I was about to use the adaptations idea and was literally typing that out when I saw a Halloween ad on television. That brought up a new timely idea for Halloween - Scary Herps!

So post a photo of a herp that scares you, is in a scary pose, or thinks it is scary. Be creative.

Remember the few rules:

1. Only one post per person per day.
2. Field Shots only please.
3. Explain why it is scary (unless it is obvious).
4. Keep your images under 1024 pixels on the longest side.

Have fun.

Chris

Here's a scary herp...a 4 meter Saltwater Crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) just a few feet from our boat on the Daintree River in Queensland.

Something lurks...



One meter long Eyelash Viper (Bothriechis schlegelii)

-Don
http://www.RainforestDon.com

A beast of a cottonmouth in a defensive posture. It certainly had my attention.


Florida Cottonmouth by Matt Buckingham, on Flickr

Matt, cottonmouths are for pussies!

This isn't a scary picture of a herp but a picture of a scary herp.

Haha, I'll give you that! That rascal is much scarier! So is that saltwater croc!

I don't have a photo of the encounter but one of my scariest herp encounters involved a huge Argentina black and white tegu. I got in front of it, and the beast let out a wailing hiss and stood up on its hind legs and came running strait at me, reminiscent of a Velociraptor!!

Northern Pacific Rattlesnake, Crotalus oreganus oreganus by J. Maughn, on Flickr

A neonate Northern Pacific Rattlesnake shouldn't be a scary herp, but this little one gave me the worst scare I've had with a herp so far. I'd crouched down to take a photo of a tiny hatchling Fence Lizard, and put my hand on the ground to steady my balance. As soon as I did, I felt something move, and, after pulling my hand away, looked down and saw this snake still half under the leaf litter. Even though I'd scanned the area before squatting down, I hadn't registered a snake so small. Coiled, it was hardly bigger than a half-dollar coin. After determining I hadn't been bitten, I took a couple of photos of the snake for the database, and then went and sat down for an hour and shook. Too close.

JimM

This momma American Alligator sure gave me the spooks. We were checking out her pond filled with hatchlings and never really knew where she was. Once one of us got a little too close on the banks, we would hear a large growling sound and then she would slowly pop up to remind us not to try anything stupid.

Here's a truly vicious Florida Reef Gecko preparing to attack:

Sphaerodactylus notatus

So are young Bothrops

Well I guess for some people, the subadults can give you the willys. But to feel your blood run cold, you need a real Bothrops asper.
She came in at 107 cm, a big scary girl indeed



-Don
www.RainforestDon.com

Jason, awesome picture of the Sphaerodactylus! Wonderful picture of a great species!

-Don
www.RainforestDon.com

This adult mojave (my lifer) from 2010 did something that made the hair on my arms and neck stand up, and I didn't see it happen in real time. While taking pictures of it on the side of the road at night, I was letting my headlamp assist with my camera's autofocus, and then blocking the light so the snake was in darkness for a second, and letting just my camera flash provide the lighting. I didn't notice this until reviewing photos minutes later, but I have 2 shots, separated by one normal shot with the mouth closed, where the snake had opened its mouth at least partially. I didn't notice the snake strike or yawn, so it's almost as if the snake was sneering or snarling at me. I wasn't close enough to get tagged, but it's scary to think in the dark the snake did something that I didn't see, and I don't use the technique without teamwork any more because of this. this one is a little OOF, and the other is sharper, but not as zoomed.

Maybe not all that scary, but this Perentie was sure angry and letting me know not to get any closer. Found roadside in the nowhere midway between Exmouth and Broome, WA.

Are you kidding me? That's a scary herp if I've ever seen one! Nice photo.

-Don
www.RainforestDon.com

Scary, 'cause I almost stepped on it. Right around 6.5 ft and as thick as my arm. Two people ahead of me walked right by it and I only noticed because of it "rattling" its tail in the leaf litter. This was also out in the middle of primary rainforest 3.5 hours from the field station which was hours away from civilization. Kevin S. will recognize this one.

And I will always hate you for that, Chris. At least we got a...Bothrops.....(Who am I kidding, anyone would trade a Bothrops for Lachesis)

Neil,

That momma alligator just under the water is an great shot!

Chris

Rhinoceros iguana from the Dominican Republic, pretty fearsome looking in my opinion. This iguana was trying to be scary and warned off another iguana that got too close with this display. I saw this gaping happen several times but the conflicts never got physical so scare tactics worked!

That rhino iguana shot is awesome!

I guess some might call this a scary herp, but I'd say it's more of a potentially scary situation. This big body was completely still and silent even as I approached recklessly close. That could make for a bad situation...


Canebrake Rattlesnake by Matt Buckingham, on Flickr

Anton's iguana shot reminded me of this shot.



A leopard lizard that thought he was godzilla.

Haha... love the vicious reef gecko shot! That tiny little thing will tear your pinky finger to pieces! I love it when small geckos/snakes act all big and bad!

That rhino iguana shot is pretty awesome!

Here's a 3m salt water croc in Sabah, Borneo


"It's not the one you see that kills you, it's the one you don't"

Pachydactylus barnardi, a gecko species from the Northern Cape, S. Africa, doing a Komodo dragon impersonation. All that's missing is the drooling.

Iin reality, it was only around 10 cm (4 inches) long, if that.

Largish gator that was following me around for a while when I was kayaking. It was not threatening but just seemed curious, and would submerge and reappear around my kayak for a while. There was one point where my heart skipped a beat, she had gone underwater and I was swiveling my head around looking for where she was going to surface, I turned and she was right there behind and to the side of me not much more than 5-6 feet away. When she realized I saw her and was turning to get a photo back under the water she went.

Since I don't have any images of true scary herps being scary, I figured I'd share this Louisiana Milk Snake trying to act scary. It would repeatedly bow up and strike, often propelling itself forward 5-8inches with each lunge. Between such lunges, I captured this menacing pose:


Lampropeltis triangulum amaura (Louisian milk snake) by Kyle L.E., on Flickr

Scary because you look down and peering up out of the deep grass right in front of you is this:

This snake decided she was so cool and she was an October snake so, it fits there as well. I was proud of this shot because of how the snake "pops" from the kind of drab background.


Josh

How bout I flip the script on you a little bit, but still keeping within the spirit of the challenge, I think. Here is a scared herp, rather than a scary herp. I found this eastern diamondback basking yesterday morning and almost as soon as I spotted it, it pulled its head up under its coils, giving off only the slightest rattle.

this is the snake that scared me the most. i went to snake road this fall and spent the time playing with a 100mm macro. guess i didn't realize how close i was. pretty stupid if you ask me. well, the snake struck out. i saw it coming through the lens. i pulled back, and Stu told me it was about six inches from getting me in the hand. lesson learned. good thing the lesson wasn't as harsh as it could have been.

-ben

Bending the rules a little, but how about a caterpillar trying to be a scary herp?
Eumorpha labruscae


When disturbed it tucked its head in and raised the front of its body like a snake might, an interesting display that might be scary to a bird or something.

Scarey Tegu

I've yet to meet a herp in the wild that intimidated me more than this huge male common snapper that literally chased me around in circles instead of trying to get away. I doubt I will ever pull a turtle away from its mate in the water again, if this is the reaction I should expect.

Haha well its the least impressive bothrops posted so far, but this one sent a chill down my spine when I saw it. There were 3 of us and we had found another snake and were all stomping around in the same area, I had been kneeling down photographing the first snake, glanced over my shoulder and there was this little guy a few feet away. In the dark and in the excitement of finding the first snake we completely missed this little guy for atleast the first 5 minutes, could have ended badly... Regardless of the size a fer de lance is really low on my list of snakes I would want to accidentally sit or kneel on.

I'm pretty sure this same snake or one of his siblings made it a habit to coil up right next to or on a walkway to some of the dorms at night, pretty high traffic area of people wearing flip flops and sandals and often intoxicated on top of things. Luckily everyone was a biologist so no one ever killed it or suggested doing so.

DAMN, this one looks just like Kaa the python!! ("trussssst in meeeee...")

[/quote]

Trying is best to look (and sound) scary

An oldie, but still a goodie...especially this time of year.

By necessity, this needs to be 2 pics.

I found this little neonate a few years ago while poking around a friend's house in the hills above above Panama city. It was my very first Bothrops, I was absolutely not expecting it and of course, was justifiably excited. I snapped several photos while playing with the door, switching positions and camera angles, trying different light levels of flash, etc, but all my pics were still coming out like crap.





Disapointed, I finally eased the door shut, backed away a couple steps to review what I'd taken and to see if possibly there were any pics that weren't complete garbage. As I was kneeling and looking at the camera's screen I happened to glance up and something caught my eye...a tiny bit of movement. Looking closer, I saw it was another neo under the leaves of a small plant directly below the first snake. My feet, knees, hands and face had all been within inches of the hidden little bugger several times over the previous five minutes.


Looking at this photo...almost 3 years later, I still get a little involuntary shutter.





Tim

Black ratsnake

This ratsnake was angry and trying his best to be intimidating and scary, made for some fun photos.

Hmm, scary-herp photography. How about, scary herp-photography...sessions

This shoot took place four meters above a river in the rural southwest of Costa Rica. While standing on the ladder, it broke, with only a 110lbs assistant holding it in place in the flowing water below With one leg wrapped around the ladder for support and the other on the top step (not the top platform), I pushed my camera up through the leaves with my right hand and held a flash attached to a boom with my left hand. I used live view to focus, as the frogs were still out of reach. Scary shoot indeed!

Reticulated Glassfrogs (Hyalinobatrachium valerioi) in amplexus



-Don
http://www.RainforestDon.com

Terrible cell phone pic not worthy of a photo thread but hey, it's an angle on the topic that hasn't been covered yet...

Lucilia bufonivora is a blowfly that - as the name says - parasitizes on common toads, Bufo bufo. The fly lays its eggs on the toad's back. When the eggs hatch the tiny maggots crawl forward up the toad's back and into its nostrils. Starting with same nostrils the maggots then proceed to eat the soft tissue of the live toad's face, eyes and brain. After a number of days of course the toad dies from the attack.

The fly is common in much of Europe but here in Denmark it is somewhat rare. I found my first three infested toads this summer on a visit to my parents. The enlarged nostrils were obvious. Sometimes you could also see the maggots crawling around inside or at the brim of them. The specimen where the attack was in its most advanced stage exhibited an oddly lethargic behaviour except at one moment when seemingly in response to my photography, mouth agape it made would I could only interpret as a particularly odd and desperate threat display. I guess a slow and painful death by having your face, eyes and brains eaten by maggots might trigger a little unusual behaviour (seriously, what could be possible be scarier than that?)

Krismunk wins, that's the only photo that makes my skin crawl, i looked up additional photos too...eeeewww Parasites always freak me out a little bit.

Turns out its actually a Blowfly. As far as I know botflies are only found in mammals.

Cryptelytrops purpureomaculatus

Happy Halloween, tick and all.

Thanks for the correction

Turns out I don't know English common names of Dipterans. Not really surprising - I should have known to check.

Some scary myths have been told about hellbenders and their larger asian cousins. I have yet to see one in the wild.

Chomp


http://www.flickr.com/photos/26500525@N ... 4396674709
C. acutus from Mexico. Not too scary if you're in a boat or on land, but imagine being in the water with one of these! When I was interning in Panama, I was told about a previous intern being rammed by a croc as she was swimming, and her last view of it was the croc submerging with its mouth open between her and land. She was alright but that sounds like a pretty terrifying experience.

And since its the last day of this theme I'm going to post a 2nd shot of the same croc, but with a flip flop... You decide which is scarier the angry snapping croc or the croc with a smile and a flip flop in his jaws.

There's a lot of great shots of great herps here, not to mention the creative photo selections. Thanks to all who posted in this highly enjoyable thread.

-Jb