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San Diego County Cache Critters


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Cache Critters of Peru and Ecuador (#10 in a series)

 

Guinea Pigs -- Or as the locals call them, cuys. This is a favorite dish in Peru.

 

Before entering this home, we were asked to be careful to not step on the food.

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Cuy for lunch

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Yum! ... tastes like chicken but squeaks when y' chew.

Edited by SD Rowdies
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We took a "nice easy jeep ride" north of the stone desert tower in in-koh-pah, aside from rock jumping for about 3 hours here is what we saw

 

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Only one small scratch on the new Rubi, but you would have thought he ran over his foot the way Bobby cried

Never mind about the Rubi ... let's hear about the camera you used.

 

Nice!

Edited by SD Rowdies
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We took a "nice easy jeep ride" north of the stone desert tower in in-koh-pah, aside from rock jumping for about 3 hours here is what we saw

 

Only one small scratch on the new Rubi, but you would have thought he ran over his foot the way Bobby cried

Never mind about the Rubi ... let's hear about the camera you used.

 

Nice!

Very nice photographs. What a great viewing experience. These animals look like they may be from the southern herd that moves back and forth between Jacumba Mountain and Carrizo Mountain, where they typically have their lambs. That is why the Painted Gorge Road is closed for half of the year. Their seasonal migration path across the flats near Ocotillo is a primary wildlife concern associated with the proposed extensive windmill farm project (BLM/Imperial County) that is currently out for public comment.

-GD

Edited by Team Gecko
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Very nice photographs. What a great viewing experience. These animals look like they may be from the southern herd that moves back and forth between Jacumba Mountain and Carrizo Mountain, where they typically have their lambs. That is why the Painted Gorge Road is closed for half of the year. Their seasonal migration path across the flats near Ocotillo is a primary wildlife concern associated with the proposed extensive windmill farm project (BLM/Imperial County) that is currently out for public comment.

-GD

Several in our group thought the same thing about this herd. 2 of the females had collars and several juvenils were in the group. The 2 large males were shadowing the main group by about quarter mile, but we did get to see them run down the hill from rock to rock. Because we were going so slow and quiet the main herd stayed with us for about 30 minutes , in one case they came within 200 feet from one of the jeeps as we stopped.

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What kind of snake is this?

 

 

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Diadophis punctatus pulchellus - Coral-bellied Ring-necked Snake. Mildly Venomous Not considered dangerous to humans. With enlarged non-grooved teeth in the rear of the upper jaw and mild venom which may help to incapacitate small prey.Size8 - 34 inches long (20 - 87cm.) Most snakes of this subspecies are adult at about 11 - 16 inches (28 - 41 cm.) AppearanceA small, thin snake with smooth scales. Gray, blue-gray, blackish, or dark olive dorsal coloring, with a pinkish-red or coral-colored underside that is unmarked or lightly speckled with black markings. The underside of the tail is a bright reddish orange. An orange band around the neck.BehaviorSecretive - usually found under the cover of rocks, wood, bark, boards and other surface debris, but occasionally seen moving on the surface on cloudy days, at dusk, or at night.

 

When disturbed, coils its tail like a corkscrew, exposing the underside which is usually bright red. It may also smear musk and cloacal contents.DietEats small salamanders, tadpoles, small frogs, small snakes, lizards, worms, slugs, and insects. The mild venom may help to incapacitate prey.ReproductionLays eggs in the summer, sometimes in a communal nest.RangeThis subspecies is endemic to California.

 

Ranges along the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where it intergrades with the Northwestern Ring-necked snake in the north, and the Monterey and San Bernardino Ring-necked snakes in the south. HabitatPrefers moist habitats, including wet meadows, rocky hillsides, gardens, farmland, grassland, chaparral, mixed coniferous forests, woodlands. Taxonomic NotesMany herpetologists no longer recognize the traditional morphologically-based subspecies of Diadophis punctatus, pending a thorough molecular study of the whole species. One ongoing study (Feldman and Spicer, 2006, Mol. Ecol. 15:2201-2222) has found all of the D. punctatus subspecies in California (except D. p. regalis) to be indistinguishable. It is likely that D. punctatus is composed of several distinct lineages that do not follow the geographic ranges of the subspecies.

 

In a phylogeographic analysis of the species, Fontanella, et. al. (2008) identified fourteen lineages of Diadophis punctatus. They did not recognize these lineages as separate species, pending a full taxonomic review that will require further dna sampling and evaluation including Diadophis populations in Mexico.

 

They recognized four distinct lineages in California, which loosely follow existing subspecies boundaries, but merge the seven subspecies into 4 groups:

 

* A southern California lineage, which includes the San Diego and San Bernardino subspecies, D. p. similis, and D. p. modestus

* An eastern California lineage, which includes the Coral-bellied subspecies, D. p. pulchellus, and some of the northern intergrades with D. p. occidentalis.

 

* A Coastal California lineage, which includes the Monterey subspecies, D. p. vandenburghi, the Pacific subspcies, D. p. amabilis, the Northwestern subspecies, D. p. occidentalis, and snakes from one region of the western Sierra Nevada currently recognized as D. p. pulchellus, along with the southern intergrades in the Tehachapi mountains region.

 

* A Great Basin lineage which presumably includes the Regal subspecies, D. p. regalis, found in isolated locations in the eastern Mojave.

 

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What kind of snake is this?

 

Diadophis punctatus pulchellus - Coral-bellied Ring-necked Snake.

Great sighting! Ring-necked Snakes are also indigenous to Cabrillo National Monument on Point Loma. They are routinely captured, counted, measured, and released in the course of the monthly Herpetology Surveys.

-GD

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When disturbed, coils its tail like a corkscrew exposing

the underside which is usually bright red.

Boy howdy, reminds me of a gal named Betty Jo that I once knew

in Phenix City on th' Alabama side of the river as opposed to the

Georgia side of the river. Thang is she would do that trick for an

RC Cola and a Moon Pie ... it was somethin' t' see so us guys would

pool our change for another offering of RC Cola and Moon Pie.

 

See, that's where the expression "To moon somebody" came from.

 

Your welcome,

Sweet ol' Harmon

Edited by SD Rowdies
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Saw this while doing maintenance on GC248R3. It was dead. This is in urban Spring Valley.9b540499-3cde-478a-b9f0-3c3a884e74d3.jpg?rnd=0.5032308

 

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Jodi,

 

Just because some creatures are old doesn't

necessarily mean that they are dead, if y'

know what I mean.

 

Poor ol' Harmon

Edited by SD Rowdies
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Just because some creatures are old doesn't

necessarily mean that they are dead, if y'

know what I mean.

Like as near, if'n y' know what I mean...

 

Looks like someone's been playing with the Puppet Warp again.

Right you are James, it's a cool tool.

 

One of it's great benefits is to stretch a multi-frame

panoramic-merge into a rectangular shape, or even to

boost an overloaded airliner into flight.

 

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Edited by SD Rowdies
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