Gloss Mountain and Alabaster Caverns State Park Herps and Inverts 5/28 - 5/29/2010

I haven't been online in a couple of days, and this is why. It was a really fun trip, and we found some kind of rare critters. This wasn't an official OCHS trip. It was just a little vacation that I took with my wife, her friend, and Catherine Gunter.

Eastern Collared Lizards: We found many of these, as usual.








Woodhouse's Toad: 2 of these greeted us at our campsite, and stayed with us the entire time. Many more were found on the roads.





Pill Bugs: I have never seen so many in 1 place. There were probably thousands of them in this 1 log.



Horned Lizard: I found this dude just sitting on the path leading back from Water Cave. I haven't seen one of these since I was a small child.





Slender Glass Lizards:
We found tons of these. Unfortunately, most were hit by cars, but we did find 3 live ones. They are really cool.






Texas Long-nosed Snake: This made the trip for me. It was the hardest snake I've ever had to let go. Absolutely beautiful.






Garter Snake: Can someone identify the species? We let this guy go in the park, with Tandy's permission.



Ground Beetles: We found a ton of these trucking it across the road and decided to catch one for a better look. They are huge.



Oklahoma Brown Tarantulas: We caught 2, and they live with Tandy now. If we had stopped to collect all that we saw on the roads, we would have run out of deli cups. They all seemed to be female too.






Cave Crickets: These covered the walls inside Ice Stalagtite Cave.




Giant Redheaded Centipedes: We found 2 of these, but only managed to get pics of the one in the Ice Stalagtite Cave entrance. Both of them were easily over 8" long.

great pics Michael looks like you had a good time. That texas long nosed snake is pretty cool.

Great shots Michael.
Fantastic hunt !!
I didn't see a garter snake to identify in these.
If it's the one pictured in your Facebook post, it's a Texas Garter Snake (annectens).

Snakeman wrote:Great shots Michael.
Fantastic hunt !!
I didn't see a garter snake to identify in these.
If it's the one pictured in your Facebook post, it's a Texas Garter Snake (annectens).

I fixed the pictures. I was in a hurry when I posted them.

Yep.
Now that I can count the scale rows, it's a Texas.

The road Tandy recommended was well worth it, and definitely worth another trip at some point.
(Thanks Tandy)

And, to that person who decided not to go because 'they don't camp', I again say Haha.

Great pics as always. I love living in this herp haven. The garter snake in the pic may be a Texas or the intergrade between the red-sided and Texas we see in this area. I'd have to look closer to tell the difference.
It was great to see you all again. Glad you enjoyed your trip. It's nice to see people excited about seeing herps. LOL. Take care and thanks for posting the pics!

P.S. Larry is correct, dang scale counters , it is a Texas.

Tandy

tandy wrote:Great pics as always. I love living in this herp haven. The garter snake in the pic may be a Texas or the intergrade between the red-sided and Texas we see in this area. I'd have to look closer to tell the difference.
It was great to see you all again. Glad you enjoyed your trip. It's nice to see people excited about seeing herps. LOL. Take care and thanks for posting the pics!

P.S. Larry is correct, dang scale counters , it is a Texas.

Tandy

Thanks Tandy! I'm jealous of where you live. We are lucky to see a box turtle or a black rat snake in Edmond. Some of us are planning another trip up there again really soon, so hopefully we will see you then.