One of the native turtles of Arizona, a Sonoran Mud Turtle we saw cruising around a water hole in Yavapai County. These stinky little guys can live in many waterways below the rim, and can be seen any time of day and year in the right conditions.

A Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake hanging out in the shade on a blistering hot morning several years ago. This snake is still using this spot in the summer, staying cooler during the day and emerging at night, staying very near. This is why, when we are called to capture a snake at a home during peak […]

After a relatively unproductive weekend in the early Spring at higher elevation, I made a quick stop by a large rocky outcrop on the way home on a whim. I have been driving past this particular rock for more than a decade, always in a hurry somewhere or dead tired, always thinking “one nof these […]

A Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake from Yavapai County, Arizona, photographed earlier in the year. The combination of geology and lichen in the area produce some beautiful color combinations in the animals evolved to cryptically match it.

A South American Bushmaster hiding in dense vegetation alongside a trail in Peru several years ago.

A male Western Diamondback Rattlesnake raises up to challenge another to a fight. The only problem: rocks getting in the way. Both males discovered one another in a narrow gap, which caused a lot of awkward shuffling before they managed to get some room to wrestle. Eventually, the other came out as well, and after […]

A Chuckwalla surveys its vast domain, just north of the Grand Canyon. Here, these large herbivorous lizards take on a sandy, mottled color, making them harder to spot against the ground by predators flying overhead. For an observer at ground level, however, the shape of a vigilant lizards popping up from outcrops and boulders is […]

Yellow-Green Cat Snake with Nova Inventa on a trip to the Western Ghats in India, 2023.

Blacktailed Rattlesnakes can live in a wide variety of habitats, from high pine forests to low desert around sea level. This one was found in Greenlee County, Arizona several years ago.

Camping and fishing along any waterway along the rim in Arizona, it’s common to see gartersnakes cruising around the vegetation. There are several species of gartersnakes in Arizona, but this may be the most commonly encountered. Wandering Gartersnakes are a subspecies of Western Terrestrial Gartersnake that inhabit a variety of habitat, though are most often […]