6:00pm - While walking through bottomland forest, a Texas rat snake (Pantherophis obsoletus), 6 ft. 4 in. male, moving along a fallen log. At the same time, choruses of Green treefrogs (Hyla cinerea) at call index 2, as well as Cricket frogs (Acris crepitans) at CI 3, and S. leopard frogs (Lithobates sphenocephalus utricularius) at CI 1. As we walked to the edge of the marsh, we observed a Great blue
Texas Field Notes k A j our na l o f w i ld l if e a n d w il d p l a c es i n Texa s k
July, 2018 Volume 9, No. 1
Inside This Issue Editorial …………………..
2
The Reptiles & Amphibians of Palo Pinto Mountains State Park - A PreDevelopment Survey …….
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Challenge Accepted - At the Southwest Nature Preserve .. 10 Storms, Herps, & Insects in Late May on the Rolling Plains
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What Good Are Snakes? ….
28
Bucket List Places
30
Matador Wildlife Management Area
Texas Field Notes
July, 2018
Texas Field Notes Vol. 9 No. 1 Texas Field Notes is a quarterly e-journal of the wildlife and wild places of Texas, available for download from greatrattlesnakehwy.com and from https://issuu.com/ texasfieldnotes. The purpose of Texas Field Notes is to explore the natural history of Texas, connect people with nature, and share what that connection looks like. Editors: Michael Smith & Clint King Design & Layout: Michael Smith All photos taken by authors except as noted otherwise
Advisors Rob Denkhaus
Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge
Travis LaDuc
University of Texas at Austin
Ann Mayo
Weatherford College
Jesse Meik
Tarleton State University
Suzanne Tuttle
(Retired) Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge
Marianna T. Wright
National Butterfly Center Our advisors provide valued input and assistance, but responsibility for the content of articles remains with the authors. Our website and blog is: The Great Rattlesnake Highway www.greatrattlesnakehwy.com which contains information about Texas’ ecoregions and articles that do not appear in Texas Field Notes. © 2018 All rights reserved, except that ownership of photographs and articles remains with the contributor.
Editorial: The Return of Texas Field Notes Michael Smith Here we are in the year 2018, with the weather reflecting a shifting climate,1 Texas population growing faster than anywhere else in the nation,2 and resource extraction scarring the land3 with pipelines, fracking, and gas flaring. Texas’ ecoregions and wildlife seem to be under assault, while people have less and less connection with the land and water that sustain them.4 At the same time, there are lots of encouraging efforts to conserve nature, including organizations dedicated to preserving and caring for the land (the Nature Conservancy in Texas5 and the Native Prairies Association of Texas6 are two good examples), those that train, study, and volunteer for nature (like the Texas Master Naturalist program7), and the nature centers across the state that provide events for the public to experience and learn about nature. Their successes are undeniable, but it’s not clear whether the pace of good works can keep up with the pace of destruction, and this seems like an “all hands on deck” moment. All of us who can help should do whatever we can, and we (Michael Smith and Clint King) want to be part of the effort. Among our past efforts to share nature and encourage conservation was the publication of Texas Field Notes (TFN). The first issue of TFN appeared in 2003 and a few others followed, but it was in April, 2010 that Clint joined Michael in writing an issue of TFN, beginning a long and productive partnership. Our goal was to share our travels across the state looking for herps and get readers “hooked” on the experience of being out there in those wonderful places and seeing amazing wildlife. Perhaps through our words and photos, some readers would visit some of these preserves and refuges for the first time, and then maybe come to feel a connection to those places that was like home – a place where they felt at peace, where they belonged, and a place they would want to protect. Perhaps we could increase readers’ understanding that everything in the woods, prairies, wetlands, and deserts had an important role to play, even if it Page 2 !
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Editorial: The Return of Texas Field Notes (continued) was not obvious to us. Even the lowly and misunderstood have value and would be missed if they were gone. Our goal has been this – get out there, experience all you can, and treasure the natural world like a beloved member of your family. After 2014 we ended TFN while we were involved in other things for the next few years. Now seems like a good time to revive that publication, as a companion to our blog, The Great Rattlesnake Highway (www.greatrattlesnakehwy.com). There is something to be said for a publication that you can print and hold in your hands, and one that can be downloaded and saved (or read at the Issuu website, www.issuu.com/texasfieldnotes). We hope that readers will share it with others, and that schools might make use of it. We strive to make TFN engaging and accessible for readers, while making sure that its scientific accuracy is solid. And as it was before, it is a free publication. We would also like to include other voices. In 2012, Thom Marshall beautifully described a trip to the Big Bend where he saw three rattlesnake species, other nonvenomous snakes, and alligator lizards in the mountains. For this issue, we are fortunate to have an article from Ed Barnes describing his herp survey of the Palo Pinto Mountains State Park, combining scientific findings with an engaging narrative of what it is like to be out in the field doing a herp survey. We would love to receive articles (ideally with photos) that describe visits to interesting places in Texas, encounters with wildlife and discussion of their role in plant and animal communities, or conservation issues with Texas wildlife and wild places. If you are interested, you can reach me at texasfieldnotes@gmail.com. We really hope that you enjoy this, the first issue of Texas Field Notes since 2014. If you like it, or if you have suggestions for what would make it better, please get in touch with us. We would really like to hear from you. h 1.National Geographic. Climate Change Now Impacting U.S., Government Report Warns. https:// news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/climate-change-government-draft-review-usa-environment-spd/ (accessed 4/14/18) 2. U.S. Census Bureau. Texas Has Nation’s Largest Annual State Population Growth. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2017/08/ texas-population-trends.html (accessed 4/14/18) 3. CNBC. Fracking boom: US shale oil output to top 6 million barrels a day in August and September https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/14/ us-shale-oil-output-to-top-6-million-barrels-a-day.html (accessed 4/14/18) 4. Soga, M., Gaston, K.J., Yamaura, Y., Kurisu, K., & K. Hanaki. 2016. Both Direct and Vicarious Experiences of Nature Affect Children’s Willingness to Conserve Biodiversity. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pmc/articles/PMC4923986/ (accessed 4/14/18) 5. The Nature Conservancy: Texas. https://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/texas/index.htm (accessed 5/7/18) 6. Native Prairies Association of Texas. http://texasprairie.org (accessed 5/7/18) 7. Texas Master Naturalist. https://txmn.org (accessed 5/7/18)
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July, 2018
Ed Barnes’ survey team
The Reptiles and Amphibians of Palo Pinto Mountains State Park: A Pre-Development Survey Ed Barnes It’s just after 9:00pm on a surprisingly cool 60-degree May evening as we approach the pond. The frogs quickly go silent as we near the shore. Falling into the routine they know well, my experienced team quickly whispers the data they have been assigned to collect. “Ambient temp 15.5” “Water temp 21.5” “Humidity 55%” “Wind zero” “Location 542097, 3602482” “Okay, red lights only, recording,” I say as quietly as possible. Page !4
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The Reptiles & Amphibians of Palo Pinto Mountains State Park (continued) As the team switch their headlamps to red and try to silently find a place to sit, I turn on the audio recorder and we settle in. The frogs we seek slowly grow accustomed to our presence and begin calling. First only the few brave ones but slowly the pond erupts; northern cricket frogs (Acris blanchardi), Rio Grande leopard frogs (Lithobates berlandieri), grey tree frogs (Hyla versicolor), and western narrow-mouthed toads (Gastrophryne olivacea) fill the air with sound. After 5 minutes, I call out, “okay, recording done” and turn off the recorder. The team discuss what frogs were heard and in what quantity as I log the team’s conclusions. The recording will be examined later back at the university to determine if there were any that escaped notice on site. As part of my thesis project for Master’s Degree in Biology at Tarleton State University, I conducted a herpetological survey at Palo Pinto Mountains State Park, Texas Parks and Wildlife’s newest acquisition, from the late winter of 2016 until late October of the same year. Only an hour and a half west of Fort Worth, the 4,400 acre park is located at the junction of southwestern Palo Pinto County and southeastern Stephens County, just outside the small town of Strawn, Texas. Though the land was purchased in 2011, the park is not slated to open until 2020 due to funding issues. As development has not yet begun, our year-long survey will serve as a baseline for reptile and amphibian activity in the park. By using specific, repeatable methods, this study could be performed again 3-5 years after opening to determine what impact the development and visitors are having on the herpetofauna within the park. A secondary objective of the study is to examine detection method effectiveness. In conjunction with data collected at a second study site in Brown County, we are tracking various detection methods based on per-unit effort and taking Rio Grande leopard frog environmental data while performing these tasks. In simpler terms, we are examining how best to detect these animals to help future researchers be more efficient with their field time. The first audio survey complete, the team loads up into the Polaris® Ranger and moves on to several additional ponds to conduct surveys. En route, any herps that are seen are logged along with their location and environmental data such as ambient temperature, surface temperature where the animal was sitting, humidity, and wind speed. We count every herp sighted, no matter how common. By the completion of the survey at the end of October of 2016, thirty-five species of reptile and amphibian were discovered inside the park. Among them were two frog species, the Gulf Coast Toad (Incilius nebulifer) and the Rio Grande Leopard Frog (Lithobates berlandieri), that were found outside their known range. Page !5
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The Reptiles & Amphibians of Palo Pinto Mountains State Park (continued) Moving on to the next task of the night, we begin the nocturnal road surveys. This consists of driving slowly and searching the roads and adjacent vegetation for any herps that may be crossing the road or using it to bask in the residual warmth. Quickly, my field assistant, Ryan, calls out “snake!” and flies off the Ranger. Before I can get the vehicle stopped, the team has grabbed their snake hooks, leapt from the Ranger, and surrounded the snake, a gorgeous broadbanded copperhead Broad-banded copperhead (Agkistrodon laticinctus). With one team member wrangling the snake, the others call out their assigned data to me. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” as they say, so we take a bit of time to marvel at this magnificent animal and take photos. Surprisingly, despite reports from an ornithology crew telling us of numerous sightings, we saw no rattlesnakes at this site but copperheads are abundant, especially along FM 2372 which runs along the northern border of much of the park. As the night progresses, we spot more frogs; northern cricket frogs (Acris blanchardi), Rio Grande leopard frogs (Lithobates berlandieri), Strecker’s chorus frogs (Pseudacris streckeri), red-spotted toads (Anaxyrus punctatus), western narrow-mouthed toads (Gastrophryne olivacea) and Gulf Coast toads (Incilius nebulifer), snakes; copperheads (Agkistrodon laticinctus), rough earth snakes (Virginia striatula), and western ribbonsnakes (Thamnophis proximus), and lizards; Common spotted whiptails (Aspidoscelis gularis), and ground skinks (Scincella lateralis). Around 2:00am, the team calls it a night and settles in for a few hours of rest. Up at dawn the next morning, we start with checking our cover boards. Six pieces of 2-foot x 4-foot plywood were set out in December to settle and weather. Ten arrays of cover boards are set along a packed-earth road in the eastern portion of the park. These boards serve as refugia for our target animals. Literature indicates that they disproportionately attract gravid and shedding individuals. Under the first board, we find evidence of this, a young coachwhip (Coluber flagellum) only 3 feet long (adults of this species commonly reach 6 feet), its eyes pale blue indicating it is just coming into shed. As with our other study methods, environmental data is gathered at each sighting and under each board even if no animal is lurking beneath. This gives us the preferred ranges of temperature for each species. As we check the remainder of the boards, additional snakes are found; Texas threadsnake (Rena dulcis), a juvenile eastern yellow-bellied racer (Coluber constrictor), Dekay’s brownsnake (Storeria Page !6
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The Reptiles & Amphibians of Palo Pinto Mountains State Park (continued) Table 1 - Species found 3/4/2016 through 10/23/2016 Turtles
Frogs
Lizards
Snakes
False Map Turtle
Graptemys pseudogeographica
Red-Eared Slider
Trachemys scripta
Spiny Softshell
Apalone spinifera
American Bullfrog
Lithobates catesbianus
Plains Leopard Frog
Lithobates blairi
Rio Grande Leopard Frog
Lithobates berlandieri
Gray Tree Frog
Hyla versicolor
Northern Cricket Frog
Acris blanchardi
Green Toad
Anaxyrus debilis
Gulf Coast Toad
Incilius nebulifer
Red-Spotted Toad
Anaxyrus punctatus
Woodhouse’s Toad
Anaxyrus woodhousii
Spotted Chorus Frog
Pseudacris clarkii
Strecker’s Chorus Frog
Pseudacris streckeri
Western Narrow-Mouthed Toad
Gastrophryne olivacea
Common Spotted Whiptail
Aspidoscelis gularis
Four-Lined Skink
Plestiodon tetragrammus
Little Brown Skink
Scincella lateralis
Texas Spiny Lizard
Sceloporus olivaceus
Chihuahuan Nightsnake
Hypsiglena jani
Coachwhip
Coluber flagellum
Eastern Yellow-Bellied Racer
Coluber constrictor
Eastern Patch-Nosed Snake
Salvadora grahamiae
Western Ratsnake
Pantherophis obsoletus
Great Plains Ratsnake
Pantherophis guttatus
Dekay’s Brownsnake
Storeria dekayi
Diamond-Backed Watersnake
Nerodia rhombifer
Western Ribbonsnake
Thamnophis proximus
Rough Earthsnake
Virginia striatula
Ring-Necked Snake
Diadophis punctatus
Western Groundsnake
Sonora semiannulata
Flat-Headed Snake
Tantilla gracilis
Texas Threadsnake
Rena dulcis
Broad-Banded Copperhead
Agkistrodon laticinctus
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The Reptiles & Amphibians of Palo Pinto Mountains State Park (continued) dekayi), and an eastern patch-nosed snake (Salvadora grahamiae). We also find the occasional frog; western narrowmouthed toad (Gastrophryne olivacea), and Gulf Coast toad (Incilius nebulifer), and lizard; common spotted whiptail (Aspidoscelis gularis), and Texas spiny lizard (Sceloporus olivaceus). Cover boards complete, we travel to nearby Palo Pinto Creek where we’ve set three turtle traps. These hoop traps are baited with sardines and checked daily. As has been the pattern throughout the study, we find no turtles. Our luck changed in the latter half of the survey in which we started to capture numerous turtles, but all were redeared sliders (Trachemys scripta). In retrospect, we believe our traps were inappropriate for a broad survey as the smaller turtles, such as the mud turtles, could escape though the large mesh. We saw numerous softshells but never caught one in a trap. The only one we were able to lay hands on was an incidental sighting as it crossed a dirt path. A turtle expert from UTArlington says that, unless you put divers in the water, you aren’t doing a real turtle survey. Lesson learned. The remainder of the day is spent doing time-constrained visual surveys, what we like to call good ol’ fashioned herping. We select an area of likely herp habitat, typically a pond, rocky area or terrain with downed trees, and begin searching everywhere we can think to search, under rocks, in trees, along shorelines, in crevices, under fallen logs. Environmental data is gathered as before at the start of the search and at each sighting. The start and end time are recorded to determine our success on a per-person, per-minute effort.
Chihuahuan nightsnake
The team begins searching a stream along the base of a cliff that is littered with concrete construction debris. Along with the expected frogs, several snakes are found including a rare treat, a gorgeous Chihuahuan nightsnake (Hypsiglena jani) hiding beneath a large, flat rock. As the name implies, this small, beautiful snake is nocturnal making the discovery a real delight for the crew and a huge boost to team morale. Like birders, many of us keep sighting lists and it’s always great to add a new species.
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The Reptiles & Amphibians of Palo Pinto Mountains State Park (continued)
As the heat of the afternoon peaks, our quarry goes to ground to avoid the hot Texas sun. Wisely, we too take a break from the midday heat. Tonight we will begin again. Ed Barnes completed an MS degree in Biology in May, 2017, having studied under Dr. Jesse Meik. All photos by Ed or his team.
Ed, with a spiny softshell turtle
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Woodland at Southwest Nature Preserve
Challenge Accepted - At the Southwest Nature Preserve Michael Smith & Clint King There is a wonderful community of naturalists in Fort Worth and surrounding areas, and some of us got together on April 28th to do two important things: add a little bit to our knowledge of natural history, and enjoy each other’s company. Together with Nic Martinez, we had offered to lead some activities at the Southwest Nature Preserve, a 58-acre patch of eastern Cross Timbers in Arlington. Nic knows a lot about the fish and other aquatic life of ponds, rivers, and other wetlands. He was there with several nets, ready to help participants take a look at what lives in the ponds at the preserve. As so often happens in these events at Southwest Nature Preserve, other people who specialize in plants, birds, and other things were there as well. That’s the best thing about it. As we walk along, somebody mentions the odd presence of farkleberry, a shrub whose little flowers tend to hang downward, “like chandeliers,” someone says. The thing is that we are a little bit west of where farkleberry naturally occurs, but here it is anyway. Then at the lovely whistling call of a bird, someone else says, “Listen – it’s a chuck-will’s-widow!” And later, as nightfall comes to the pond, we point out the calls of cricket frogs and bullfrogs. We all learn from each other. This all happened on the weekend of the City Nature Challenge,1 a friendly competition held annually to see who can document the most wildlife and plants on citizen science platforms like iNaturalist. Among major U.S. cities, Dallas-Fort Worth turned in the most observations last year, and we came in a very respectable second place this year. People with tons of experience and people with little or no experience got out there, took photos of plants and animals, and posted them on iNaturalist, where the camera’s or phone’s metadata provided the location and time, Page !10
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Challenge Accepted - At the Southwest Nature Preserve (continued) and experts confirmed the identities of critters, flowers and trees. While technology took care of those details, we were free to re-connect with old friends and make new friends. Clint began seeing and documenting insects before he could even get past the information board at the trail head. The rays of the late afternoon sun cast metallic jade shards of light off of the elytra – the hardened wing-covers – of beetles zipping and darting about in a delicate rosy-white bed of evening primrose. They caught Clint’s eye, and he veered from the trail and knelt among the flowers to observe them. At this closer level he could identify these insects Horse-crippler as far as the tribe Agrilini, a group of wood-boring beetles whose exoskeletons generally have a metallic sheen. They emerge from the bark of various trees in late spring after spending many months as larvae, where they feasted on the fibrous tissue beneath the bark. These beetles were members of the huge family Buprestidae, which contains thousands of beetle species. The buprestids weren’t the only invertebrates moving on this warm Saturday at the tail end of April. A rotund black and white scarab with dense golden setae (hairs or bristles) was rolling around in the center of one of the primrose blossoms like a drunken bee. This was a Texas flower scarab (Trichiotinus texensis), a common species this time of year. It detected Clint’s presence and buzzed away on veined amber wings. The bright contrasting colors of black, yellow and white were suggestive of a bee or wasp, which the beetle mimics quite splendidly whether in flower or flight. Bee assassin
Another nearby insect also watched the scarab go, somehow wise to its true identity, for had it been an actual bee the creature would have followed. This was a bee assassin (Apiomerus spissipes). In spite of its small size, it is a formidable predator, as its name suggests. Dressed in a mosaic pattern of maroon, yellow and dark brown that, when viewed from above, somewhat resembles a tribal face, it is well-concealed among the grasses and flowerheads. This is a member of the true bugs, and it is usually an ambush predator, perching in sunny patches in open areas, concealed amid the blooms of wildflowers as it waits for a visiting pollinator. The bug’s proboscis acts as a hypodermic needle, injecting a paralyzing venom that slows the victim’s movements before converting into a vacuum tube and sucking up its juices like a grim smoothie. Meanwhile, Nic began gathering a few things that live in the ponds. Frogs had been calling and breeding, and he captured tadpoles that were probably going to be cricket frogs and leopard frogs (tadpole identification is not a simple thing, and can involve examining mouth parts and tail shapes, and so we could not confirm their identities). He also netted up the larvae of dragonflies and damselflies, tough predators with little of the grace and beauty of the Page !11
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Challenge Accepted - At the Southwest Nature Preserve (continued) Blanchard’s cricket frog
Bluegill adults – though we realize that “grace and beauty” are in the eye of the beholder. Behind us the newly emerged adult dragonflies tried out their new wings over the pond surface. One of them, a common whitetail, perched on a reed at water’s edge. Later, at the pond with the boardwalk and fishing dock, Nic netted several sunfish. Don’t let the fact that they are common (“it’s just a sunfish”) distract you from the beauty of these fish with tall, disk-shaped bodies and spines in the dorsal and anal fins. Sunfish have scales that are green or bluish in places, yellow or orange toward the chin and breast, and all manner of blue or green squiggles or spots around the head and gill cover, that is, the operculum. Most of those caught were bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus), one of our common sunfishes. Near the fishing dock, sunfish gathered in a large group of thirty or so, just below the water’s surface and probably hoping to steal a little bait off someone’s fishhook. Around the pond’s edges there are other species we did not want to miss. One was Blanchard’s cricket frog (Acris blanchardi), a common little frog whose basic grayish color may be marked by a few tiny patches of green or rustred. One that Michael netted had patches of this rust color on the snout and just behind the head. Among the plants found at the margin of the pond and out in the water is a species of water primrose, with rounded, spoonshaped leaves connected by red runners. A flash of Halloween black and orange caught Clint’s eye, and he watched as a Monarch butterfly winged its way across the clearing, soaring over the top of an Ashe juniper. If it were a female it was likely in search of a milkweed, the species’ host plant, where she could deposit her eggs. In a few weeks the sausage-shaped, tigerstriped larvae would be munching on the toxic leaves, absorbing the cardenolides and rendering themselves poisonous as well. At the edge of the meadow, Clint slipped into the woodlands, where the sunlight fell in warm bright patches across his face. A Texas spiny lizard scurried around the trunk of an oak in the “barber pole” manner in which these lizards move. It went up and around in a spiral, hooked toe claws allowing it perfect vertical traction. In a moment it was out of sight. Further into the woods there was a place where possumhaw grew at the base of a blackjack oak, and a little red weevil with a black snout sat perched on one of its leaves. This was Homoelabis analis, a beast that goes by the more Page !12
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Challenge Accepted - At the Southwest Nature Preserve (continued) colorful name of leaf-rolling weevil.2 They are small, generally around 6 mm in length, and are usually found in association with oaks, so the presence of this one beneath the blackjack was not surprising. Like the buprestids, these weevils pupate over the winter and emerge the following spring. In a complex process that is remarkably technical for such a tiny creature, the weevil picks a choice, soft leaf and measures it precisely, then selects a spot along the midrib, severing it to dam off the water supply to the leaf ’s lower part. It then moves to the other side, where it repeats the process. After the leaf begins to wilt and lose strength the beetle notches the Leaf-rolling weevil leaf on the bottom of the midrib, preparing it for a smooth, easy roll. The extending veins are then cross-cut in a determined, painstaking process where every cut is precise. The leaf is folded in half and then rolled. The female weevil then lays an egg or two in the center with her ovipositor and tucks in the flaps like a tortilla, to prevent unrolling. Among the deadfall Clint found another nibbler of oaks, the ant-mimic longhorn beetle, Euderces pini.3 These are mimics of carpenter ants and are similarly colored in bands of maroon and black. This, coupled by their comparative size, renders them quite inconspicuous among their armed lookalikes. As Clint watched, a pair of them raced up and down the tangled, leafless branches of a severed post oak limb. The group of us took a late afternoon walk, with several members of the Friends of Southwest Nature Preserve4 as well as urban biologist Rachel Richter. Clint and his family caught up with the group at the top of the ridge, and they had found a rough greensnake (Opheodrys aestivus), which Zev held as several of us took photos and admired its graceful, lime-green body. A pale orange tongue and golden eyes round out the beautiful colors of this inoffensive predator of spiders and Ant-mimic longhorn beetle caterpillars. The snake was then taken back and released on the same bush on which it was found. We made our way around a small trail at the top of the hill, photographing standing cypress, the farkleberry mentioned earlier, and, lo and behold, R2D2 hiding behind some of the woodland understory. We did not post the photo of the little robot to iNaturalist, but we did have fun imagining what he was up to, out there in the woods. Clint brought along a canvas beating sheet, sewn around a wire hoop in the form of a basket and suspended on a wooden pole to make a sort of “net.” With his free hand he gently rapped one of the branches of the overhanging oak, holding the basket as a catch-all beneath. The goal is to dislodge resting insects, which fall into the basket and can be observed, or, in this case, recorded for iNaturalist. This method works surprisingly well, and seldom fails to turn up a wide variety of insects and arachnids. On this day it would produce a little green stick insect, Diapheromera femorata. The kings of mimicry, walkingsticks virtually disappear among the foliage of their choice (oaks are one of their favorites), looking like a small green or brown twig. Page 1 ! 3
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Challenge Accepted - At the Southwest Nature Preserve (continued)
Walkingstick
Rough green snake
Page !14
The evening walk was a highlight, in part because of the mix of experts and non-experts. One of the folks who joined us was a young lady who offered the opinion that she would just as soon not see spiders and snakes, thank you very much. Since these were two of the things we specifically planned to see on this walk, it promised to be an interesting time. Michael mentioned his own history of spider phobia that began with the time, as a child of about eight, when he gently maneuvered something soft out of a hole in the ground and it turned out to be a tarantula. We’re not sure that story helped a lot, but this brave person stayed with us for the walk. Right away, down by the biggest pond, Clint and Zev came up with a juvenile plain-bellied watersnake (Nerodia erythrogaster). Their flashlight beams played across the water and mud, and the snake cut across the shallow water like a black ribbon in the late twilight. As daylight faded, we examined this little snake by flashlight, and talked about the habits of this harmless species. This particular little snake took the handling and examination good-naturedly and was soon returned to its wetland. As it became really dark, we spotted a few spiders here and there, including a slender little one Clint identified as a long-jawed orb-weaver. We also saw a couple of six-spotted fishing spiders sitting on floating vegetation a foot or so from the pond’s edge. The larger females may reach nearly two-and-a-half inches in length, and they can rest on the water’s surface or even dive beneath to catch some unwary prey. A year or so ago, during a similar event at the preserve, Nic discovered a six-spotted fishing spider munching on a cricket frog, so these are pretty formidable spiders (though not dangerous to us). We suspected that a certain member of our party might be re-thinking her decision to come along on this night walk, but she hung in there like a champion.
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Challenge Accepted - At the Southwest Nature Preserve (continued) Plain-bellied watersnake - juvenile
We climbed up from the pond and walked around to the yucca meadow, listening to that chuckwill’s-widow as well as a screech owl. And on the way back, Michael found a Texas threadsnake (Rena dulcis, until recently known as a Texas blindsnake) crossing the trail. Nighttime is when they are apt to be seen moving around on the ground’s surface, and the last time Michael led a night walk at the preserve, somebody found a small one beside the trail. During the day, these primitive little pinkish-silvery serpents are prowling through ant or termite colonies, helping themselves to the soft-bodied larvae. We showed this one to the participants, and Clint talked about the snake’s secretion that repels ants and incidentally gives it that silvery sheen. We talked about its vestigial eyes, looking like small vague dots beneath the protective scales of the head, so that it can sense light and dark but probably not much else. Who needs good vision when you spend your days in the darkness of insect colonies? Someone also talked about the habit some screech owls have Threadsnake of taking live threadsnakes to their nests, where the snakes presumably eat tiny invertebrates that would otherwise bother the owls. Another member of the party discovered a striped bark scorpion (Centruroides vittatus), the only native scorpion species to occupy the cross timbers. In spite of its inch-long size, it bared its pincers and arched its tail, the curved sting on the end of the telson at the ready. We admired its bravery and then saw it to the safety of the trail’s edge to resume its hunt for small arthropods. Back at the parking lot, we all said goodbye. The woman who had said she Page !15
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Challenge Accepted - At the Southwest Nature Preserve (continued) didn’t want to see spiders and snakes thanked us, and we think she meant it. We hope she had fun, and that she was left with the perception that these are harmless and useful critters that can be admired from a few feet away without much worry. And all the other folks, the naturalists and nerds, we all went home with that satisfied feeling from being in the company of others who share an intense love of wild places, even on small preserves surrounded by urban development. h 1. City Nature Challenge, 2018. http://citynaturechallenge.org (accessed 5/3/18)
Striped bark scorpion
2. University of Florida. Featured Creatures, Leaf-rolling weevil. http:// entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/beetles/H_analis_P_ovatus.htm (accessed 5/9/2018) 3. Evans, A.V. 2014. Beetles of Eastern North America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 4. Friends of Southwest Nature Preserve. http://www.swnp.org (accessed 5/7/2018)
“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobe, you’re my only hope”
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Volume 9, No. 1
Storms, Herps, and Insects in Late May on the Rolling Plains Michael Smith & Clint King
Visiting Matador WMA - Michael The drive to Matador Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in Cottle County was longer than we thought it would be, and as we left Vernon on the way to Paducah (the town closest to the WMA), a blue smudge on the western horizon had grown to a series of storm clouds. Not that a spring thunderstorm was going to keep us from visiting Matador; it had been on my wish list for some time, ever since I read about Chip Ruthven and others studying Texas horned lizards and tracking the population of ornate box turtles out there on the Rolling Plains. On this trip, the plan was to meet Ruthven and learn from him about the WMA and about how the horned lizards and box turtles were doing. We would then spend the evening and part of the next day exploring a little of this 28,183-acre property, which has been managed by Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) since 1959. But first, we were evidently going to have to plough through a big storm cell. As we approached the big gray-green wall of water, the winds began to pick up and then big drops of rain began smacking into the windshield, sounding like small hail. The outflow winds from the storm buffeted the truck back and forth, and a big curtain of rain fell on us, limiting visibility greatly. We crawled along the road, hoping for no oncoming traffic. We went through pockets of hail that hit the windshield with loud pops, and we watched closely for flash flooding that might have carried us off into the creek and ended the trip right then. By the time we reached Paducah, the cell had moved on and we watched some minor flash flooding along the streets of downtown. After navigating through that and heading northward, we were on our way with no harm done. Page !17
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Storms, Herps, & Insects in Late May on the Rolling Plains (continued) The headquarters of the WMA includes a couple of offices and a meeting room in a little house that undoubtedly was there before TPWD bought the property. When we met Chip Ruthven, he looked exactly like a man who has lived on the Plains of west Texas, spent years among the mesquites, red dirt and cactus, and understood all the secrets of this ecoregion. We talked about the land, the lizards and turtles, and he said that the horned lizards are common and seem to be doing well. On the other hand, since the drought years of 2011 and 2012, the ornate box turtles show up less frequently and may be declining. These turtles don’t bounce back well from die-offs, and it remains to be seen how they will do. Ruthven said that they do quite a bit of restoration work, principally using prescribed fire in an attempt to control the honey mesquite (which easily begins to take over the landscape if it is allowed to). Given the rainstorm we had just experienced, we thought it was particularly relevant to ask about tiger salamanders which may emerge after spring storms and breed explosively in parts of the Texas plains. He said that in their monitoring activities they may catch tiger salamanders in pitfall traps but he has not seen them on the roads after rains at Matador. Finally, Ruthven cautioned us that the storm may have produced washouts in some of the roads on the WMA, so we should be careful not to become stuck out there! We thanked him and headed out to get a first look at the place before darkness set in, staying on a gravel-based loop road in the eastern part of the property. Rainwater had collected in pools in a few places, and the temperatures were considerably cooler than they had been before the storm, but it was not cold. Road-cruising from Childress to the Great Rattlesnake Highway - Michael We planned a night drive down U.S. Highway 83 all the way to Aspermont, hoping to get south of the storms where a barometric pressure drop, but not a big temperature drop, might be bringing out the snakes. As it turned out, a big line of storms was pushing eastward, and the radar showed large red storm cells sliding from southwest to northeast. It wasn’t at all clear that we could get to the south and ahead of all those storms, but we were going to try. As we drove down the highway, the sky to either side of us was lit by nearly constant lightning, from distant flashes in the clouds to bright nearby bolts straight from the hammer of Thor. After a first sighting (a Woodhouse’s toad), we passed something at about 9:08pm that caught Clint’s eye, just a little something in an irregularity of the pavement. It turned out to be a baby western massasauga, born last year only to be run over in the spring storms while crossing the road. We took it for the collection of specimens maintained by UTA. We did not see much for many miles, but then, in northern Stonewall County, we found an 18 to 20-inch bullsnake making its way across the wet pavement. This juvenile tolerated being picked up, admired, and photographed without protest. Bullsnakes are known for putting on a loud and
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Storms, Herps, & Insects in Late May on the Rolling Plains (continued)
convincing bluff routine, with tail-rattling and loud hissing, but this one was as nice as could be. No more than five or six minutes later, at 9:57pm, Clint’s sharp eyes detected a very small snake moving across the road between the storms. It was another baby, and this one was a glossy snake. The species can be very common in west Texas, and they are handsomely blotched burrowers that eat lizards and mice. We reached the town of Aspermont and turned onto U.S. Highway 380, dubbed by Clint as “The Glossy snake - juvenile Great Rattlesnake Highway” after spending seven nights along this and nearby roads on a trip several years ago. The last few nights of that trip were phenomenally successful, due to a series of storm fronts that dropped the barometric pressure throughout the region and brought out the snakes in droves. Here we were on that very road, and here were storms such as Clint saw on that trip. The difference was that we were in the middle of these storms, our smartphone weather radar showing great red thunderstorms sliding from southwest to northeast. A few miles to the east we found a Texas toad who was out enjoying the rain and thunder, and possibly seeking a temporary pool to take advantage of this opportunity to breed. Toads living out on the Plains have to endure hot and dry spells while dug into the soil to escape the heat and preserve moisture, and then emerge quickly during rain storms that are their opportunities to breed, lay eggs, and have tadpoles develop into land-dwelling toadlets before the temporary pools dry up. At 11:00pm, we pulled up on an adult western diamond-backed rattlesnake that nervously doubled back as we stopped the truck. It disappeared into the grass at roadside, and when we found it – we only wished to get a look and had no intention of collecting it – the snake headed off in quick, serpentine undulations. It was not irritable, just active and a little edgy, maybe because of the storms. About five minutes later there was a live massasauga on the road. We were grateful to see one that had not been hit, and after a quick photo we got the little snake into the relative safety of the roadside grass. At 11:52pm we found a bigger massasauga, also alive. This was such a strange evening, seeing snakes like this moving in the light rain between storm cells, with almost continuous lightning around us. Ordinarily, the best snake activity is near the storms, in an area of dropping barometric pressure but before rain arrives. We could hardly remember a time when we had seen so many snakes out either in light rain or in a lull in the rainfall. We headed back up Highway 83 and pushed on through some very heavy rain with high winds. It felt a little like a flight through bad weather, and Clint talked about how his dad had taught him to cope with hydroplaning, Page !19
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Storms, Herps, & Insects in Late May on the Rolling Plains (continued) steadying the steering wheel with the palms of his hands so that he would not too actively pull against the slipping wheels. After we got through the storm, more herps turned up in the light rain toward Paducah. At 12:43am we saw the first of several checkered gartersnakes that were probably searching for dinner, in the form of the various amphibians coming out after the storm. Those amphibians were definitely on the move, including a green toad seen just a little after 1:00am, and then a Plains spadefoot at 1:27am. By the time we were between Paducah and Childress, the lateness of the hour and the cold air in the storms had brought the temperatures down quite a bit, so that it felt good to get out of the light rain and into the warmth of the truck. It was late, and we hoped to get out to the WMA in the morning, so we wrapped up this very strange, stormy, and delightful road cruise. Little Victories at Matador Wildlife Management Area - Clint The morning found us returning to Matador, the tires of the truck splashing through large puddles that had accumulated in dips in the road from the previous night’s intense band of storms. We stopped to check in at the station as per Chip Ruthven’s instructions, and while Michael filled out the necessary paperwork I poked around outside the kiosk, looking for signs of life. It was still fifty-eight degrees, with a chilly, damp wind blowing across an overcast sky of ashen grey, a far cry from what most naturalists would deem “profitable weather” for finding wildlife, let alone photographing it. At first glance my prospects appeared dismal at best, as I walked among the soaked grass, caked red mud, and dripping vegetation. Then I spied a small pile of mesquite logs someone had stacked against the back wall of the kiosk. Perhaps something was to be found beneath, trying to stay dry. I flipped the first log and experienced that well-known phenomenon in which the first piece overturned contains something of notable interest, followed by a succession of cover with nothing under it. This day was a textbook example of this mysterious rule of the field, but the creature beneath the first log more than made up for the lack of productivity beneath the rest. Under that first log was an enormous beetle, shiny black and deep maroon, with a coarsely pitted
Great Plains giant tiger beetle
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Storms, Herps, & Insects in Late May on the Rolling Plains (continued) elytra and massive set of serrated mandibles. At first glance I mistook it for a fighting ground beetle (genus Pasimachus), a species I have found to be quite common on the Rolling Plains, but as the fine details of its body structure came into view it slowly dawned on me what I was looking at. It was Amblycheila cylindriformis, the Great Plains giant tiger beetle, whose very name provides an accurate description of its size, habitat, and predatory habits. As a collector of tiger beetles going on eight years now, it was like hitting some small coleopteran lottery. I had never seen one before in the wild, although I had planned a trip to the Panhandle this coming August to search for them, as this is reported to be their optimal active season, at least according to museum records. The Great Plains giant tiger Face and mandibles of Great Plains giant tiger beetle beetle is huge as far as tiger beetles go (the individual before me was 3.5 cm in length). While not exactly rare, they are very secretive, hiding in self-constructed holes or mammal burrows by day and venturing out only at night. Beetle collectors have been known to plan week-long trips and travel great distances, scouring the plains by headlamp and flashlight for nights on end in an attempt to locate this impressive beetle, and many go home empty-handed in spite of their efforts. And yet here one was, in the middle of May, on a cold, wet, overcast morning, taking shelter beneath a mesquite log of all places. We hadn’t been on the property five minutes, and already my day had been made. I reached down and picked up the beetle to show it to Michael, and after admiring it we set off into the heart of the refuge to seek our fortune, realizing that if we saw anything at all we should count it as a blessing. We drove past the campgrounds and through an open gate that marked the entryway to the gravel/dirt loop that would provide us a tour of the area. Chip had warned us the day before not to try any secondary dirt roads without a 4 x 4, and though I have taken my beaten old two-wheel drive Ford through some unsettling areas, one look at the condition of these roads spelled out certain misfortune. The last thing either of us wanted was to be buried up to the axles in sandy loam miles from nowhere with no cellular service. Besides, the mostly gravel scenic loop had plenty of opportunities for exploration, if those lingering storm clouds would only head out and let a little sunshine through. The forecast did call for a slight warmup, but this wasn’t scheduled to happen until two o’clock in the afternoon, which coincidentally was the latest possible time we could stay. So it looked like we were going to have to make the best of it, a feat Michael and I have little trouble doing in all of our many adventures afield. Over the years we have spent days holed up in hotel rooms, watching helplessly as seemingly never-ending downpours held us at bay. We have been challenged by unforeseen cold fronts that dropped temperatures to the freezing point, stilling the wildlife and causing us to don jackets and traipse fruitlessly through otherwise promising terrain. We have driven Page !21
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Storms, Herps, & Insects in Late May on the Rolling Plains (continued) weary hours of backroads without a creature to be seen in the wake of our hungry headlights as a high pressure system caused temperatures to soar, driving our beloved herps deep into unreachable subterranean shelters. Ever at the mercy of mother nature’s indifferent elements, we have always managed to persevere and enjoy our trips to the wild places on the simple level of being present there, for good or ill. As I have often stated, “It beats a day stuck in traffic on I-35, no matter the outcome.” It is days like this that teach us to appreciate just being there to soak in the solitude and oneness with the wilderness on some intangible spiritual and beautifully satisfying level inexpressible with mere words. It is the true essence of what keeps us coming back for more; a feeling you can’t get from merely reading about these places in books or watching nature documentaries, no matter how vivid the high definition is these days. It is a feeling that cannot be duplicated, synthesized, or mass-produced. It is the driving force behind our desire to see these rapidly diminishing wild places protected and preserved. And so we go and we experience and we photograph and write and share, hoping to pass this sacred torch on to others and instill in them too a passion for conservation and preservation of what little we all have left to enjoy. We consider the woods and deserts and prairies as sanctuaries, and access to them an inalienable right, as vital to our spirits and health as food and water and oxygen. If I must be addicted to something, then nature is my drug of choice. Unlike all of that deceitful trash offered by the streets and pharmacies of this world, it will never let you down or cause you to lose your real identity once you become hooked. In fact, it is quite capable of achieving the opposite. All these thoughts came to mind this day as we parked the truck, grabbed our cameras and snake hooks and butterfly nets, and set off across the untamed plains in search of little victories. The cold wind cut through our clothes, but we ignored it, refusing to surrender, and slowly but surely our persistence began to pay off. At our first stop my numb fingers pried at the charred and peeling bark of invasive honey mesquites in a spot where there had been a prescribed burn. This is a strategy that the WMA uses to control this thorny, fast-growing tree, which can easily overtake the landscape in a surprisingly short amount of time if allowed to reproduce. The day before, Chip had explained to us the historical impact of overgrazing by cattle, which was detrimental to many of the native grasses while simultaneously allowing invasive plants such as the mesquites to dominate the landscape. To add insult to injury, the droppings of the cattle helped spread the seeds of these and other nonnative plants1. Now one would be hard-pressed to travel across the plains without seeing literal “forests” of mesquites to their right and left, and the land managers at Matador must remain vigilant if they are to keep them at bay. Page !22
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Storms, Herps, & Insects in Late May on the Rolling Plains (continued) Behind the bark I found numerous invertebrates seeking shelter from the storm, including striped bark scorpions, southern black widows, and the bulbous-headed larvae of Cerambycid beetles, their segmented soft white bodies responding to the sudden flood of daylight upon their otherwise dark world by instantly freezing, then searching blindly for a place to hide. Gently, I replaced the bark as best I could, not wishing to further intrude on their tiny world of single-minded consumption of dead mesquite wood. Another creature I found in their midst beneath the charred bark was not so gracious. It was a checkered beetle (Enoclerus quadrisignatus). These voracious little predators are apparent mimics of the velvet ant, an insect with an imposing sting and venom that is actually a type of solitary wasp. The females are wingless, and checkered beetles are marked similarly, offering them some degree of protection as they themselves hunt down smaller insects to devour. They are often found in association with wood-boring beetle larvae, which their own larvae specialize in preying upon. Adult checkered beetles have surprisingly strong jaws for their small size, and this one gave me a nip that sliced right through my epidermis, causing me to instinctively let it go, whereupon it immediately released its hold and dropped safely into the obscurity of the grass. From somewhere to my left I heard Michael call out that he had found a large beetle, so I gently laid the bark back on the burned mesquite and headed in his direction. At the base of a tuft of grass, a large dull-colored black beetle with a deep red stripe down its middle was doing a headstand, its spindly legs splayed out as if it were bracing itself. I recognized it immediately. It was Eleodes suturalis, a large member of the darkling beetle family. Unlike many other species of beetles, darkling beetles cannot fly. Their elytra are Eleodes suturalis, a type of “desert stink beetle� fused, sealed to the body, restricting them to the ground, trees, and the tight dark spaces beneath rocks and logs. Members of the genus Eleodes are collectively known as desert stink beetles, and for good reason. Typically found in arid regions of the southwest, these generally uniform black creatures assume the head-standing defense position when they feel threatened, as this one must have. If their attacker continues to make advances, the beetle will squirt a toxic jet of viscous dark brown liquid syrup from the tip of the abdomen that will sicken whatever predator that happens to get a mouthful of it. From there we returned to the truck and continued down the road, where we drove through the rolling red dirt hills lined with the twisted trunks of sugar hackberry and honey mesquites, the catkins of the latter resembling plump, fuzzy yellow caterpillars. In a short time we stopped again for another survey of the landscape, for we were fully aware that our time here was short, and we wanted to make the most of it by exploring as much of it as we could. As is often the case Page 2 ! 3
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Storms, Herps, & Insects in Late May on the Rolling Plains (continued) when out on our adventures, Michael and I ended up parting company, branching off in different directions. This ups the chances of making interesting discoveries as opposed to following each other around in single file. On this day the strategy worked out well. We met back up about a half-hour later on the road. I regaled Michael with tales of a yellow mud turtle I had come across near a small ephemeral pond, and he showed me photos he had taken of a prickly poppy blister beetle (Lytta fulvipennis) he had Prickly poppy blister beetle found on its host plant on a hillside. It was a species I had only found once before, so I opted to hit the hillside and look for more specimens, while Michael set off to find the turtle. When we met up again we had both enjoyed success. The prickly poppy blister beetles were fairly common on additional prickly poppy blooms (they are seldom found elsewhere) and Michael had located and photographed the mud turtle. We did a bit more walking in this area before venturing onward, and in a small dead bush I dislodged two small buprestids by striking the branches with a stick over my canvas net. These were the striking metallic aquamarine species Chrysobothris purpureovittata. Anyone who has spent any time with me in the field knows of my often unhealthy obsession with buprestid beetles. Were it not for their habit of being active during the hottest parts of the day in their peak season of June through August, perhaps I would have more takers when The buprestid beetle Chrysobothris purpureovittata setting out to find them. Needless to say I do most of my buprestid hunting alone, but on this day both Michael and I got to appreciate these beautiful specimens, and came away with some great photographs. In spite of the forecast’s delayed warm-up, the sun had found a way to pierce through, and by ten o’clock the temperatures were in the upper sixties and quite comfortable for men and beasts alike. The Rolling Plains are broken here and there with shallow streams that run west to east from the Panhandle area towards the Edwards Plateau to the south, and the deposits from these are responsible for the high percentage of sandy loam that makes up much of the area’s terrain around Matador, as Chip explained the previous evening. This substrate makes for Page !24
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The Middle Pease River much more favorable growing conditions than the deep red flaky clays that much of the Rolling Plains is known for, and thus the area around Matador is blessed with a broad diversity of flora, including sand bluestem grass, Indian grass, and yucca that grow beneath hardy trees and shrubs such as red berry juniper, wild plum, and various sages. At one point we came across one of these streams crossing the road, the Middle Pease River. Its banks were choked by a thick verdant growth of jade-colored reeds. We decided to get out and do some more exploring in this place, and while Michael busied himself videotaping a large female red eared slider (Trachemys scripta), I walked among the fragrant pinkish-white, wooly blooms of Baccharis looking at pollinators, and discovered a brilliant blue-black Scolopendra heros, the giant red-headed centipede, beneath a section of discarded railroad tie. The next spot we explored was a bit of upland rolling red dirt hills, where the juniper replaced much of the mesquite that grew at the slightly lower elevations. Here live oak and bumelia thrived as well, and we spotted several types of cacti, including horse crippler, lace cactus, and cane and Christmas tree cholla. After scaling the crumbling steep sides of the mesas with only minor difficulty, we photographed little mesquite cicadas, which were mating and buzzing their high-pitched calls from seemingly every tree and shrub. It was here, beneath dried cow dung, that I flipped up a tiny pale scorpion that I assumed to be just another young Centruroides vittatus, which I erroneously thought to be the only species native to the area. But after posting a photo of the beastie on iNaturalist, it was determined that the thickened pincers and tail of this creature was not a bark scorpion at all, but rather an example of Chihuahuanus coahuilae, a member of a totally different genus of scorpions that was formerly Page !25
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Storms, Herps, & Insects in Late May on the Rolling Plains (continued) known as Vaejovis2. It was a new species for my lifelist, and I had treated it with all the indifference of the common scorpions I shoo out of the front door as they run across the tile of my living room back in the Cross Timbers! We had one last stop to make, as time was nearly up. By now the clouds had all been chased away by a more typical late May day, and while we had failed to find a box turtle as per Michael’s wishes, we had definitely been blessed by more than our fair share of little victories. This, coupled with the highly Giant red-headed centipede successful night of road cruising we had experienced the night before, had kept our spirits high. At this last site, with no more than twenty minutes to spare, we browsed through the lower regions of several flowering mesquites like shoppers at some strange natural garage sale, finding a wide variety of invertebrate species attracted to the pungent aroma coming from the catkins. I found the beautiful longhorn beetle Plionoma suturalis, and Michael pointed out a congregation of netwing beetles (Lycus fernandezi) whose stunning black and orange color sequence is a classic example of aposematism, an adaptation by certain The scorpion Chihuahuanus coahuilae organisms where the combination of contrasting bright and dark color combinations or other warning colors or traits warns predators of the potential harm or distastefulness of the species3. Texas soldier beetles (Chauliognathus scutellaris) were even more common here and were prime examples of aposematic coloration as well. It seemed everything was enjoying some level of protection from the birds and lizards that doubtlessly had their eyes on this arthropod smorgasbord. But none seemed so brightly colored or breathtakingly obvious as the uncommon checkered beetle Trichodes bibalteatus, a single specimen of which turned up on a low-growing mesquite by the roadside. We took turns photographing this coleopteran marvel before Michael checked the clock and informed me that at last our time had run out. Reluctantly, we climbed back into Page 2 ! 6
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Longhorn beetle Plionoma suturalis
Netwing beetle
the truck and finished off the loop, doubling back and heading out of the Matador Wildlife Management Area toward home, a mutual feeling of satisfaction at how that initially cold, dreary day had suddenly blossomed into another exciting treasure trove of natural wonders for us to enjoy and remember. h 1. Texas A&M Forest Service: Trees of Texas - Ecoregions/RollingPlains. (Internet) http://texastreeid.tamu.edu/content/ texasEcoRegions/RollingPlains/ (accessed 6/11/18) 2. Jackman, John A. 1999. A Field Guide to Spiders and Scorpions of Texas. Houston: Gulf Publishing. 3. BugGuide. Lycus fernandezi. (Internet) https://bugguide.net/node/view/168379 (accessed 6/23/18)
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Great Plains ratsnake - harmless
What Good Are Snakes? Michael Smith Lots of people fear snakes, and too many hate them and kill them if they get a chance. If asked “what’s so bad about snakes?” many people would say it’s because some kinds of snakes are venomous and their bites can be dangerous or even deadly. Some might just say, “they’re creepy,” without really saying why they react that way to snakes. Other people love snakes, and don’t think they’re creepy at all. Is one group of people right, and the other wrong? So how could we answer the question, “what good are snakes?” Is there an answer that would make sense to the average person?
The Basics
Let’s start with a couple of things snakes do for us. First, a number of snake species eat rats, mice, gophers, and other rodents in large numbers. We don’t like living around rats and mice, and these rodents can carry several dangerous diseases. Also, you might be surprised to learn that rats and mice can do serious damage to cars by chewing through wiring. Ratsnakes, bullsnakes, rattlesnakes and other species provide a sort of free pest control. Venomous snakes are good for more than just pest control. Snake venoms have been used to produce life-saving medicines. A protein from snake venom was instrumental in developing the ACE inhibitor drugs that help dilate blood vessels and lower blood pressure. Jim Harrison, Director of the Kentucky Reptile Zoo, extracts venom from snakes kept at the facility and supplies it to researchers and pharmaceutical companies. He talks about a wide range of medical uses for venom, including recent work that may lead to a treatment for breast cancer. “They’re working on how to put it (the substance derived from venom) into the (tumor) cell so it destroys the cell, and then destroys itself” so that it cannot hurt healthy cells. And so, if I see a copperhead while out on a walk, I might feel thankful that these snakes are alive (while being careful not to step on the snake).
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What Good Are Snakes (continued) Snakes are not the only ones helping us out. Lots of reptiles and amphibians eat insects and other “creepy-crawlies.” Lizards like the Texas spiny lizard work hard every day to spot insects and gobble them down. Toads and frogs come out at night to continue the job, snapping up large numbers of beetles, crickets, spiders, and other invertebrates. It’s likely that a few healthy toads and lizards in the garden might take the place of the insecticides we might spray on the plants. Of course, some of you would say, “now wait a minute – spiders help to keep the numbers of insects down, and so if the toads are eating the spiders, that cancels out some of the good that they do.” That’s a great point, and it reminds us how complicated nature is, once we really start thinking about it. If we try to decide what lives and dies based only on our likes and dislikes, we’re going to make some mistakes. Every animal has a job to do, and we don’t always understand exactly what that animal’s job is. It eats some things and also serves as food for other things. It contributes to nature in ways that we might not be aware of. As you can see, all animals can be important, even if it’s not obvious how they benefit us. If we don’t like some animal and we are able to get rid of it altogether, this is like randomly taking out part of your car while driving. Maybe the car can keep going, but it might run badly or overheat or ruin the brakes. It’s best to leave all the parts in the car so it will run right. In the same way, it is risky for us to interfere very much with natural systems that are working. If we get things too messed up, it is hard for us to predict the harm that we might do. I don’t know about you, but the next time I see a turtle, a frog, or a snake, this is what I’m going to think to myself: “I’m not completely sure why you’re here – what your job is. But since you’re here, you must play some part in keeping the natural world going. Thanks!” h (This article was adapted from one which appeared in Frog Calls in June, 2015.) Woodhouse’s toad
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Bucket List Places Places You Don’t Want To Miss
Matador Wildlife Management Area - https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/hunt/wma/find_a_wma/list/?id=15 Located at 3036 FM 3256, Paducah, TX 79248 (watch for FM 3256 or you’ll miss it!). All visitors 17 years or older must have an Annual Public Hunting Permit or a Limited Public Use Permit. Bring water and plan on primitive conditions. This may be one of the best places to see wildlife and plant communities of the Rolling Plains. At times, the WMA is closed for special permit hunts, so call (806) 492-3405 before going!
Texas Field Notes is a quarterly publication, with stories about wildlife, conservation news, and color photos, all focused on preserves, refuges, and other places in Texas. It can be downloaded from greatrattlesnakehwy.com and from https://issuu.com/texasfieldnotes.
We hope you will share Texas Field Notes with friends, schoolteachers, scout groups, and others who may enjoy it and learn from it. We also hope that those of you who are writers and herpers, birders, etc. will consider contributing something that describes Texas’ natural history in a relatively nontechnical way and includes a photo or two. For questions, ideas, or comments, please email: texasfieldnotes@gmail.com. In fact, please consider emailing us just to let us know how you think we’re doing. We would love to hear from you!
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