Here are a few critters that didn't deserve their own special post. I hope someone will still find them interesting
This one is the longest (not largest, though) snake I've ever seen here. After a day of hiking, were on the way back in the late afternoon. Rounding a trail bend, the corner of my eye caught this strange-looking dead branch sticking out from the trailside leaf litter. A second look almost made me choke on my trail mix - branch, my ass! This was a seven-foot
Zaocys dhumnades, aka Big-Eyed Rat Snake, aka Knife Crossing The Mountain (hey, Scott L., what do the locals call them on your side of the Taiwan Strait?), trying to get to the small canal on the far side of the trail. My friend was walking ahead of me, totally oblivious to the snake, so I yanked him back by the backpack and hissed in his ear "if you move so much as an eyelid, I'm gonna do horrible things to you with the snake tongs!". Slowly, I put down my pack, got out the camera, and managed to fire off a few shots before the snake slithered into a low tree on the side of the trail, where it waited for us to hike on so he could get his drink. No luck, though: there was a ten-strong group of Taiwanese hikers coming up behind us - grampaw, granny, kids, the whole family - who were naturally curious about what on Earth the two bignoses seemed so worked up about. I grasped the opportunity for a little show-and-tell about the large serpent hiding in the foliage just a couple yards away, and much excitement ensued. Unfortunately, we were running out of time, as we needed to be back in town an hour later, so I couldn't hang around and wait for the snake to come out and cross the trail again. As you can see, the pix are total crap - the light was too low for a fast shutter speed, I was too flabbergasted to think of increasing the ISO, and there was no time to get out the external flash, so using the onboard flash resulted in a bright trail and a dark snake
DOR
Amphiesma stolata, aka Buff-Striped Keelback, aka Flower Wave Snake (you gotta love Chinese!), a
"common species of non-venomous colubrid snake found across Asia. It is a typically non-aggressive snake that feeds on frogs and toads. It belongs to the subfamily Natricinae, and is closely related to water snakes" (Thank you,
Wikipedia)
Another Asian/Greater Green Snake (Cyclophiops major)
....and its shockingly fearless handler.
Quite a bit of our herping time is spent on patrolling drainage pipe openings in landslide-prevention embankments. There's always something - during the day, they're occupied by nocturnal snakes, while diurnal creatures sleep in them when it's dark. This is a Cat Snake (
Boiga kraepelini). They're more attractive
when riding motorcycles, though
Kuehne's Grass Lizard,
Takydromus kuehnei. Not much to narrate here, apart from the fact that they're %$#@! paranoid and thus %$#@!! hard to photograph.
White-Lipped Treefrog,
Polypedates megacephalus.
Brown Treefrog, aka Robust Buerger's Frog, aka
Buergeria robusta. These large treefrogs (over three inches) have an eerie call that sounds like someone's knocking on the edge of a wooden table with the back of a large Bowie knife.
Swinhoe's Frog,
Rana swinhoana. This beautiful anuran infests wet walls (permanently wet embankments) and the drainage pipes in them in great numbers.
Guenther's (Amoy) Frog,
Rana guentheri. The largest endemic frog in TW is endowed with enormous leaping power.
The Chinese Mitten Crab
(Eriocheir sinensis) is in season in April and May, when they can be found in all classy seafood shops and restaurants - even the local 7-11 sell them (on order). We spotted this specimen in a roadside ditch, and at about eight inches from toe to toe it's easily the largest I've ever seen - in the wild or on the dinner table.
Whip scorpion,
Typopeltis crucifer. The peculiar English common name, "vinegaroon" stems from the fact that these creatures spray acetic acid around when disturbed....a fact I wasn't aware of but learned quickly when all of us suddenly started reeking of concentrated vinegar
Another night, another large phasmid (no ID) - it's almost embarrassing how I managed to overlook them all these years!
Men at work. Three primo snake-spotting realms merge on these mountain roads - the anti-landslide walls with their myriads of drainage holes, the ditches with their leaf litter, and the roads with their crossing potential.
The Road Crew - the Twoton brood and their buddy, Li Yi-fang. She's truly a girl after our hearts: no fear of snakes, spiders and scorpions, and no "arewethereyet"-ing even during the longest cruising nights!
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