Steve Bledsoe wrote: ↑August 7th, 2020, 9:38 am
Porter,
I don't drop in very often, but it's good to see you're still active in the hobby.
Retiformis is my favorite Arizona amphibian!
I found retiformis to be fairly common around Ajo and south down into Organ Pipe National Monument. I've also found them on Ajo Road ( Tucson-Ajo Hwy 86). None of these areas are "secret herping spots" so I don't think telling you to look for them here on these federal lands is going to ruffle any feathers!
A. retiformis can be found on Hwy 85 which runs north and south through Organ Pipe, but the Border Patrol traffic is often very heavy there and a lot of critters get killed nightly on that road.
I would suggest you drive down Hwy 85 and jump off on Ajo Mountain Road which is a dirt road that runs east of the main highway.
There are other roads in the area but most all of them are on the Tohono O'odham reservation land and the Reservation Police will run you off or even ticket you.
Last bit of advice - Rain is very important. If it's not raining or if there is no standing water on the ground, the toads are hard to find.
Good luck!
Steve
Steve, good to hear from you! Yeah, I’m still hanging around.. Making one last effort to track down a field Herper girl and take field video in my own unique direction. I’m digging it
Oh believe me, I’ve been watching the weather like a hawk! It looks like a three day thunderstorm had moved in, but it completely disappeared yesterday. So now I’m getting a little worried. I’m hoping all this brutal dry weather is leading into something nice. Somethings got to give..?! From what I can gather of Arizona news casts and predictions, this year isn’t a very good monsoon year. Average, but not below average… definitely not great. I’m taking a plane out there. So I’m gonna have to make a hard decision on whether to cancel the flight, which probably means I won’t be able to afford to reschedule soon enough to catch a storm the following week, Or fly out during the brutal weather anyway and hope for a surprise downpour.
I haven’t even seen them yet and I have to agree with you! Amazing color and pattern on those little guys. I’m glad to hear that they’re common. I was a little worried because I was checking out some markers/pins on a database that all were purposely obscured. I couldn’t find any exact locations for finds. I had the same problem earlier this year when I was trying to figure out where the bay area people find Santa Cruz long-toed salamanders. They’ve got obscured markers floating out in the ocean

I measured how far those were from the shore, and tried to create a radius to get a basic idea of where to look. I also remember seeing train tracks in a few photos. So I narrowed it down to Harkins slough. I was only able to go out there during the day, after a rainy night in hopes of a chance encounter, but no luck. Habitat looked good enough though. Couldn’t get to the places I wanted check because it was gated off/fenced off when I got out there. Bummer, but whatever.
So, I did the same thing with the toads… I found some small ponds a bit North of where you described. I’ve got a bunch of pins set up there. If I send you a screenshot, do you think you could tell me if it’s on private property or not? I probably shouldn’t go wandering out onto a reservation

I’ll PM you…
One of the spots I had planned on checking were the three roads that head out from why! So that’s good to get a confirmation and more insight to that area. I will definitely check out the dirt road you suggested

Thanks man!