This June my family and I took a road trip through the southwest that greatly mirrored a trip we all took ten years ago, with a few differences here and there. On the past trip, my brother and I were very young so we don't really remember the trip very well. When my parents brought up the idea of repeating the road trip, I immediately saw a great opportunity to herp one of the best areas for snakes and other herps in the country!
Of course, this trip was not made to look for reptiles and amphibians, but i did manage to squeeze in some searching time. In the two or so weeks we traveled this desert environment, I found some time in the mornings, at night and at rest stops to look for herps. Unfortunately, luck was not on our side and to my surprise we found no live snakes in a place where rattlesnakes thrive and many people see them without even trying. Please don't let this stop you from reading this post because we still saw some pretty cool stuff. The lack of snakes caused me to find some other type of herp to occupy my time. So I turned to lizards. As expected, lizards were everywhere and this trip taught me how fun it is to photograph them and try to get as close as possible.
We saw all different types of lizards, including spiny, whiptails and others. But my favorite lizard, and biggest, was actually the first one that we saw: A Desert Iguana
Here are some of the other lizards seen:
That last lizard sadly is dead. His back side was hit by a car in a parking lot..
Lizards were not the only herps we found. To everyone's surprise, there are actually many amphibians in the desert. They are not seen very often because most frogs and toads bury themselves in the dirt for as long as it takes for the rare desert rains to come. They can spend many months just sitting underground waiting. Well, we were lucky enough to experience a desert rain storm in Arches National Park. That night, I found time to do some road cruising (driving roads while looking for herps warming themselves on the asphalt). Sure enough the toads had come out of the ground and were sitting on the road! We saw many different types, but my favorites were the Spadefoot Toads!
As predicted, we did see some DOR (Dead on Road) herps because many cars don't pay enough attention at night to see these little guys or sometimes people intentionally swerve to hit snakes (scary but true). These DORs are where the two snakes that we saw come in. The first is a gopher snake found on the skinny shoulder of the road (some people just can't drive between the lines) and the second in unidentified. I will update this post if I can find out what specie it is.
So that is the end of the reptiles and amphibians, but I would say that it was the other animals that we saw that brought the best wildlife experiences. We were fortunate enough to see Mule Deer, Elk, Wild Horses, Pronghorn Antelopes, Coyotes, Grey Foxes, Jackrabbits, Golden Eagles and Scorpions!!
The Grey Foxes had to be the best wildlife moment on the trip. We were in Arches Nat'l Park and had just finished a short hike. The sun was setting and we were about to get in the car when my mom heard some rustling on a hill beside the parking lot. Suddenly two grey foxes shot out of a hole and began running on the hillside. They then went to the other side of the hill and we lost site of them, but the experience wasn't even close to over. As we entered the car to leave, the foxes came back into view and as one ran back to the hole, all of a sudden four baby grey foxes exploded into their mom! It was a den site! The pups were very small and they continued to wrestle each other and play for the next 30 minutes!! This was undisturbed wildlife viewing at its best! We were no further than 50 feet away, yet the mom and pups didn't care. Unfortunately, it was getting dark so seeing detail was hard, but we were the only ones in the parking lot enjoying this rare spectacle. Then it got very dark and we were only seeing the outlines of the foxes until the mom actually came down into the parking lot looking for food. The flash of the camera didn't scare her so we were able to get some photos. We didn't photograph the pups in fear that the flash would startle them.
The scorpions too were a very cool find, especially because I have never seen scorpions. They were found under pieces of logs at a WWII site where there used to be camps for Japanese-Americans. The species is called a Bark Scorpion and they are the most venomous scorpions in the southwest. We saw three in only 10 or so minutes of searching!
All in all, this trip was great. The lack of snakes was a bust but I believe we still had a lot of luck and saw some really cool things. I for sure will be back to the southwest soon, especially Arizona in search for more.
