That snakes and lizards abound in and around my gar­den and the woods sur­round­ing the house was some­thing I thought I already knew.  Per­haps I just took them for granted.  It wasn’t until now, while doing the Jour­nal that it really made an impact. I’d always been fas­ci­nated by snakes and their cousins, lizards. When I found my first snakes at age 8 or there abouts, I proudly and excit­edly brought them inside the house to show Mom.

Those lit­tle ring-​​necked snakes were not well received. So while Mom never dis­cour­aged my inter­est or curios­ity, she did make a rule — no live snakes in the house.  I quickly learned that rule also applied to sala­man­ders, mice of all types, frogs and, well, all wildlife. Orphaned rab­bit babies and injured birds were exceptions.

So this year I began a con­certed effort to record all the snakes and lizards I encoun­tered. At first I was ready to write about the Red­belly snake, but then within a day or so there was the Mid­land brown. A won­der­ful Sat­ur­day with a bunch of Mis­souri Nat­u­ral­ists at Ha Ha Tonka State Park, prac­tic­ing wildlife pho­tog­ra­phy yielded some great pho­tos, and the lone lizard of the group, a Broad­head Skink. Then the West­ern Rib­bon snake made its appear­ance. Enough — time to get this done — too much of a delay already.

The North­ern Red­belly Snake (Store­ria occip­it­o­mac­u­lata  occip­it­o­mac­u­latat{Storer]) was a most unusual find. Ear­lier in the day I had been search­ing out and col­lect­ing wild worms for a pair of res­cued three toed box tur­tles. It was twi­light and I was going in the house, it was get­ting too dark. And there, on the cement walk­way was this big worm. I snatched it up. But I dis­cov­ered it wasn’t a worm but a snake. Into the house it went. This snake is known to secrete a rather bad smelling white paste from glands at the vent. The next day when I removed it from its tem­po­rary home of a wide-​​mouth quart jar to take its pic­ture, it oblig­ingly extruded some more for the cam­era. It is a nice lit­tle snake, eat­ing those bugs and slugs that are prone to eat our favorite plants.

The Mid­land Brown Snake (Store­ria dekyi wrighto­rumTrapido) is another one of those lit­tle snakes that help us out by hav­ing a good appi­tite for gar­den spoil­ers. I fre­quently come across them around the barn, the gar­den and in the woods. There is wide color vari­a­tions in the ones I’ve come across, some very dark, some very light. They all have had a dark spot under each eye and both sides of the neck, that is what has always helped me in iden­ti­fi­ca­tion regard­less of the color. They too secrete a scent from the vent, but not nearly as pun­gent as the Red­belly. I think the snake’s color has some­thing to do with where it hangs out. This par­tic­u­lar one is gray­ish and as you can prob­a­bly see, it blends in nicely with the gray karst com­mon around our place.

The West­ern Rib­bon Snake (Thamnophis prox­imus prox­imus [Say]) I came across was in a real hurry. They can get really large and I’ve seen them engulf some really large frogs. The best time to pho­to­graph them is early morn­ing before they’ve had time to become agile by warm­ing up in the sun.

Then there is the ter­rific Broad­head Skink (Eume­ces lat­i­ceps[Schnei­der]). It was an excit­ing find and I was very pleased to be able to get a good photo. I had read about it in Tom R. Johnson’s book, The Amphib­ians and Rep­tiles of Mis­souri, but had never before seen one in per­son. We had sur­prised it while it was sun­ning on a trail. Instinct told it to dash to the woods, but then it stopped after about five feet, remain­ing motion­less. Since I was with a group of folks, I first pointed it out. Then, crouch­ing and mov­ing slowly, I took a series of pic­tures, after each one mov­ing a foot or so closer. When within a foot-​​and-​​a-​​half I decided not to push my luck and slowly moved back­ward until out onto the trail again. Another nat­u­ral­ist then tried for pho­tos and was able to go in and out as I did with­out the skink tak­ing off. The third pho­tog­ra­pher got about half-​​way and evi­dently the skink said, “enough already,” and dashed  away. It was a grand adven­ture with a grand skink. It is one of the largest in Mis­souri. The head of this par­tic­u­lar one is red­dish, thus, it is iden­ti­fied as the male. It is usual dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son for the males to develop a bright red head. While it has a  light brown back, it has sort of a green­ish cast because of the light shin­ing through the greet leaves above. Per­haps because of its red head or per­haps because of its size, many peo­ple think it is poso­nous. It is not. I’m will­ing to bet how­ever, if you grabbed it, it would reflex­ively bite. That could smart. Pho­tos are less painful. Usually.

There are more of those snakes and lizards out there wait­ing to be dis­cov­ered. A bunch of lit­tle adven­tures wait­ing to happen. Bring’em on.