I don’t see many box turtles at the museum. The habitat’s right but I can remember seeing only one or two of these terrestrial turtles in the twelve plus years I’ve walked the outdoor loop at the museum. Perhaps their scarcity is due to the fact that our 84 acre campus is surrounded by suburbia and ever increasing traffic on the roads around and through the area. These turtles have a bad track record in face-to-face encounters with cars. BoxRead more
Posts tagged: #herp
Racer
While walking through Catch the Wind, I caught a glimpse of a black snake in the grass on the side of the path. It was a black racer. There are two species of snake here at the Museum which are black, the black rat snake and the racer. Rat snakes average about five feet, maxing out at little over seven. The racer averages about four feet in length, maxing at just under six. The racer is black throughout except under the chin andRead more
Opportunist
The Animal Keepers cleaned the bear pool this week. The pools of water at the base of the Main Black Bear Overlook need to be cleaned every six months. The ponds collect much debris and algae and need cleaning. The cleaning often exposes all sorts of creatures, from crayfish to frogs. This exposition sometimes attracts opportunistic predators. It’s well known here at the Museum that red-shouldered hawks wait silently on perches along the edges of the Wetlands or in the swampRead more
A Tale of Two Tails
As I walked towards the Butterfly House on my way to my office, I noticed a small group of young children looking down at the ground and laughing, there must be something interesting over there. I approached. Lying on ground in the center of a circle of four or five squatting children, was a small U-shaped object. The object moved, wiggled. It was the tail of a skink. A few feet away was the skink itself, the lower third ofRead more
Racer
This Black Racer (or one just like it) has recently been very active along the path between the two Wetlands Overlooks. Tuesday, I saw it attempt to cross the path three times, each attempt was interrupted by passers by. Yesterday it was taking life easy, coiled up in one of our water snakes’ favorite spots on the north side of the Wetlands.Read more
A musky herp and some avian arrivals
The thumbnail sized Common Musk Turtle (Sternotherus odoratus), or Stinkpot, in the photo above was walking up the middle of the path in Explore the Wild. The light markings on the marginal scutes of its carapace and face identify it as a musk turtle. To get a feel for its size, the willow leaf next to the turtle is less than a centimeter across at its widest (7 or 8 mm). I saw several adults of these bottom-walking, tree-climbing aquaticRead more