Vol. 25 (2005), No. 6

Inside this Issue

A Quirky Tale of Curly-Tails

FDA approves diabetes drug derived from Gila monster saliva Update on the 2005 Midwest Herpetological Symposium

J UNE 2005

V OLUME 25

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Information edited/removed to respect privacy concerns.

WEB VERSION

THE NEWSLETTER O F THE

Board of Directors President Randy Blasus Vice President Sean Hewitt Recording Secretary Barb Buzicky

Membership Secretary Nancy Haig Treasurer Marilyn Blasus

Bell Museum of Natural History, 10 Church Street Southeast, Minneapolis Minnesota 55455-0104

The Minnesota Herpetological S o c i e t y MHS Webpage: http://www.mnherpsoc.org MHS Group Email: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/mnherpsoc Voice Mail: 612.624.7065

June 2005

Volume 25

Number 6

Newsletter Editor Asra Halvorson

The Purpose of the Minnesota Herpetological Society is to: • Further the education of the membership and the general public in care and captive propagation of reptiles and amphibians; • Educate the members and the general public in the ecological role of reptiles and amphibians; • Promote the study and conservation of reptiles and amphibians.

Members at Large Tony Gamble Fred Bosman Mike Bush Jodi L. Aherns

Committees Adoption Sarah Richard Education Jan Larson Library Beth Girard Webmaster Anke Reinders theMHSwebmaster@yahoo.com

The Minnesota Herpetological Society is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization.

Membership is open to all individuals with an interest in amphibians and reptiles. The Minnesota Herpetological Society Newsletter is published monthly to provide its members with information concerning the society’s activities and a media for exchanging information, opinions and resources.

General Meetings are held at Borlaug Hall, Room 335 on the St. Paul Campus of the University of Minnesota, on the first Friday of each month (unless there is a holiday conflict). The meeting starts at 7:00pm and lasts about three hours. Please check the MHS Voice mail for changes in schedules or cancellations.

Submissions to the Newsletter Ads or Notices must be submitted no later than the night of the General Meeting to be included in the next issue. Longer articles will be printed as time and space allows and should be in electronic file format if possible. See inside back cover for ad rates.

Submissions may be sent to: The Minnesota Herpetological Society Attn: Newsletter Editor Bell Museum of Natural History 10 Church St. SE. Minneapolis, MN 55455.0104

Copyright 2005, Minnesota Herpetological Society. Except where noted, contents may be reproduced for non-profit, noncommercial use only. All material must be reproduced without change. Proper credit will be given including the author/photographer and the MHS Newsletter citing: volume, number and date.

The Newsletter of the Minnesota Herpetological Society

May 6, 2005 SPEAKER REVIEW

By Barbara Buzicky, Recording Secretary

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ing, white buckets are dug into the ground. The animals that approach the fence will not turn around when they reach the barrier, but will follow it along until they eventually fall into the bucket.

GUEST SPEAKER: Jeff LeClere PROGRAM: Field Herping Jeff LeClere has been a long time member of MHS. He has become an expert in the field of herpetology over the years. If you want to know anything about how to “herp”, please see him. He will tell you just how it is. Jeff put on an excellent talk along with a very interesting video of his field adventures. There were also a lot of familiar other herpers in the video that we all recognized. Jeff has been field herping with the best names in herpetology all over the United States. He has found just about every animal there is to find. He has also greatly contributed to herpetology information on animals and their locations and habitats for Iowa and Minnesota.

Then, the herpetologist can weigh and measure them and record the data. They also will mark the When he introduced his talk, he said that it wasn’t animals in some way so other herpers know they going to be formal. It wasn’t formal in the boring have been caught. On turtles, they notch the sense of the word, but it was packed with all the carapace with a file or drill a small series of holes knowledge that he gained from his experience. in the scutes. There are many different markings Some of us in the society have been around for used to identify reptiles in various studies. When some time, and we just don’t know much about Jeff is working on a study, he looks up the markfield herping. I am one of those people. But, from ing patterns to determine what study the caught Jeff’s talk, I learned so much information about animal was used in already. the process and the equipment they use. They do a lot of swamp walking, but if you have your hip In Iowa, Jeff worked with Dr. Christianson. They boots on it will save you from all kinds of dangers, set up drift fences along with using minnow traps animal and human, if you get the drift. Jeff has in the water areas to catch aquatic species. field herped in Mississippi, Iowa, Minnesota, These traps are usually set in the middle of a mud Kansas, Florida, and Louisiana, just to name a pond. He also used these minnow traps in few.

Florida. Minnow traps have funnels on both ends so when the animals go into it, they can’t get out.

One important piece of equipment when setting Some of the traps are fully submerged, and othup a work site to field herp is a drift fence. This is ers are floating. The type of animal they are trying a barrier running for about a block in length used to catch determines the position of the trap. For with heavy-duty plastic sheeting fastened on roll- example, the traps for turtles need to be partially out fencing similar to chicken wire, but with out of the water so they can breathe. He says that squares instead. Then, on both sides of the fenc- (Speaker Review continued on page 12) Page 3

The Newsletter of the Minnesota Herpetological Society

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News, Notes & Announcements May Adoption Report Sarah Richard, Adoption Chair Once again we had a great month. 16 animals came in and 17 went out. (The Alligator the Petersons were fostering went to Iowa.)

Thank you to all who took animals. Some even came prepared with their own containers!

On that note I will put out a reminder to anyone who has gotten animals to return the containers the animals were sent

home in. (No need to return cardboard boxes) I don’t want to have to pull the pillow cases off my bed.

3 Red-Eared Sliders Nile Monitor 2 Iguanas Snapping Turtle 3 Savannah Monitors Bull Snake 2 Ball Pythons 2 Leopard Geckos Boa Alligator

Happy Summer!

May Raffle Donors Brian & Heather Ingbretson 55 gallon aquarium bendy branches heat tape Liam & Richard Bonk misc. plants Marilyn & Randy Blasus

The Summer Solstice will be on June 21st this year. If you happen to be in Peebles, Ohio, that day, you may want to check out the Great Serpent Mound. The head of the serpent is aligned with the summer solstice sunset. It is 1,330 feet in length, and averages about 3 feet high.

For more information including the history of this Native American marvel, check out the following links:

Arial view of the Great Serpent Mound from ohiohistory.org

www.ohiohistory.org/calendar/2005jun.html www.ohiohistory.org/places/serpent Cover Photo Š2005 by Asra Halvorson Page 4

The Newsletter of the Minnesota Herpetological Society

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Karma Comes Back to You? www.ksla.com

Lizard Spit Drug Ready for Market!

Just approved by the FDA, lizard spit! The pharmaceutical companies Amylin and Lilly announced the FDA approval of their new medication Byetta (exenatide), derived from the saliva of the Gila monster. It will be injected twice daily in conjunction with other medications to improve blood sugar control in patients with type II diabetes, but may also be approved in the future as a stand-alone medication. (The Gilas had better stay hydrated with all that spitting they’ll have to do!)

Learn more about Byetta by going to www.lilly.com.

Apparently after returning from “shooting snakes”, a Louisiana man slipped on a slimy dock while exiting his boat, and accidentally shot himself in the chest, killing him. The wife of 60year-old John Samuel O’Donnell became concerned when her husband had not returned home that night, so a deputy went out to the lake to investigate, discovering the body.

The Bienville Parish coroner is ordering autopsy to be performed, but all signs point to the shooting as an accident. It appeared that the gun went off underwater.

The Best Prize EVER May 5, 2005 www.smh.com

Quasimodo Turtle Man A five-year-old British boy found a live corn snake while opening A Chinese man pretended to be a hunchback to smuggle his pet a box of cereal for breakfast. At turtle on to a plane. Wu, who is in his 60s, strapped the turtle to his first, the child thought it was a toy. back before boarding the plane to Chongqing. http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1381412.html

He got through security but was then stopped by a guard who “It was quite long and popped its thought his hump looked odd. A quick search uncovered the turtle head up. I’ve seen snakes on TV before but never in a box of which had a 20cm diameter and weighed about 5kg. cereal,” he told the Daily Mail Wu, who was flying home to Chongqing after eight years in newspaper.

Guangzhou, said he knew he was not allowed to take live animals Netto, the discount store where on board but was too attached to his turtle. the cereal was bought, is checkFinally, he changed plane and checked the pet in as baggage, ing into the situation and reviewing its procedures. § reports the New Express. § Page 5

The Newsletter of the Minnesota Herpetological Society

June 2005

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Number 6

The Curious and Capricious Curly-Tailed Lizards

By Asra Halvorson

I watched the tiny reptiles scurry away from the feet of the hotel’s guests as they strolled by, unaware. “Do they ever get into the rooms?” I wondered aloud.

My boyfriend Mick whimsically replied, “That’s where they sleep,” knowing I love to entertain myself with ridiculously improbable, cute images.

I picture myself turning down the sheets to go to bed, and finding a long row of curly-tailed lizards, heads on two gigantic pillows, sleeping away.

Their tails curl up and down as they dream of their normal lizard days.

Mick and I had just gotten to our hotel in the Bahamas, ready for three days of relaxing, beach time, and plenty of herps. We had saved for over Page 6

a year on our modest incomes and were past due for a break from the biting cold of Minnesota winters. As part of the preparation for this trip, I had invested in a digital camera, knowing I would see thousands of herp species and take thousands of National Geographic-worthy photos as we would trudge through lush tropical jungles dripping sweat.

Well, it never happens as I dream it.

I knew that where we would be staying on Grand Bahama Island was a bit of a tourist trap (now a gross understatement). The two towns of Lucaya and Freeport hadn’t even really existed before the 1960s, when a Virginian named Wallace Groves came and developed it with casinos and ritzy hotels. Despite knowing this, I still clung to the idea that the island might be wilder than it seemed— wilder as in wilderness, not drunken co-eds taking body shots off each other.

We stepped off the cruise ship with the rest, forming a blob of ignorant tourists. Locals mechanically shuffled us here and there to the waiting “taxis”— that is, old VW buses, vans, rusty limos from the 1970s, and other such vehicles. It was awesomely crusty, yet cramped. For a bit of a claustrophobe, I could have done without the sardine treatment. But hey, it was all part of the experience, and it was more economical for the drivers. I dealt with it.

The Newsletter of the Minnesota Herpetological Society

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cloudy.” At first I was surprised that he knew what I was looking for, but upon taking a step back out of myself, I realized that for the past three days I had been acting quite obsessively, repeatedly circling the courtyard, checking sewer grates, steps, plants, the grandstand. Once I spotted one, I would squat and slowly duck-walk over as close as I could get, hoping that the little guy wouldn’t freak and scoot away. I was the epitome of stealth. (Don’t look right at them, they’ll know... be sneaky, Asra!)

The curly-tails seemed so playful, active, and talkative (in lizard ways, of course.) They would do a series of tiny bobs at each other from across the walkways, then eat the ants that marched along the cracks in the pavement. OK, so it doesn’t Our hotel was a bit more modest than others we saw later in the trip. It had been built much before the glitzy hotels, but it had a fresh, cheery coat of paint. It was what I had hoped our hotel would look like. Also, to make me over-the-top excited, it was inhabited by the quirkiest, cutest wild lizards I had ever seen. Curly-tailed lizards peeked out from every corner in the place. By the end of our trip, I had memorized the location of each lizard’s “home”, and every time we would come back from an activity, I would make the rounds, checking to see if each one was out sunning in its own particular spot, spread out across the cement, doing what lizards do best.

The folks at the hotel began to know me through my absurd crouching, peeking, meandering, and incessant picture-taking. The final morning we were in the Bahamas, it rained. It was very overcast, but I tried to hold on to the idea that they might still come out, and that I could take, oh, just thirty or so more pictures of these crazy and wonderfully silly creatures.

sound that different from other lizards, but their tails! Their tails expressed so much! While basking, the lizards’ tails would seem normal, stretched out with the rest of their bodies, but when alert and ready to run, their tails would quickly curl up like a spring, forming a Fibonacciesque spiral— the perfect curlicue.

“How can these even exist?” I squealed. (I say this when I see every herp, including my own.)

“You won’t find any this morning,” a cab driver waiting at the hotel’s front entrance said. “It’s too (Continued on page 9)

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The Newsletter of the Minnesota Herpetological Society

June 2005

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Number 6

MHS BOARD MEETING REVIEW May 7, 2005

By Barb Buzicky, Recording Secretary

Mississippi River Valley 1982-2002” by Dan Keyler. The Board decided to go with an insert of colored pictures. Look for it soon.

The Board Meeting was called to order at 6:17 PM CDT at the St. Paul Student Center, Room 202, a voting quorum was present.

There were two grants submitted from Sara Viernum on Green Salamanders and Rebecca Christoffel on Humans and Snake Conservation.

The Board passed on both of them at this time.

The Board moved and approved $1000 for the Timber Rattlesnake Symposium grant submitted

by Dan Keyler being held at St. Mary’s College on September 24th, 2005.

Board Members not present were Jodi Aherns, Mike Bush, and Tony Gamble. Non-Board Members present were Jeff LeClere, George Richard, and Tim Banobitz.

Minutes from the October 2, 2004 meeting were approved with changes, hardcopy outstanding.

Minutes from the November 6, 2004 and April 2, 2005 were approved with changes. Treasurer’s Reports for January, February, March, and April 2005 are outstanding. Membership Reports for April and May 2005 were approved.

General Meeting Attendance for May 6, 2005, was 88.

President’s Report No questions on previous segment on Board Development: Organization’s Mission & Purpose. This month’s segment was on Crisis Management. Randy read excerpts from the segment.

Vice-President’s Report The Board wanted to thank Jeff LeClere for a great talk at the General Meeting on Field Herping, and everyone gave him a big hand. His video on field herping was great!

June July August September October

TBD Jessi Krebs, Henry Doorley Zoo, Giban Salamander Dav Kaufman, trip to Israel A & R Noah Anderson, tentative Jeff Lang, Crocodilians, tentative

Committee Reports MHS is printing an occasional paper on “Venomous Snakebites: MN & Page 8

Old Business A chairperson is still needed for the State Fair DNR exhibit. Bill Moss is putting a timeline together regarding tasks that need to be completed for the Midwest Symposium. The Board moved and approved Nancy Haig for Treasurer and George Richard for Membership Secretary. The delay in the delivery of the newsletter may have been straightened out. Asra will be getting more information on HerpDigest for the next meeting. Randy, Marilyn, and Nancy Haig will be on the committee for board member Activity Matching. They will get a proposal together for the next meeting.

New Business Current Rodent Chairperson is stepping down; a possible replacement may be Rachel Delorme. Tim will be checking on this with her. The membership secretary will be sending out membership renewal cards. There was a bad check received in the amount of $104, Marilyn will be sending a letter out to the person.

The Board voted not to skip the June meeting due to the Midwest Symposium.

Last Minute Items Jody needed to be reimbursed for rodents purchased from the new vendor. Nancy Haig and Marilyn will meet to discuss the Treasurer’s work. Marilyn sold 15 sets of our new cling and regular magnets with the MHS logo.

Meeting adjourned at 8:06 PM CDT. §

The Newsletter of the Minnesota Herpetological Society

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Midwest Herpetological Symposium Update

By Nancy Haig

breaker, the lineup of speakers for the Saturday talks, the hotel arrangements for rooms, the Saturday night banquet and auction, and the venThe Minnesota Herpetological Society will be dor space. As the information becomes available hosting the 21st Midwest Symposium on October we will be letting you know what is happening.

21-23rd this year at the Ramada Inn Airport & The Midwest Herpetological Symposium is only Thunderbird Conference Center near the Mall of successful when the whole herp society is America. What does this major event for our soci- involved. In the future we will be calling for volunety really mean for the membership? teers to help with various activities, but for now, the best thing you can do is block out your calenLong time members will remember when MHS dar for the weekend of Oct 21-23rd. The more president Fran Frisch came back from the 1985 people we have attending the Symposium the California convention and announced we would greater it will be. § have a similar event for the Midwest and, oh yeah, we were hosting it in October. Officially, it was a one-day event featuring top speakers from around the country. In reality it was an incredible (Curly-tails, continued from page 7) weekend combining up-to-date herpetological information and the social rituals of dedicated her- They seemed so incredibly foreign.... pers. Over the next few years the MHS carefully nurtured (ok – blackmailed) the neighboring herp The curly-tailed lizards really found a place in my societies into hosting the Midwest. Eventually, we heart in the short time we were there. There were created a rotation order that includes ten different few other herps that I saw during our stay, and Midwest herp societies. none seemed to have the charismatic charm of the curly-tails.

This will be our fourth time hosting the Midwest and our baby has turned 21! The first year we net- Now that I think of it, I must have seen the curlyted $80.00 mainly because the membership tails in pet stores here and there. They just didn’t donated everything including homemade cookies have the same joie de vivre, which is probably for the midday break. Over the years the societies why they didn’t strike me in the same way the wild have influenced the format of the Midwest, intro- ones did. But just maybe, perhaps, when the ducing activities like the auction and vender room lights go out and the store closes for the night, that generate extra income for the hosts. In 1997, they tug out a pillow hidden behind their Repti we netted over $7,000.00 which was used to give Rapids waterfall, and collectively dream of wilder grants to The Nature Conservancy for land for the days back on that touristy island of Grand Blanding’s Turtle; several field survey groups to Bahama, tails curling up and down as they sleep. study herp populations in Minnesota and § Wisconsin; donations for the Frog and Toad Call Identification Tape & The Frog and Toad Leaflet; and support for the Blanding’s Turtle Workshop.

Currently we are in the beginning stages of organizing the 21st Midwest. The core committee is working out the details for the Friday night icePage 9

The Newsletter of the Minnesota Herpetological Society

ON Press: Why didn’t the frog cross the road? It took the tunnel Posted by W von Papineäu on www.kingsnake.ca ‘s Herpetological News Forum

GLOBE & MAIL (Toronto, Ontario) 30 April 05 Orford, Quebec : The soothing symphony of croaks call out to biologist Daniel Bergeron like the siren song of spring. It’s nightfall, a warm April breeze drifts across Brompton Lake, and Mr. Bergeron doffs his coat and Tilley hat, a man possessed.

Mr. Bergeron is a bearded and bespectacled scientist with eyes that light up at his single-minded pursuit. He has devoted a good eight of his 35 years on Earth to saving frogs. Specifically, frogs that get squished trying to cross the road. His rescue method: a frog tunnel.

The innocuous-sounding project has eaten up countless hours poring over scientific journals, visiting amphibian underpasses in Massachusetts, convincing Quebec roadwork bureaucrats that he wasn’t insane, and eventually winning over 22 different agencies, schools and small-town mayors.

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Like all crazy ideas, the idea of the frog tunnel — there are actually three of them along a 300metre stretch — started simply enough. Mr. Bergeron was driving home in 1997 along Highway 220, about 120 kilometres east of Montreal in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, when he came upon a section of the road resplendent with splattered frogs, lying out like a vast tray of squashed hors d’oeuvres.

“Seeing them crushed before my eyes was so disheartening,” he recalls. He went home and told his wife. She reminded him that he is a biologist.

“Do something,” she said.

So he did. Mr. Bergeron, an environmental consultant, began scouring texts and journals. Before long, he was on his way to Amherst, Mass., home to a salamander tunnel. Then he set off to convince bureaucrats in the provincial Transport Department. They could barely suppress a laugh, but they were won over by environmentalists in their own department who pointed out the obvious: The road in question had been built in the wrong place.

Each spring, hormone-crazed amphibians awake from their winter slumber in the maple-filled woods near Brompton Lake with the unwavering goal of breeding in the nearby marsh. Lying in their path is two-lane Highway 220. For frogs, it’s His redemption comes at winter’s end, when the like a superhighway stretching between their livspring peepers, wood frogs and spotted salamaning room and bedroom. ders start lining up like rush-hour commuters to enter his tunnel.

Volunteers from the Association for the Protection of Brompton Lake got counting, and determined Then, Mr. Bergeron is a contented man. “When that 200 frogs an hour tried to cross the road at spring arrives, I’m as excited as I was the very peak migration, but only 10 per cent made it. first year,” he says. “If it’s raining and the frogs start singing, it’s extraordinary. I hear them sing The authorities came around. It eventually cost and I say: ‘Okay! It’s happening!’ $75,000, from all three levels of government, plus some private foundations, before Mr. Bergeron “People tell me I’m almost a missionary. The more put the finishing touches on the three polymer people say it, the more I believe it.” concrete tunnels.

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everywhere. There’s no magic bullet to stop the Mr. Bergeron feels vindicated. Above ground, destruction. It’s the local initiatives that will save headlights barrel down the nighttime highway like the wildlife around us, and you can do it one bit at the blazing eyes of a predator. Below, in the tun- a time.” nels, hop the tiny spring peepers, no larger than a 25-cent piece.

Mr. Bergeron, who often lies in the dirt off the highway until 2 or 3 in the morning, watching the “Look! There’s another one!” Mr. Bergeron cries frogs in their tunnel, wouldn’t have it any other out. “Look at their beautiful eyes. It’s magic, eh?” way. § Frogs fall into a category the experts call “charismatic megafauna.” Like pandas and whales, they enjoy public affection. Beyond the affection come growing worries about their fate when they meet up with four all-season radials.

Canada may be the land of bear and moose crossings, but frogs don’t get much of a break.

(Mr. Bergeron says he had to turn to nonCanadians for help to get started.) Europeans started digging tunnels and underpasses for amphibians in the 1960s. In the United Kingdom, land of the animal-loving Brit, bucket brigades gather at dusk each spring to collect toads as they approach the road.

The Quack Frog A frog once upon a time came forth from his home in the marsh and proclaimed to all the beasts that he was a learned physician, skilled in the use of drugs and able to heal all diseases. A Fox asked him, “How can you pretend to prescribe for others, when you are unable to heal your own lame gait and wrinkled skin?

Elizabeth Kilvert, co-ordinator for Frogwatch, a joint Environment Canada/Nature Canada program, says there is growing concern over the effect of the automobile on amphibian habitats.

“We’re putting down more roads and transportation grids. In some areas, cars are the biggest predator,” says Ms. Kilvert, a biologist and science outreach adviser with Environment Canada.

“But you can only add so much pressure before systems start to collapse.”

Biologists say small victories like Mr. Bergeron’s are as important as the biggest battles.

“He’s a hero,” says biologist David Green, a specialist in amphibians and reptiles at McGill University’s Redpath Museum. “The problem of loss of biological diversity and loss of species is

Aesop’s Fables www.sacred-texts.com

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The Newsletter of the Minnesota Herpetological Society

(Speaker Review continued from page 3)

when he is trying to trap turtles, he catches a lot of snapping turtles in the trap. They can be fun after you have mastered how to hold them so you don’t get a digit or hand bitten off. They are born with their mouths open, and they stay that way.

(Not really, but it seems that way.) They are named for their behavior— “snapper.” In Southeast Iowa, he was looking for stink pot turtles so the traps were floating. He was looking for gravid females in particular.

Jeff told many funny stories, but the best one was the time he was looking for sirens. He was in an area where surely he would find them. He set up his traps, and lo and behold, he captured mud snakes. Mud snakes are highly aquatic, so they were easily captured in his minnow traps. Several times he checked the traps, and he only found a mud snake or two. He was sure that some sirens were in the traps. But, one thing about mud snakes— they eat sirens. What happened was that the sirens would get into the traps, and then the mud snakes would see them. The mud snakes would go into the traps and feast on the sirens.

Sirens, or Siren Linnaeus, genus Sirenidae, are eel-like creatures having front legs with four fingers and no hind legs, along with three open gill apertures. They can be found in different types of water, but mostly in shallow water ponds.

Did you ever wonder how to weigh a snake? Well Jeff has the process perfected. He places the snake in a plastic baggie, then attaches the bag on the hook of a scale. This way the snake cannot slip away, and he is not spending a lot of time trying to keep the snake calm. It curls right up in the baggie until the weighing has been completed.

Snakes are marked in the field in a couple of ways, by either clipping the scales in specific Page 12

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areas, or by using pit tags (passive integrated transporter), which are inserted under the scales with a syringe. Animals are tracked using radio telemetry. This process can be somewhat tricky as the animal can be very close to you according to the sound of the beeps coming through the headphones, but animals are shy and hide very well by blending into the environment. Leaf litter and other debris need to be moved in order to uncover the hiding animal. Turtles have transmitters placed on the tops of their shells or on the sides. It is best to have them on the sides or the animal could possibly get stuck somewhere.

In his video, there was a segment on fox snakes.

These snakes are the best actors in town. They imitate rattlesnakes by coiling up like them and even shaking their tails. It is enough to help them bluff their way out of a compromising situation.

Eastern hognose snakes also deserve an Academy Award as they have two behaviors for defense: arching up and flattening their heads just like a cobra, as well as rolling over to play dead.

This last behavior was captured on film, and it was very funny.

Jeff has found many animals including road kill that turned up to be new species or found animals in places where they were not documented to be.

Find time to get to hear Jeff LeClere speak. He has great expertise in the field of herpetology.

Jeff speaks to groups; check with him to find out where he will be speaking next. Or, check with him in person if you have any questions. He loves to talk about herps.

Also, get yourself out into the field. MHS from time to time will have an outing for just this purpose. Bring the idea up to a Board Member so they will get a group organized. They generally camp over the weekend on private land or at a State camping area. It is a fun event for the entire family to learn hands-on about herps in the field. §

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Next Meeting: Friday, June 3, 2005 7:00PM Room 335 Borlaug Hall, U of M St. Paul Campus

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