Best captures

I'm like Nanci, I cant say that any one catch has been my best.

Here are a few of Jamie and I. One of the neatest was when I worked at the park in St pete Florida. We had sea turtle nest, sometimes they hatch during the day and guest would bring them to us. We would wait until dusk and release them near the nest areas.



Caught many of these Yellow rats at the park too.




Here is king that we rehabbed after the neighbors dog got a hold of him.



Tiny frog


Rattler


Just a few of so many critters, all equally awesome in my mind.

I kept looking at the sea turtle and thought that it was a tiny narwhal haha. It took me forever to see that it was a sea turtle, even after reading your description. Nice captures!

Great pictures everybody! Keep them coming.

I wish I had more pics of things I caught many years ago, but here is a corn that I captured on 6/8/05 in an orange tree across the street from where I used to live. She was a young yearling of 22 inches long when I caught her.

She was apparently a good hunter too, because she had a huge lump in her of what appeared and felt to be a tree frog.



She later turned into a real beauty of a behemoth of about 66 inches (5 1/2 feet) and went on to lay a whopping clutch of 35 good eggs for me when she was later bred to a nice hypo lavender I had here.



This is a Yellow Ratsnake that I rescued in my moms backyard when it was surrounded by five of her Miniature Wire-haired Dachshunds. They had it completely circled and the snake was scared out of his wits standing straight up is multiple "S" loops trying to defend itself against the barrage of dogs. It was lucky I came running out of the house with a flashlight when I heard all the insane comotion that was going on. It was also incredibly lucky I just happened to be there visiting her that night too..LOL!

This guy only weighed 97 grams at 40" long!. After I went to feed it for the first time, and noticed it seemed to have a pretty clumsy striking response, and was probably the reason it was so thin. I aptly named him "Slim Jim".



Here he is a couple years later as a big robust adult. He was about 5 1/2 feet and around 780 grams!. Life was good for him in captivity.



This is another Yellow Rat female I captured about 10 miles from the above Yellow Ratsnake also in Brevard County, Florida. This snake was found in a ladies bedroom by her care giver. She called me up and discribed what they had under contained under a big plastic tub storage tub. I knew from her description that it was a definite Yellow Ratsnake.




A gorgeous Miami phase my friend captured in the next county up from Miami in Broward County.



A few Black Racers I have seen and captured in my yard......






This guy was actively hunting brown anoles in the fence. They are all over the place, and these Racers obviously know it too..LOL!

Beautiful captures! Love the shots of the racers.

Your yellow rats down there are really golden compared to the olive green ones up here!

Awesome rat snakes! I like the first corn snake you caught.

Originally Posted by RobbiesCornField

Beautiful captures! Love the shots of the racers.

Thanks!.............yeah, it was pretty neat to watch them cruise around doing their thing on the property.


I caught a Pine Woods Snake (Rhadinaea flavilata) there too. I wish I got a photo of it though. They are very placid little snakes.



~Doug

Originally Posted by Nanci

Your yellow rats down there are really golden compared to the olive green ones up here!

Yeah Nanci, this area certainly does have some very nice yellow examples. I caught one here in the very early 90's that was the brightest, most vivid yellow I have ever seen. The yellow on it's belly was as brilliant as these smiley face icons!

Alachua and northwest of there has quite a bit of Gray x Yellow intergradation and is where the now defunked "Gulf Hammock" Ratsnakes are known to inhabit as you might already know. As a matter of fact, that huge dark Gray you captured on your arm is a pefect example of the natural intergrade "Gulf Hammock" ratsnake displaying the darker coloration along with the longitudinal striping from the Yellow Rat influence.

What is interesting about this area on the east coast is the Yellow Rats are as pure as they naturally come with zero genetic influence from any of the ratsnakes of the obsoletus complex. No Everglades from the southwest, no Gray Rat from the Northwest, and certainly no Black rat from far the north and northwest. They can still vary quite a bit though, and I caught a pretty "fugly" one in Blue Cypress in Indian River County many years ago on my way to the campground there.


~Doug

Originally Posted by Optreptiles

Awesome rat snakes! I like the first corn snake you caught.

Thanks!,.......yes, I really liked her alot too. She now resides at a good buddies house that has quite a few corns. She dwarfs his other corns, and we refer to her as "BIG BERTHA"


~Doug