dragoncjo said:
unless I see a picture of something I'm skeptical. Anytime I catch anything I take a picture of it even if it is a green frog. So not seeing a picture I become skeptical. However, I did ask the guy to email me some of the pictures of his expedition, so we'll see. He says he has a presentation of it though.
Hey, C.J.O'N (Dragoncjo),
Did you get an e-mail message confirming that this fellow was, indeed, talking about the NJ Pine Barrens? That website is from an East Texas herp group. When I lived in Texas and heard the local herp enthusiasts talk of herping in "the pines", they were usually referring to the "Lost Pines", what we on this list would recognize as a patch of southern NJ displaced into Texas east of San Marcos. I heard that canebrakes and even the rare pine snake might be found there, but never spent enough time there to claim that I'd even scratched the surface ... but I saw no rattlers or pinesnakes, just a Lindheimer's rat snake and a coachwhip. A goodly part of the Sam Houston State Forest east of Huntsville was also a place to see "the pines" and do some herping.
However, if he really WAS talking about the NJPB's then I figured, if his account were true, then his trip was probably in mid- to late September and he had run onto a hibernaculum where the winter population was accumulating and communally sunning on warm days - but in August? That's amazing and, I must say, stretches credulity.
Dave
