Suzio Report - Elgaria, etc

Howdy Herpers, 6 July 2011

Just when we all thought we were safe from the scourge of Elgaria, one more tidbit came in. Even though it was uttered that only God himself would earn a paragraph on the subject, Dave Barker rang in. That's close enough for me!

"About halfway up (the arroyo Dave was following) , we found this little hatchling Elgaria, and it ran into a little mud tunnel to escape us. My companion wanted that lizard and excavated the tunnel until it opened up into a soft-ball-sized cavity where there was a guarding adult female Elgaria, and, if my memory serves me, something like seven newly hatched babies and eight about-to-hatch eggs."

How about that! Mom hanging with kids. Thanks to Rick Shine and a seemingly endless source of funding, the Aussies are kicking our a$ with their lizard studies. While it's true that they have some very cool lizards over there, let us not forget that ours are WAY above average. (And we don't even know how much above average they may be.)

Anybody else on Elgaria? Go ahead--make my day..........

Thanks to all of you for your comments about Bcc. The unanimous consensus was that a "reply all" only gets you to me. We even ran a test case to see if that was true. If any of you heard from my friend Natalie, let me know. Thanks.

As most of you have heard, the summer rains have started moving in to the area. Our plot actually received a light rain on 3 July, and 4 and 5 July produced some gully washers in various parts of Tucson. My house seems to have some sort of force field that repels rain, for all 3 storms came roaring up to the place, stopped cold, and dissipated. While anything can still happen, I expect that the fires are behind us now.

What with all the excitement about Big Windies and Black Velvet, the Suizo Reports have been somewhat devoid of the Suizos of late. I'll try to bring us back to that with this report. The truth is, there hasn't been much to talk about. Since May, we have mostly been writing up patches of ground that the herps are under. I have yet to see our Gila Monster "Farrah" surface active this year, but every three weeks or so, she somehow shifts to the nearest packrat midden 10 meters or so away. I have only seen our tiger rattlesnake "Gracie" up twice this year, and one of these times was in January! Our other tiger "Zona" has also only been out of shelter once. Gracie has not moved in nearly a month, and remained hidden the whole time. One small area of Iron Mine Hill has an abundance of plant life gaily festooned with the flagging from Zona. Each is about 5 meters away from the other. I have only found one new tiger rattlesnake this year, and that was one in a crevice in January!

Other harbingers of the dryness and heat are as follows: I've yet to see my first leopard lizard for 2011. That's unheard of. Only two desert iguanas thus far--both of those in urban neighborhoods. Only 3 regal horned lizards, one of which was DOR. Not good! By early April of this year, I had racked up 19 different Gila Monsters. I have not found a single one since! And May is the alleged "Gila Monster month." The numbers on common lizards are abysmal.

June brought to Tucson a dry streak that lasted 81 days total. It was the seventh warmest June on record. And the fires only added to our misery.

I think we are at the point where we can let some images do the rest of the talking.

Pic 1 (below): It's not all bad on our little hill. We even have a geological replica of the Dark Continent there!


Pic 2: The Twin Saguaro GOAG burrow. (Although I guess Sonoran desert tortoises have now been officially been reclassified as Gopherus morafkaii¸ so now they're all GOMO. GREAT! Now I get to re-designate all 10,000 of my images, not to mention updating 500 pages of field notes. But GOMO is kind of cool, no?)


Ahem. Getting back to where we were. The Twin Saguaro GOMO burrow has been occupied by one of them there GOMO things every winter since 2002. See Pic 3.

Pic 03: This is GOMO the magnificent. He moved into the burrow in November 2010, and did not clear out until June 18, 2011. This is another sign of dry times. He normally egresses in early March.



Pic 4: CRAT # 121, Tracy, as viewed on 15 May 2011.




Pic 5: Tracy again, same day, different angle. Note the open area surrounding her.


Pic 6: Tracy again, 12 June 2011. If I had backed off a little further with the camera, this would have been the impossible "Where's Waldo" shot.




Pic 7: Tracy again, 25 June 2011. This one WILL be a "Where's Waldo" shot in the future. It was her, not me, that broke the funnel spider webbing above her.



Pic 8: CRAT #131, 15 May 2011. This is our newest female, and is looking fat and sassy, like she might be pregnant.



Pic 9: CRAT #131 again. Sigh. She was in this posture on 21 May, and did not seem to have moved a muscle 24 hours later. On 28 May, it was noted that she had moved over 300 meters, and entered a badger burrow. We have not seen her since, and she has remained in that badger hole. This is yet another indicator that all was not well this spring. While there is still hope, we're pretty sure she is dead. And we are getting mighty discouraged.............



Pic 10: We may be discouraged, but we won't be ending on a sour note. One of the two living regal horned lizards seen this year. Both have been on our plot, and neither was found by me. Both have been juveniles. We can thank Jeff Smith for this one. Thanks Jeff! 22 May 2011.




Pic 11: We're going to get off track a bit. This is an image of a Texas Horned Lizard found near Willcox AZ on 2 July 2011. Pretty little rascals, aren't they?




Pic 12: Let's make it an even dozen. I am willing to be corrected, but I believe this is a young Black Hawk. Its parents were circling above me as I took the image, and they were screaming their displeasure. Check out its "Count Yorga" features. Magnificent in its ugliness--no?
 

That's about all that is fit to spit for now. I hope that our rainy season will be a good one. Quite a few of you will be out here in a couple weeks to see for yourselves how things are fairing. Keep your finger crossed, and keep up with the rain dances!

Best to all, roger

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