Field Herp Forum

Hey everyone,

I've had a pretty inactive year as far as field herping extravaganzas go. I've pretty much spent the majority of the year wrapping up my thesis, working on publications, and finding a damn job! I did get to go to the THS meet in East Texas a couple of months back, and have had several trips to the field, but up till a couple of weeks ago, I didn't have anything interesting to report.

One of my pet projects over the last couple of years has been attempting to locate viable populations of Desmognathus auriculatus in East Texas. For those who don't know, the last recorded specimen was found by Toby Hibbitts in 1995, and there has been some debate as to whether the Desmog that occurs here is auriculatus or fuscus. There are a couple of people looking at the genetics of Desmognathus across their range in an attempt to sort everything out, however they obviously don’t have any representative specimens from Texas as of yet.

About a month ago, we got a tip from an individual that they may still occur in a VERY unique portion of SE Texas. Scott Wahlberg and myself immediately headed to the area to look around, but were not successful in locating any. A couple of weeks later, Toby Hibbitts and myself headed back to the area. We dipnetted a PRISTINE spring fed stream for about an hour (just to give you an idea of how AWESOME this place was, supposedly there are about 95 springs located in the area). Here are some crappy pics of what it looked like…





After about an hour, I plunged my dipnet into a particularly noteworthy clump of vegetation floating in about 3 inches of water. My net produced a sight I’ve wanted to see for years.

East Texas Desmognathus auricufuscus











AWESOME right?

Later that day, we got lucky and found this little guy on the road...

C. horridus



And that night we hit a little frog chorus...

H. squirella



H. versicolor



As I said earlier, I havn't really gotten out much, but I wanted to include a couple of pics I took earlier this year that I really like...

horridus Scott and I found just before the THS meet. Which Pic do you like better?





Thanks for Looking!



TH

Congrats on that awesome find. I bet that was a great feeling pulling him out of the water. Great pics too. I like both pics of the horridus but I'll go with the first one.

Chris

that's a pretty exciting find. so.... who get's the dna?

Who knows. I know David Beamer has done alot of work with them in the past couple of years, so maybe him. Also, I think the Florida guys (KW) have expressed a little interest in looking at them.

Either way, were gonna have to get more individuals before anything else happens.

TH

Great find!! It is a great feeling when you find a highly sought after (and rare) species.

Congrats!
-Chris

.....and then pickle it.

It is in the name of science....

How do you know he pickled the whole specimen and not just a tail clip?

-Chris

Oh...its pickled. The whole damn thing. In the name of science

TH

Great shots !
Love the frogs !!

The first pic all day!

The Bonett lab at the University of Tulsa would be interested in having tissue also.... I'm in the Bonett lab....
Could have it sequenced in 2 days if I am feeling ambitious. Or even one, but I know I will not be that ambitious.

Mike

Why couldn't you wait one more day for me to get back in town?