Herping Expedition to Arizona, 2014
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The opportunity to go herping in America finally arose. I was one of a group of over 20 students and staff to travel to Arizona in mid-September to undertake a field trip to research the biodiversity in the southwestern USA. This was however, for me, also an opportunity to photograph as many of the species out there as possible. We arrived in Phoenix and drove down to Eloy to stay in a motel. Before going to bed we wanted to go for a quick road cruise, which ended up being unsuccessful as the weather turned to the worse - we drove past a train which had just been derailed! The next morning a group herped the vicinity of the motel, and ended up finding a few Mohave Rattlesnakes (Crotalus scutulatus), including "El Mofo" - largest ever recorded Mohave Rattlesnake . From there we proceeded on to stay at the Southwestern Research Station, where due to a hurricane we ended up being cut off for a few days. We continued the program from there, visiting and herping at several more sites including:
It proved to be one of the most successful trips run to Arizona by the Bangor University, as over the 10 days we found 56 Reptile and Amphibian species. Total species count was 56 out of the reported 132 species present in Arizona. Photos of most of the encountered species can be found by scrolling down. |