By Phil Wolf
My name is Phil Wolf, and I’m a herper. I don’t have an elaborate Instagram account, jam packed full of jaw-dropping herp stories, where I post new and crazy pictures from an everlasting Icloud account, sponsored by trust funds. I’m just a normal, blue collar dude who loves reptiles and happens to live in South Florida, a herper’s paradise.
I try to get out to the Everglades as much as I can. And I can confidently say, I’ve seen every reptile south Florida has to offer. But just like all herpers, we want what we can’t have. The way we Americans stare and gawk at rare and exotic reptiles from Australia, is the same way that kids from Queensland look at our North American critters and say, “WOW, a real-life raccoon!”
Now I probably shouldn’t tell you savages this, but I’m a bit of a Western movie buff. I spent years as a child being force-fed epic classics like, Red River, A Fistful of Dollars, and Blazing Saddles! (Let’s see how many grownups are reading this…) And after a while, as you grow up, you realize that cowboy life is awesome!
I want to ride through gorgeous canyons on horseback, with a blood red sunset silhouetting my bad-ass Stetson and Colt Peacemaker! So, as I grew older, and reptiles began to consume my life, aspirations of traversing the western frontier, in search of desert fauna was in the foreground of my mind. But how the hell was I going to make it to the south west? I don’t know anyone there, I’ve never been there. Hell, maybe I should just wing it?
Well, that’s when Rachel Pikstein enters the story. See, for over a decade now, I’ve been hosting and mentoring a venomous handling program at Underground Reptiles, in Deerfield Beach, FL. Then one day, this pint sized, overly enthusiastic young lady walks into the shop eager to learn all she can. Rachel was a young biology major, who wanted to learn more about venomous reptiles and proper safe handling techniques.
We soon became great friends. Her studies would take her abroad to places like Brazil, China, and the UK, doing ecological research for the University of Cambridge. Her education landed her a gig as Professor of Biology and Environmental Science at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona. And now I have a venue to herp the wild west!
Some years go by and Rachel calls me to tell me about an ecological survey she wants to do with some undergrads on spring break. And she wants ME to help catch Desert reptiles! Hmm, YES PLEASE! My close friend of nearly 20 years, Brooke Sexton, is a predator expert from the Palm Beach Zoo, and was set to join us. Brooke can handle everything from Dolphins, to Komodo Dragons. If it has teeth, and eats meat, she’s worked with it! This was going to be a great trip! A bearded snake wrangler, a dirty-blonde Tiger-hugger, and a pocket-sized Tegu junkie, all crawling around the cusp of the Sonoran! I had the forethought to ship my hooks, tongs and UV black lights to Rachel’s house days before the trip, to make air travel a bit easier. Fast forward through all the TSA blue tape and In-N-Out burgers, my flight landed hours before Brooke’s. So, Rachel’s boyfriend Joe and I decided to do a quick walk through some rocky hills close to their home in Phoenix. We walked for a few hundred yards and saw nothing. Just signs that teenage humans were near. So we headed back. And just then, Joe looks down at a shrub and says, “I think I see a snake.” I ran over to see, and sure as hell, there sat an adorable little Crotalus mitchellii pyrrhus, The White Speckled Rattlesnake!
My whole life I’ve dreamed of seeing a white speckled insitu. And here it was, the first herp of the trip! Ok, I can go home now. We hopped back in the car and headed out to pick up Brooke from the airport. Before we knew it we found ourselves staring at the foothills of Tonto National Forest. Three million acres of pristine, rocky steppe lands, and rich, Saguaro studded desert! This was gonna suck for a fat guy from Boca Raton.
Once we set up base camp, we hit the ranger station to gather maps and last minute essentials. Due to this area being a national forest, we couldn’t remove any wildlife, but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t going to boop a few snoots! We allotted ourselves approximately 6-8 miles of hiking per day, providing we didn’t spend too much time with each specimen we found. The area ranged in elevation from a natural 1200ft to a steep 4800ft above sea level. It was March, so the temps were in the 50s at night and mid 80s during the day. Perfect weather for hiking, IF the local reptiles had come out of brumation by now. So with boots tied, and camelbacks filled, we started our first hike.
We decided to stay low in elevation for our first day. The area was sandier with larger, lichen covered volcanic rocks protruding from below. We immediately started seeing Chuckwallas, Sauromalus ater and Greater Earless lizards, Cophosaurus texanus basking in the morning sun. You would think a bright neon blue lizard would stand out in the desert. Nope! Blended right in.
Come noon there wasn’t a reptile in sight. A perfect time for lunch and a rest. A group of local older folks passed us on the main trail with ease. They warned us of a GIANT rattlesnake up and around the bend. Guess what, there was no snake. But you’ve got to take the tips when they’re given.
The evening proved uneventful. But as darkness set on the desert, my thirst for fluorescent arachnids intensified. There was a short, one-mile mountain bike trail nearby. We figured we could hunt for scorpions on the trail in total darkness and not need a map, it was one big loop. Scorpions possess a fluorescence in their exoskeleton. If shined with a UV blacklight, they glow bright green or pink. Very easy to spot in a pitch black desert. Or so we thought.
Two hours of walking on trail, and not a single scorpion in sight. And then, just before we called it a night. Brooke sees a little speck of light green deep inside a cactus. Our first scorpion! A juvenile Arizona Stripe Tail, Paravaejovis spinigerus. A fairly common species across the southwest. Mildly venomous, but not one you’d want to “play with.”
The next day we decided to try our luck a little higher in elevation. The morning led to more Earless lizards and a unique array of desert butterflies. Lame. And then, just as I’m about to sit down for a breather, Rachel yells out, “that rock just moved!” Sure as hell, she grabs a baby Regal Horned Lizard, Phrynosoma solare. This thing was cute as a button and the size of a large grape! It blended perfectly with the pebbles and stones of the trail. After some quick selfies with the spiky nugget, we started hiking again. Only to be stopped repeated by more and more Horned Lizards! We would walk, a pebble would move, It’d be another lizard, and we’d take another picture. It was a great afternoon.
That night led to more black lighting. This time we knew what to look for. More and more scorpions emerged from their cactus dens as the night went on. And then, I saw my eight legged white whale. Centruroides sculpturatus, the Arizona Bark Scorpion, the most potent scorpion in North America. The venom of C. sculpturatus is agonizingly painful, but rarely causes fatalities. Symptoms of envenomation are, extreme pain at the sting site, foaming at the mouth, episodes of paralysis, and in some rare cases, a neuromotor syndrome that causes nerve convulsions similar to that of a seizure. Needless to say, I turned the headlamp on for this one!
Day three, our last day in the field. The temperature had dropped dramatically that night and when we woke up at 6am, it was 43°F (6.1°C). The sunrise was so impressive over the mountains, I didn’t care if it was too cold to see reptiles. We packed up camp and headed out. The weather was perfect, but not a reptile in sight. We decided to hike higher, up to a bluff overlooking a nearby town. Brooke decides to sweep some sagebrush to see if anything is sleeping beneath it. And what does she find, a baby Morafka’s Desert Tortoise, Gopherus morafkai. Desert Tortoises are rare, but to see a wild baby, is a once in a lifetime thing! And with this amazing sighting, we decided to end on a great note and head back to camp.
But sometimes, you just see a rock, a bush, or a good lookin piece of dead Cholla cacti that needs to get flipped over. So on our way out we got a cherry on top. A textbook specimen Western Banded Gecko, Coleonyx variegatus! Now everyone knows I’m a snake guy, through and through. But I’m a total nerd for geckos. This made for an excellent last specimen of the trip.
All in all, we did 4 days, and 28 miles of totally hiking. We never did find a snake as a group, but that’s just one more reason to go back and do it again!
