{"id":38827,"date":"2025-05-12T18:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T22:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=38827"},"modified":"2025-05-12T18:00:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T22:00:11","slug":"two-little-unknowns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2025\/05\/two-little-unknowns\/","title":{"rendered":"Two little unknowns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or at least, they were for a short while.<\/p>\n

Back when the internet was out, I found two new subjects for photos and posts – except, i didn’t recognize either of them, and couldn’t post anyway. Now, it’s true that I have the Audubon Guides to both birds and reptiles & amphibians, but I’ve found them to be so inadequate that I haven’t used either in years, mostly from the lack of illustrations;<\/strong> both classes of animal often have numerous color variations, and Audubon has a wicked tendency to have one<\/em> color photograph of any species. So I didn’t even bother trying, and simply waited until I had access again to online guides.<\/p>\n

\"eastern
Okay, this one wasn’t completely<\/em> unknown, and I’ve actually photographed it before, but merely once<\/a>, and thus just one color variation;<\/strong> this is an eastern narrow-mouthed toad (Gastrophryne carolinensis<\/em>,) chilling cooperatively in my studio setting. Actually, not all that cooperatively, because the moment I set it down into the nice natural-looking leaf litter, it disappeared beneath and had to be fished out. Multiple times.<\/p>\n

\"eastern
I made it a point to do several perspectives and get all of the details that I could, just in case it was something new to me, plus the fact that I intended to release it before I had access to identifying guides, so I didn’t want to miss any crucial details. This is the species whose call sounds a lot like a goat, and with all of the frog and toad calls we’ve heard since moving here, this one has been conspicuously absent, but if memory serves, they start calling later in the spring or early summer anyway.<\/p>\n

\"underside
Too many amphibian species have identifying markings on either the belly or especially the underside of the legs, so I made sure to get this. Amphibians really<\/em> don’t like being upside down, and it was a struggle to hold it in an adequate position without either injuring it or obscuring what I was after, but I snagged a decent frame without mishap. And it escaped across my desk only once.<\/p>\n

\"eastern
A scale shot of course – this is typical size for the species. By the way, I’ve seen the common name as both, ‘eastern narrow-mouthed toad,’ and, ‘eastern narrowmouth toad,’ so use what you like – I personally use, ‘Guido.’<\/p>\n

And now the other.<\/p>\n

\"red-bellied
Another studio shot, this specimen was quite small but active, and it was a struggle to keep it within the shallow pan I was using for convincing ‘ground.’ This is a red-bellied snake (Storeria occipitomaculata<\/em>,) also ‘redbelly snake,’ so again, whatever you like – it’s ‘Portnoy’ for our purposes here. The namesake (theirs, not mine) isn’t visible unless you pick it up, or it leaps at you from a low-hanging tree, which actually never ever happens, plus you’d only give a shit if you were extremely ophidiophobic, because it’s a tiny snake.<\/p>\n

\"red-bellied
Actually, I find the back markings pretty cool too, and that rusty head, but of course the belly gets the attention. This one seemed vaguely familiar to me, but only through indistinct memories of photos, because I’m pretty sure I’ve never found one before, despite the fact that they supposedly can be found all through North Carolina.<\/p>\n

\"red-bellied
They have a nice little ‘collar,’ and it bears a faint resemblance to the markings of the brown snake<\/a>, which is a related species. They also have a curious habit that I realized, once I had access to a guide but not the snake anymore, that I did just barely capture in the next two frames.<\/p>\n

\"closeup
When agitated and trying to appear threatening, this species can spread its upper jaw a little wider, giving it pronounced ‘lips’ and making the head broader, which I thought I was seeing but had never witnessed before, though many snake species do some variation;<\/strong> cobras, as everyone knows, can flare the skin behind the head and down the neck, while hognose snakes can flatten their entire forebody<\/a>, and even watersnakes can spread their heads wider, as you’ll see in an upcoming post.<\/p>\n

\"closeup
I can’t recall if this bluffing extended so far as to strike at me anytime I was handling it, but seriously, have at it, little dude – you’d be lucky to get a decent purchase on even my little finger. Their diet is mostly slugs, and this helps explain why I found it under the lid of the compost bin which we’d left setting on the ground, and to where I returned it.<\/p>\n

Nine more pics out of the backlog, but still catching up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or at least, they were for a short while. Back when the internet was out, I found two new subjects for photos and posts – except, i didn’t recognize either of them, and couldn’t post anyway. Now, it’s true that I have the Audubon Guides to both birds and reptiles & amphibians, but I’ve found […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[8089,3465,3464,8090,8091,8092],"class_list":["post-38827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","tag-eastern-narrow-mouthed-toad","tag-eastern-narrowmouth-toad","tag-gastrophryne-carolinensis","tag-red-bellied-snake","tag-redbelly-snake","tag-storeria-occipitomaculata"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}