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This one is named Jake, and is a tropical species found mostly in northern Australia.
Tree Snakes are regarded as being mildly venomous but not particularly harmful to humans. Jake is nocturnal and can be quite flighty when woken up during the day.
I was walking around in the garden and came across this baby snake…. I mean, this snake was small… On the top left hand corner… that is a blade of grass…
This young snapping turtle went about 10 inches across the shell, weighed around 2.5 lbs. I photographed him on the road at Bedford Mills, then carefull picked him up and moved him before he was hit. Note the duck-weed and filamentous algae covering his carapace. My wife did not appreciate my "turtle stink" when I got back in the car!
I managed to get quite close to this one before it dashed into the gap between the stones in a wall.
Anguis fragilis - the slow worm.
The Latin name is all wrong - it's not a snake and it seems far from fragile. But to be fair, it does look exactly like a snake, and perhaps the 'fragile' part refers to the fact that it can shed its tail like other lizards.
Its common name really doesn't do it justice either - this is definitely no worm. My first thought was that its scales looked like they'd been forged from burnished bronze. If dragons ever existed, then perhaps this was their larval form and they've just become stuck, like the axoltotl, in perpetual infanthood.
This was my first encounter with a slow worm and it was a magical experience. Especially when my father in-law gently picked it up to give us all a better look.
This young snapping turtle went about 10 inches across the shell, weighed around 2.5 lbs. I photographed him on the road at Bedford Mills, then carefull picked him up and moved him before he was hit. Note the duck-weed and filamentous algae covering his carapace. My wife did not appreciate my "turtle stink" when I got back in the car!
I took this picture in a reptile house, I don't know the species name. I anyone knows it I will change the title.
Thanks
A welcome visitor in my backyard this morning. I think my neighbor didn't know what to think that I ran outside with my camera to take pictures (apparently the garter snake lives in her garage). Possibly a gravid (pregnant) female, she was rather thick bodied but it didn't look like a food bulge. Maybe about 2 ft long. Thamnophis sirtalis, Colubridae. Spring 2013.
I found out that male green iguanas can take on orange color seasonally. This one was particularly orange.
Acrantophis dumerili
Status: Vulnerable
Range: Southwest Madagascar
Habitat: Forest
Diet: small mammals
Creature Feature: Dumeril's boa, also known as the Madagascar ground boa, is a striking snake that grows up to 1.8 m in length. Like most members of the Boa snake family, it is a fairly chunky or stout snake with grey and brown bands along the length of the body, with black markings.
It has no venom and inhabits dry forests, often close to villages, where it presumably feeds on rats. Dumeril's boa kills small mammals by constricting the prey in coils of its body. They tend to hunt at night and posses heat sensitive pits around the mouth that help them to detect their prey. Boas give birth to live young.
Threats include the widespread habitat destruction for agriculture or livestock grazing, collection for food and the skins are used for leather. This snake is highly desirable in the pet trade and so international trade in wild specimens i
TAXONOMY
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Squamata
Suborder: Serpentes
Family: Boidae
Subfamily: Boinae
Genus: Epicrates cenchria
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS: The Brazilian rainbow boa is one of about 12 named subspecies of rainbow boa. Color is brown or reddish brown with three parallel black stripes on the top of the head and large black rings down the back that give the appearance of dorsal blotches. There is a great deal of variation in color and marking among individuals of this species. Length is four to six feet (1.2 to 1.8 m).
DISTRIBUTION/HABITAT: Found in the Amazon Basin, and in coastal Guiana, French Guyana, and Suriname and southern Venezuela most often in humid forests.
DIET IN THE WILD: Rodents, birds, and possibly some forms of aquatic life and lizards.
REPRODUCTION: Babies are born live in litters of two to 35. They are usually 15 to 20 inches (38 to 51 cm) long.
LIFESPAN: To 20 years in capativity.
REMARKS: E. cenchria is named because of the iridescent sheen imparted by microscopic ridges on their scales, which act like prisms to refract light into rainbows.
References
National Zoo nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/ReptilesAmphibians/Facts/FactS...
The Reptile Database reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Epicrates&...
Ron's flickr www.flickr.com/photos/cas_docents/15580871426/
Ron's Wordpress shortlink wp.me/p1DZ4b-1nJ
Flooded Amazon AM03 with Anaconda
10-22-14