Here’s a big boy caught by my friend Diego in the Maricopa mountains. That guy can catch some lizards. He also nabbed a baby collared lizard that day, and that’s not easy.

The only reptiles I saw that day, aside from a beautiful red prairie rattlesnake that was hit by the car in front of me later on, were a big group of spiny lizards out catching some sun. The temperature up there in the snow was only in the mid-40′s, but the rocks themselves were warm enough for basking. I count 9 lizards in this photo; only a fraction of the ones that scattered away as I approached.

Crotalus molossus

Crotalus molossus

Blacktail

… and you’ll have to endure my playing with HDR and the RAW format.

HDR version

Stripe-Tailed Scorpion, Hoffmannius spinigerus

Stripe Tailed Scorpion

Harcuvar mountains, on a chilly snake-less afternoon.

Harcuvars

The foothills North of my home in Anthem, Arizona.

Anthem

An outcrop near New River, Arizona

New River Rocks

… and the same hill in the other direction. It’s not snow, it’s a hill of crumbled white quartz, early in the morning.

New River

In the early morning I photographed several snakes out in a cold lightning storm. I have to say, taking pictures of a big pissed off diamondback while lightning strikes all around is a great way to get the blood pumping. (a few of these will reappear in another post in a special about C. atrox variation).

Crotalus atrox

Crotalus atrox

Crotalus scutulatus

Some vultures …

vulture

vultures

… and while I’m posting birds:

falcon

Here’s another Mojave Rattlesnake:

Crotalus scutulatus

… and another.

Crotalus scutulatus

Crotalus scutulatus

Back into New Mexico, I found several Ornate Box Turtles out in the rain.

Ornate Box Turtle

Ornate Box Turble in New Mexico

Ornate Box Turtle

In the evening, I found a tarantula hawk wasp the size of an adult mouse dragging a paralyzed, but still living, tarantula to a nest.

Tarantula hawk

Finally the rain cleared, but I decided to call it an early night, after a long, long day of not seeing a whole lot. The last snake I had seen was at about 10am, and the day was an adventure of car issues in the middle of nowhere, hiding from monster storms, and dodging flash floods. I got one last shot of the Animas mountains of New Mexico, opposite of the sunset, as the last of the hail clouds broke up to a chilly night sky.

New Mexico

Happy Halloween!

The first is a young Greater Short-Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma hernandesi) enjoying the early evening sun.

Phronosoma hernandesi

Desktop Wallpaper Version:

1650 x 1100 desktop

Greater Short-Horned Lizard

The second is the first Madrean Alligator Lizard (Elgaria kingii) I’ve been able to photograph. I’ve seen one other one, but it slipped through my fingers in tall grass.

Madrean Alligator Lizard

Elgaria kingii

Desktop Wallpaper Version:

1650 x 1100 wallpaper

Here was my view at about 8 a.m.

Bradshaw Mountains

I was really happy to have found this Sonoran Coralsnake (Micruroides euryxanthus) out on the move.  This is the 5th I’ve seen, and I was happy to be able to show my new friends from Pennsylvania one of the more elusive venomous snakes we have here in Arizona. This is one of a handful of snakes that can be the only one found on a trip and I’ll still feel completely satisfied seeing it alone.

Sonoran Coralsnake

… and a couple more of the same animal.

Micruroides euryxanthus

Sonoran Coralsnake

Superstition Mountains

Here’s a fancy pants HDR picture from my new lens:

Desert North of Phoenix

I hiked around awhile and found some cool places with a lot of flat, chipped rock that looks to be good on an afternoon sometime. On the way home, look who I found out cruising around:

Crotalus atrox

It’s the second Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox) I’ve seen this year. Something that’s immediately apparent in the two instances of atrox I’ve seen up here in the Anthem area that is different than the Mesa variety I’ve seen the most in the past is the higher amount of pink coloration; especially in the face. I look forward to seeing what other variations might be present in some of the common locals.

Crotalus atrox

Crotalus atrox

HDR Picture in S.E. Arizona

HDR Picture of Santa Cruz County

HDR Picture in Arizona

Praying Mantis

This one is (we believe) an impromptu grave. It was found just 3 or 4 miles North of the Mexican border in a very high-activity area. Someone not making the trip is something that happens from time to time. The picture does not show it well, but it’s a rectangular pile about 6 feet long and 3 feet across, and the only pile of rocks in the area.

grave

Here are some more pictures from the drive back to Arizona.

Cloudcroft, New Mexico

Near Silver City, New Mexico

HDR Photo in New Mexico

That night we stayed just inside New Mexico, and spent a few hours along the border.

sunset

… when herps are few, you’ll get scenery pictures.

In the night, we found a couple toads … a Great Plains Toad (Anaxyrus cognatus) and a male Couch’s Spadefoot Toad (Scaphiopus couchii):

Great Plains Toad

Couch\'s Spadefoot (male)

The amount of bugs flying all around us was just unreasonable at this point. There are usually a lot of creepy things flying around my head out there, attracted to the head lamp, but this night was just ridiculous. I was pulling crawling things out of my hair a full hour after getting back in the truck for the last time.

Anyway, that being said, here’s a little longnose snake we found who was as annoyed to be found as we were by the bugs we had to endure to get a picture. He wasn’t cooperative, and neither were we. This is the best we could do:

Long Nosed Snake

In the morning, I got up early to do a little hiking and see if anything was awake. I found a snake pretty quickly. It was a young Sonoran Gopher Snake (Pituophis catenifer affinis) of the usual high-pink color I usually find on this side of state.

He wasn’t happy about being woken up.

Sonoran Gophersnake

I spent some time hiking and didn’t find anything else, but it was hard to be disappointed.

Chiricuahua Mountains

Chiricuahua Mountains

I’ll end this series the same way our trip ended. While driving back to the hotel to get Kelly up and go home, I found the writhing body of a Mojave Rattlesnake. Both head and tail had been removed while the animal was still alive. Blood was splattered all around. This happened within minutes of my arrival.

Everything\'s Dumber in Texas

This is the kind of macho bullshit perpetuated by the idiots of Sweetwater Texas in their yearly redneck festival, where hundreds of dusty people too arrogant to realize they’re internationally recognized as personified ignorance gather to see who has the biggest hat. Of course this was not in Texas, but Rodeo, New Mexico.

It’s very hard to spend so much time with these animals and not become absolutely furious when finding something like this. This is, to me, similar to how most would feel if they found a dog in the street missing its head, somehow still moving. This was in my thoughts for days. I’m not kidding when I say I hope that the severed head got off one last bite. Sad to say these were my thoughts … but I guess I don’t prefer to be out in the desert whenever I can because I like people.

… and if any residents of Sweetwater end up on this site due to some Googling … please, please, please … buy your kids a book or two, and make Wednesday “No Beating!” day.

We went for a short hike along the Delaware River in the afternoon. Temperatures were a little too hot to see much other than some whiptails. I did get some pictures of a softshell turtle. It was my first, so I was quite satisfied with this being the only notable animal of the trip.

First, a picture of what is probably a dinner-plate sized painted turtle making its way across the river.

Painted Turtle

Here’s a large spider making friends with a damselfly.

Best Pals

Another spider hanging out in the grass … this one a little more pointy than the other.

Potential Afternoon-Ruinner

The soft shelled turtle:

Spiny Softshelled Turtle

Here’s an HDR picture of evening clouds moving in from the South.

Standing in a big shadow

After watching the bat flight from the caverns, we went out again. Pretty quickly, we found the second of the really interesting diamondbacks on the trip. A big chocolate-brown Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox).

Crotalus atrox

A young male tarantula out and about:

Tarantula

… and last for the night, a Red-Spotted Toad (Anaxyrus punctatus).

We went for a little hike West of Phoenix today and found only one snake. It was nice to get out regardless. Temps were down to 71 or so already at 6pm, so we were surprised to even find what we did.

Pretty place:

arizona upland desert scrub

A little HDR:

hrd-road

Arizona Upland Desert Scrub

On the way home we found a baby Mojave Rattlesnake crossing the road. It was only about 70F out, so it was kind of a surprise.

c-scutulatus1-041008

My girlfriend Kelly has a few pictures of that longnose on her camera that I’ll try and steal so I at least have one of that speces on the site. Either way, there will be hopefully some more animals on here after the nice warm weekend coming up.

Regular picture of a regular lizard out looking for a girlfriend (this isn’t the HDR, obivously).

Desert HDR 1 (right-click to save as):

Desert HDR 2 (right-click to save as):