Reptiles and Amphibians

What draws us into the desert is the search for something intimate and remote.  -Ed Abbey. This is a fairly large lizard – up to 24 inches long including its tail.  It is a pale gray or whitish with a tan or brownish reticulated pattern on the back and sides.  It has a row of […]

Manaova toy ny dian-tana jerena ny aloha, todihina ny afara. Like the chameleon, one eye on the future, one eye on the past. ———-Malagasy proverb This is another one of many endemic reptiles found on Madagascar.   It has a very restricted range, depending on relatively intact humid forests in a band of the southeast portion

Photo: Heidi Rockney, Burkey Museum People get very passionate about saving the whale, but when something like the Florida indigo snake is endangered there are not a lot of people out there holding up placards.  Gary Larson. Garter snakes in general are the most likely snake to encounter in North America the common garter snake

Creative Commons image © 2013 John P. Clare. The men on the expedition felt overwhelmed by their most ancient memories in that paradise of dampness and silence, going back to before original sin, as their boots sank into pools of steaming oil and their machetes destroyed bloody lilies and golden salamanders.  – One Hundred Years

SALAMANDER, n. Originally a reptile inhabiting fire; later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water.  The Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce. 1911