4-20-18

Trip Details

Location: Southeastern Iowa

Weather: 60 degrees, breezy

Time: 2:00 p.m. 

Herpers: Don Becker and Jim Scharosch

Account by: Jim Scharosch

Photos by: Jim Scharosch exept where noted

In my first post this year I mentioned; "Today we got to walk around on a property where we hope to find some really cool critters later this year". Well, it didn't take long. We stopped there today to do some preliminary work, not expecting to find anything except garter snakes and such. Then I heard Don stammer something along the lines of, "Saug...no...yeah...holy shit...sauga...no...wait" by then I had looked over and said, "Yep, Sauga!" There was a Massasauga Rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus) coiled atop a crayfish burrow. It's back half was still in the burrow and it was still covered with all of the dirt of hibernation.

Here is an in-situ shot taken from a distance

Photo by Don Becker

Forgive the crappy cell phone photo, I didn't have my camera with me. It was an amazing site to see, and obiviously the primary reason we were coming to this location. It's kinda funny because last year we had an early spring and my first "big" snake of the year was a timber rattlesnake. This year we had a very late spring and my first big snake of the year is a massauga rattlesnake. We took our photos and we headed off, she crawled back down into the protection of her crayfish burrow.

I commented on how few garter snakes we were seeing and then almost on cue we found four all in the same spot. One got away but here are the other three Common Garter Snakes (Thamnophis sirtalits).

That was it for the day, but it was epic getting a sauga to start the year. Not only that but it was in a part of the state I never would have thought I would be able to find one.