Newsletter of
The Minnesota Herpetological • S 1 e t y o c June 2002
Upcoming Meeting The Vice-president s Report By Tony Gamble July General Meeting Friday, July 12, 2002 7:00PM
Volume 22 Number 6 understand the systematics and taxonomy of H. nasicus, Curtis examined 1200 museum specimens of western hog nose snakes from across its range. He will discuss how these data relates to the status of the subspecies of western hognose snakes. He will also discuss some preliminary genetic work on the genus Heterodon and how it fits with the current historical and geographical model for these snakes.
NOTE-MEETING IS ON THE SECOND FRIDAY OF JULY DUE TO THE HOLI- Curtis is currently a graduate student at Iowa State University studying biogeogDAY CONFLICT raphy, molecular evolution, and genetic variation of softshell turtles. His past Program: Geographic Variation and the research has focused on Hognose Systematics of the Hognose Snakes snakes, Concho water snakes, and (Genus: Heterodon) - with emphasis on Houston toads. Curtis is the coauthor the Western Hognose Snake (with H. Walley) of the Heterodon nasicus entry in the Catalogue of American (Heterodon nasicus) Amphibians and Reptiles published by the SSAR. Guest Speaker: Curtis Eckerman
near 70 on Sunday did not prompt daytime herps to move in any large numbers nor did the nocturnal frogs and toads feel much like calling. The park, while very large, has few areas with niches conducive to many herp species. It is a mostly forested park with few openings but still does include a variety of habitats. These include tamarack bogs, cattail sloughs, small streams and hardwood forests. However, most of the park s nutrient poor sandy soil supports mature poplar and Jack pine forests with only moderate amounts of ground cover. Still, a good number of animals were found this survey and that any captured while basking were quite warm to the touch. It seems the more hardy animals were not taken aback by the low temperature. One benefit of the cool and partly cloudy days, in combination with our delayed spring, was an almost total lack of biting, stinging, nasty, little insects (except ticks, of course) a plus for any outing.
Critter of the Month for July - Your most Hognose snakes (Heterodon) are well colorful herp. known to most of us. Not only are eastern and western hognose snakes native Upcoming Meetings: to Minnesota but the western hog nose August 2, 2002 - Dr. Robert McKinnell is also a popular pet snake. This month we will hear about some recent The St. Croix Herpetofaunal research looking at the natural history Survey, May 18,19,2002 Our priority animal was the Four-toed and geographic variation of these fasciRandy E Blasus, MHS S Salamander, Hemidactylium scutatum. nating snakes. Chairman urvey Jeff LeClere, MHS Survey Assistant Three subspecies have been described for western hog nose snakes (H. n. nasicus, H. n. gloydi, and H. n. kennerIyi) although several herpetologists have speculated as to their validity. Edgren (1952) was the first to perform a comprehensive examination of the morphological variation in this species and the genus as a whole. In 1969, Platt was the first to quantify the objection to H. n. gloydi in particular but lacked the sample size to make conclusions. To
Chai.rman, provide? su,,:,ey memb~rs training on h~w to .rind thiS .anlmal "':'Ithout destroYing !ts fragile habitat. Unfortunately, thiS animal was not secured In the park .survey. Th.e water level has b~en a little low thiS year, (park naturalist pers. com.) and the preferred habitat for the salamander that is Weather was not completely on our of high quality in the park is scarce. side for this first survey of the season. Only one site, the first one we The cool evening temps (lOW 40 s/high searched, appeared suitable, however, 305) and cool breezy days, the highest A total of 25 MHS volunteers performed 167 hours of survey time making 67 collection records comprised of fourteen species. Sixty-three encounters were either a sighting or a capture and four were based on anuran calls.
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