grub", a parasitic fluke that needs salamanders (or fish) to complete its life cycle. Here is the wikipedia excerpt:

Yellow grub require two intermediate hosts, usually a snail and a fish, but in vernal ponds salamanders are often infected, and one definitive host - birds. If an infected salamander is ingested by a heron or other wading bird, the fluke matures in the throat of the bird, eggs are released through the birds feces, hopefully back into the water, and picked up on the foot of a snail, they then reproduce asexually and exit the snail foot as free swimming larvae in search of another fish or salamander to repeat the cycle.

It is unclear what effect this parasite has on the salamander's survival, but the disease is apparently quite widespread.

Saturday, 25 October 2014

Fall Herping in Vermilion County, Illinois

Juvenile Blue Racer: PC Yatin Kalki

Date:
October 25th 2014

Species Found

Red Back Salamander (Plethodon cinereus)
Northern Slimy Salamander (Plethodon glutinosus)
Southern Two Lined Salamander (Eurycea cirrigera)
Wood Frog (Lithobates sylvaticus)
Northern Spring Peeper (Pseudacris c. crucifer)
Western Chorus Frog (Pseudacris triseriata)
Blue Racer (Coluber constrictor foxii)
Four Toed Salamander (Hemidactylium scutatum)
Northern Cricket Frog (Acris crepitans blanchardi)

Background:

It was getting colder and we thought the snake season was just about over. We decided to concentrate more on salamanders as they have higher tolerance to the cold. Tristan found 'Doug' on Flickr who had found a variety of salamander species in a neighboring county. He reached out to Doug and it turned out that Doug worked at the University of Illinois in the chemistry department. Doug agreed to take me, Tristan and Megan out to Vermilion County and show us some of the salamander spots.

The Trip:

Doug first took us to a place where he had found Marbled Salamanders before. We had no luck there though. Then, we all branched out from that spot, herping in different directions, just to see what we might find. I found several slugs, earthworms, centipedes and wolf spiders but no herps. After what seemed like an hour, Tristan yelled that he had found something. He was really far away so his voice was really faint. I walked some distance just following his voice and when I finally found him, he showed me two small Red Back Salamanders that he had in his hand. They were dark colored with a reddish stripe running down their back. They looked quite similar to the Zigzag Salamanders we had seen at Snake Road.

Red Back Salamander: PC Yatin Kalki

Red Back Salamander: PC Yatin Kalki

We then moved on to another location: a hillside with a lot of rocks to flip. There we found at least 100 more Red Back Salamanders. Some of the Red Backs didn't have the stripe running down their back. These were apparently called Lead Backs but they were the same species as the Red Backs. They were just a different phase. The Red/Lead Backs ranged in size from 5 cm to 8 cm.

Red Back Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer

Lead Back Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer

Red Back Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer

Both phases: PC Tristan Schramer

We also found some Red Back neonates (babies). They were barely 2 cm long.

Red Back Salamander Neonate: PC Tristan Schramer

Everyone was getting kind of bored of finding only one species over and over. I saw a large flat rock that was kind of breaking off in slates. I flipped it and found 6 Red Backs and one large black salamander that looked differently proportioned than the other ones I had been seeing. I picked it up and called everyone over. Tristan identified it as a Slimy Salamander. It was 10-12 cm long and had small white dots all over it. It left a sticky residue all over my hands, I guess that's where it gets its name from. The Slimy was a first for everyone and I was really proud that I was the one who found it. While Tristan was photographing it, I found 2 more Slimy Salamanders near the same slate rocks.

Slimy Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer

Slimy Salamander: PC Yatin Kalki

Slimy Salamanders: PC Yatin Kalki

The next species we found was the Southern Two Lined Salamander and guess who found it? Me :)

It was about as big as the Red Backs but looked really different. It was golden yellow with 2 lines running down its back. Its underside was bright yellow. I was holding it in my hand as I climbed down the hill toward everyone else and when I got down the salamander wasn't moving and its body was limp. I thought it had died of shock and I felt guilty as hell. I set it down on a rock to examine it and out of nowhere it jumped up and made a dash for a pile of leaves. It was playing dead the whole time!

Southern Two Lined Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer

We also found some frogs. A Wood Frog and a Spring Peeper. The Wood Frog has a dark eye mask and a yellowish underbelly. It can tolerate freezing temperature and over the Winter it freezes completely only to thaw in the Spring. The Spring Peeper looks like a tree frog with large toe pads and a cross on its back.

Wood Frog: PC Tristan Schramer

Wood Frog: PC Yatin Kalki

Spring Peeper: PC Yatin Kalki

Spring Peeper: PC Tristan Schramer

Next we went to a snake hibernaculum where Doug had found Black Rat Snakes before. I started looking in the cracks between rocks and flipping the loose ones. Tristan walked up a sunny hill and literally less than 10 seconds later, he came down with a juvenile Blue Racer Snake. I had seen the Black Racer but the Blue was new to me. Racers are some of my favorite snakes so I was super excited. Then, Megan went up the hill and 10 seconds later, she came down holding an adult Blue Racer. The adult was around 4 ft long while the juvenile was maybe 3 ft. I was amazed at how easily they had found the snakes so I decided to go up the hill. Unfortunately I didn't find anything but I had a really fun time handling the other two. These light blue scales of these snakes were iridescent in the sunlight.

Juvenile Blue Racer: PC Yatin Kalki

Juvenile Blue Racer: PC Yatin Kalki

Adult Blue Racer: PC Yatin Kalki

At one point the larger Blue Racer got into a feisty mood and started striking at me. It also started vibrating its tail in the leaf litter to simulate the rattle of a rattlesnake.

When we were releasing the Racers on the hill, I heard something moving through the leaves a few meters away from me. It was another Blue Racer with a whiter color than the other 2. I picked it up by its tail and this one was even feistier than the other one. It got me on the wrist but it didn't break the skin. I had enough pictures of Blue Racers so I let this one go without photographing it.

We next went to a place where the State Threatened Four Toed Salamander is found. It was an artificial wetland created to water cattle. As soon as we got there Megan found a Western Chorus Frog, which was a new species for me. We went on flipping rocks and logs and found various Red Backs and Southern Two Lineds. Finally, Megan found the spot where we found about 10 Four Toed Salamanders. They were identified by their spotted underbelly and constriction at the base of the tail. Since they were a threatened species, all of us were excited about them.