In early July of 2020 I made my way west to Otero County, Colorado, to participate in the annual COPARC herp survey. Otero is in the eastern portion of the state and part of it encompasses the Comanche National Grasslands. The grasslands are cut by a number of canyons, and…
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At the end of July I flew to Havana with a small group of friends to see what the fuss was all about with Cuban herps. We went there as part of a tour group (Viva Cuba), under a cultural visa, and spent nine days in various places around the…
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Some of our large group had to return home, but the rest of us pushed on to Hong Kong and another type of herping situation. For the first few days we stayed on Lantau Island, and herped the open green spaces there. The hills were lush with vegetation, and hiking…
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Our big group, swelled even larger by the addition of Alex and Nhut, landed at Hanoi and made their way to a hotel in the old French quarter of the city. How exciting to visit a place that for years seemed completely out of reach! We were heading out of…
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Leaving Malaysia behind, Adam returned home to Hong Kong, while Dan, Kevin and I flew to Bangkok, where we met up with ten (ten!) of our herping friends. It took two vans to haul our collective asses around, and we engaged the services of TonTan Travel for logistics and guide…
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I retired from the University of Illinois on May 1st. On the 23rd I boarded a flight to Kuala Lumpur, kicking off a 31 day excursion to 5 countries in southeast Asia. Malaysia was my first stop, and I met up with friends Dan, Kevin, Adam, and Kurt. During our…
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I’ve threatened for a while to kick off a Big Year in search of amphibians and reptiles, much like some birders do. 2019 wasn’t a Big Year on purpose, but when the smoke cleared, it was certainly a ‘big-ish’ year; a thousand-plus herps observed (and vouchered in HerpMapper), spread across…
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Taiwan is simply an awesome field herping destination. Despite having only four active days in Taiwan, the time I spent there was my favorite part of a 31 day herping odyssey across five countries in southeast Asia. When I landed in Taipei I was raring to go – I was…
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Iquitos, a Peruvian river city accessible to the outside world only by water or air, has just one road leading out of town, a two-lane blacktop that runs for 60 km to the port of Nauta. The night before our tour group heads down the Amazon, we engage a van…
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Occasionally I’m asked questions like “what is your favorite herp / herping place / herp adventure?”. Answers for the first two change constantly, but to date I have a pretty steady answer for the third one. I’m a card-carrying thamnophile. My love affair with the genus Thamnophis carries across four…
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