Jeremy herps!: The Trans-Pecos

Finally, after the place that was developing my film lost it, I'm posting some pictures of my trip in May to the Trans-Pecos region on Texas.

The Trans-Pecos region of Texas is as far west in the state as you can go. The Trans-Pecos is so named because you cross the Pecos River as you head west, so everything west of the Pecos is considered Trans-Pecos. We had intentions of seeing a lot of species of reptiles and amphibians that the Trans-Pecos is famous for, but the weather wasn't on our side. If it had rained a bit while we were there, the desert would have come to life. Even though we didn't see that many herps, we did manage to see several species that were new to me.

On our way towards Big Bend National Park, the epitome of the Trans-Pecos, we stopped at Monahans Sandhills State Park, in Texas, in the hopes of seeing a sand dune lizard, a really neat species with a small distribution that, unfortunately, is probably "on the way out." Although we saw lots of lizard tracks, we didn't see any lizards. The shinnery oak sand dune ecosystem where these lizards live was something cool to see though.

Monahans Sandhills State Park, Texas

After the sand dunes, we were on our way to Big Bend National Park. At over 800,000 acres, saying this park is enormous is an understatement. You can drive for hours on the property and not see another vehicle. The park has canyons, Chihuahuan Desert habitat, and an entire mountain range, the Chisos Mountains. You can be along the border of the United States, looking in to Mexico, at the Rio Grande River at about 2,000 feet in elevation to almost 8,000 feet in the mountains. Big Bend is a naturalist's paradise. For snakes, we had a paltry list with western diamondback rattlesnake, Big Bend patchnose snake, and longnose snake (you can see pics of both of those on previous posts I've made). For lizards, we found tree lizard, greater earless lizard, plateau spotted whiptail, prairie (or fence) lizard, marbled whiptail, desert spiny lizard, and a really cool Trans-Pecos endemic, the canyon lizard. As you might guess from the lack of rain, we were completely amphibian-less. I wasn't expecting to see any turtles either, but we saw 2 species in Big Bend: Spiny softshell, and another endemic, the Big Bend slider.

Grapevine Hills, Big Bend National Park
(near our 1st campsite)

Terlingua Abajo, Big Bend National Park
(near our 2nd campsite)

Greater earless lizard

Plateau spotted whiptail

Canyon lizard

Desert spiny lizard

Prairie (or Fence) lizard

On the trail to Bouquillas Canyon, Big Bend National Park
(this bend in the Rio Grande is where we saw the softshells
and the Big Bend sliders; the far side of the river is Mexico)

Big Bend National Park, Santa Elena Canyon in the distance

Santa Elena Canyon

In Santa Elena Canyon
(the right side is the USA; Mexico is on the left)

Leaving Santa Elena Canyon
(Mexico is on the right, USA on the left)

Looking into Mexico over the Rio Grande River

After Big Bend, we headed to Davis Mountains State Park and then to Guadalupe Mountains National Park, both in Texas. Here, we saw 3 lizards: Chihuahuan spotted whiptail, crevice spiny lizard, and prairie lizard. We also saw another snake species, the mountain patchnose snake.

Davis Mountains State Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Because we weren't having great luck with finding herps, we decided to have a little fun and went to New Mexico for Carlsbad Caverns National Park. On the way to the park, we stopped at a little natural area with picnic areas just to check it out because it was called Rattlesnake Springs. It was a good spot for birding, but we didn't think there were any herps to be had. That was, until one of my fellow travelers spotted a turtle in a concrete water storage area around a natural spring. He crawled on his belly to the edge of this pool and yanked out a Rio Grande cooter, another species found only around the Trans-Pecos area, and a species I'd never seen before. We proceeded to the caverns and had a great time. We did manage to pick up one last new species at the caverns which was checkered whiptail (a lizard).