Fall Herp Survey at Lindsay-Parsons Biodiversity Preserve

This fall the Cornell Herpetological Society conducted our annual herp survey at Lindsay-Parsons Biodiversity Preserve on September 16. A group consisting of 18 students, alumni, and members of the Ithaca community went to the preserve with the Finger Lakes Land Trust to see what reptile and amphibian species we could find there.

Lindsay-Parsons contains a wide array of habitats, making it home to many different species.

Fields

Ponds

A beaver pond

Forest

We started our searching near Coleman Lake. There, we saw a painted turtle (Chrysemys picta) basking on a log and a good-sized water snake (Nerodia sipedon).

(Really, there's a painted turtle in this photo. It's the tiny speck left of the avian reptiles.)

The water snake was about to shed, as you can see by the blue-ish eyecap. Since he couldn't see very well, he was probably extra cranky, and did what water snakes do best: strike at and poop on people.

A demonstration of the snake's stinky defense mechanism.

We also found a green frog, Rana clamitans.

After Coleman Lake, we headed on to an abandoned shed known to shelter black rat snakes, Pantherophis obsoletus. While we didn't find any live snakes there, perhaps because they had already gone out to sun themselves, we did see snake vertebra.

Once in the woods and near the streams, we began to find more amphibians.

Flipping a log to look for salamanders.

An American toad, Bufo americanus

 A juvenile red-spotted newt, a.k.a. a red eft (Notopthalmus viridescens)

Betsy had a permit to collect some red efts and red-backed salamanders for educational purposes.

Two for one: this streamside rock hid both a green frog and a red eft.

 

We were surprised by the lack of salamander species other than red-spotted newts, but after lunch they began to appear. The group saw mountain dusky salamanders (Desmognathus ochrophaeus), red-backed salamanders (Plethodon cinereus), slimy salamanders (Plethodon glutinosus), and spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum).

Our final species count:

Painted turtle, Chrysemys picta- 3
Water snake, Nerodia sipedon- 1
Green frog, Rana clamitans- 21+
Spring peeper, Pseudacris crucifer- 3
Red eft, Notopthalmus viridescens- 21
American toad, Bufo americanus- 1
Redback salamander, Plethodon cinereus- 45
Slimy salamander, Plethodon glutinosus- 9
Mountain dusky salamander, Desmognathus ochrophaeus- 13
Pickeral frog, Rana palustris- 1
Spotted salamander, Ambystoma maculatum- 2


Photos: Jessica Tingle.

Hellbender Trip 2012

The herp club started off the year with the hellbender trip, as always. This year was different that usual, however. In addition to finding and collecting data on hellbenders already in the stream, we also released twenty five young hellbenders that had been raised in captivity at the Buffalo Zoo.

Hellbenders (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) are giant aquatic salamanders from eastern North America. We're talking really giant here: up to a couple feet. They don't have anything on their Asian cousins though. If you want to see humongous salamanders, check out Andrias japonicus and A. davidianus. But we digress. For more information on hellbenders, check out http://www.hellbenders.org.

These incredible creatures are currently in decline over much of their range, and has been labelled a species of special concern in New York. As populations age, not all of them have continued to reproduce themselves. Enter the Buffalo Zoo headstarting program. Several hundred eggs collected in western New York found their way to the Buffalo Zoo, where most of them hatched. Keepers then raised the baby benders in captivity until they put on enough size to hopefully have a better chance at surviving in the wild. This year was the first batch to go back into their native watershed, and we were honored to be there for their release. Many thanks to Ken Roblee and the Buffalo Zoo for letting us take part.

Disinfecting boots before heading into the stream. Due to chytrid fungus, we must take extra care not to spread pathogens between bodies of water.

Carrying a cooler full of hellbenders to the first release site.

Young hellbenders.

We fished the hellbenders out of the cooler one at a time with a net, then gently took each to a suitable large, flat rock for its new home. This part of the stream previously had few appropriate rocks, but couple years ago the herp club spent a day helping with the efforts to place more of them in this location. It was exciting to place hellbenders under the now-ready rocks. You can read more on the initiative to create more hellbender habitat on the Department of Environmental Conservation website.

After releasing the young'ns, we headed to a different part of the stream that had some established hellbenders. The goal was to find and catch hellbenders, collect data on them, and tag them if they did not already have a tag so that they could be individually identified in the future.

The stream.

Two hellbenders under the first rock!

Taking a length.

And a weight.

Swabbing for chytrid.

Inserting a PIT tag.

All told, we found fourteen wild hellbenders, way more than usual. This year was strange compared to previous years in that most of the ones we saw were out walking on the bottom of the stream rather than hidden under rocks. We speculated that a possible reason for their being out was the impending breeding season. It was only August 26, normally early enough to not interfere with breeding, but who knows.

Next year we'll head back to see how the headstarted young ones are doing!


Photos: Jessica Tingle

Spring Herp Survey in Roy Park Preserve

On Sunday, April 29, the Cornell Herpetological Society held its 17th spring herp survey. We went to Roy Park Preserve, one of the many preserves owned by the Finger Lakes Land Trust. Tom Reimers and Betsy Darlington from the FLLT generously spent their morning leading the herp club through the preserve as they have for many of our previous herp surveys. This particular preserve was one that the club had visited before in 2008. Roy Park Preserve has a wide array of different habitats, ranging from creek, to forest, to vernal pools, to a beaver pond. Although the day was cold compared to our sweltering hot (for Ithaca) month of March, we found a pretty good variety of species, including one very special species that we rarely see during our surveys.

We began our day along Six Mile Creek, a body of water near and dear to the City of Ithaca since it provides our drinking water.

We broke the record for number of spring salamanders found in a trip. Spring salamanders are in the same family as redback salamanders: Plethodontidae, or lungless salamanders. They are nowhere near as common as the redbacks and they are more likely to be in creeks rather than under logs, making them harder to find.

Adult spring salamander, Gyrinophilus porphyriticus

Young spring salamander- notice the gills

While searching the creek, we also found several aquatic adult red spotted newts, Notopthalmus viridescens. You may be familiar with their juvenile form, the brightly colored terrestrial red efts.

Adult red spotted newt

We also flipped rocks and logs near the creek and found plenty of other critters. We saw lots of redback salamanders and also several dusky salamanders. Two species of dusky salamanders (also in the family Plethodontidae) inhabit this part of the country. Ironically, the common dusky salamander, Desmognathus fuscus, is highly uncommon here. The mountain dusky salamander, Desmognathus ochrophaeus, is much more common. It is nearly impossible to tell the two species apart.

Dusky salamander

Our first reptile of the day showed up next to Six Mile Creek.

Garter snake, Thamnophis sirtalis

The site included several vernal ponds. You may remember from our salamander migration post that spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) and Jefferson's salamanders (A. jeffersonianum) breed in vernal ponds during the early spring. We saw several egg masses in these ponds, and Anna valiantly fished one out for a closer look.

Eventually we climbed up the hill to new habitat and found a beaver pond that held several more red spotted newts.

On a nearby ridge several snakes were busy sunning themselves, including a garter snake with an especially pretty pattern...

... and the find of the day! A smooth green snake, Opheodrys vernalis!



This little guy or girl completely made the day. Smooth green snakes are a species that we rarely see during our herp surveys, so finding this one was a fantastic way to end the trip!

Final species count (this is only a partial count since it was hard to keep track of so many herpers' finds)

Redback salamander, Plethodon cinereus: 23 (2 leadback phase)

Dusky salamander, Desmognathus sp: 14

Two-lined salamander, Eurycea bislineata: 10

Spring salamander, Gyrinophilus porphyriticus: 4

Green frog, Rana clamitans: 3

Wood frog, Rana sylvatica: many tadpoles

Spring peeper, Pseudacris crucifer: heard many

Spotted salamander, Ambystoma maculatum: egg mass

Garter snake, Thamnophis sirtalis: 4

Smooth green snake, Opheodrys vernalis: 1

Unidentified turtle: 1

Photos: Jessica Tingle

Post by Jessica Tingle

Herp Club Alumni Describe Smallest Known Vertebrate

Early this year, several online journals including National Geographic and the BBC reported on the latest vertebrate described as the world's smallest at an average body size of only 7.7 mm, a tiny frog species from Papua New Guinea (Paedophryne amauensis).  The news especially excited us in the Cornell Herpetological Society because three out of five authors of the paper that described it are among our recent club alumni and former presidents: Eric Rittmeyer (class of ’08), Derrick Thompson (class of ’09) and Mike Gründler (class of ’10). You can find their article on PLoS One.

Paedophryne amauensis on a dime

 

Eric, Derrick, and Mike started the journey that would ultimately lead to New Guinea while they were still undergrads at Cornell. The idea came from a vertebrates class guest lecture by Ed Scholes, who studies birds of Paradise in New Guinea. In the fall of 2007, they went to Dr. Kraig Adler (the herp club’s advisor) and presented their idea. Dr. Howie Evans of the vet school also helped them out, giving them valuable information drawn from his own experience in New Guinea. They decided to do a transect starting on the coast of New Guinea and heading up a mountain into the interior of the country in an attempt to examine the turnover in herp species composition across an elevation gradient.

 

Once their plan began to form, they needed to raise money for the venture, which they estimated would require roughly $25,000. Dr. Adler had friends affiliated with the Bishop Museum who were starting a field station in New Guinea, and Allen Allison of the museum agreed to help the three undergrads after Dr. Adler sent Mike’s proposal.  More help came in the form of $2,000 from a herp club grant provided by an anonymous donor. By the time Eric, Derrick, and Mike went to New Guinea, they had managed to raise $13,000. The Bishop Museum covered their other expenditures in the the country.

The trio worked hard to prepare for the trip. For the fall field trip, the herp club visited Harvard’s Museumof Comparative Zoology, which has a very large collection of New Guinea herps. Dr. Adler tipped off the museum’s director Jim Hanken, who made a point to show the club many of the New Guinea specimens. He also allowed the future explorers to come back to Harvard during spring break to familiarize themselves with the animals and take photos in preparation for their project. Their preparation also included a trip to get a feel for working outside of the temperate zone: in January 2008 they went to Costa Rica with several other herp club members to practice working in a tropical environment.

Finally the summer arrived and our heroes made the long trip to New Guinea. When they got there, it turned out that the coastal village where they were staying had been in recent conflicts with a neighboring village farther inland, and carrying out their original transect up the mountain would put them in danger from the conflict. They could not safely go more than 1000 meters above sea level, so they ultimately did general surveys and collected specimens at several low elevation sites.

Mike and Derrick

Eric

The transects provided baseline data for long-term frog population monitoring and also produced species unreported from the area, including several previously undescribed species: Paedophryne amauensis, now the world’s tiniest known vertebrate, Paedophryne swiftorum, a close relative, and a species of Choerophryne, another microhylid frog with a distinct elongate snout. The latter species was known from a single specimen, and during one night they managed to collect a female and five male specimens as well as record the calls of three different males.

Paedophryne swiftorum

Paedophryne amauensis

Eric Rittmeyer graduated from Cornell in 2008 and went to Louisiana State University to pursue his PhD in the lab of Dr. Christopher Austin. He returned to New Guinea in 2009 and collected specimens and tissues of Carlia eothen, a species in a group of skinks that he is focusing on for his dissertation. Eric will be giving a talk about his research to the herp club on April 23.

Derrick Thompson graduated in 2009. He moved to Thailand, where he now teaches.

Mike Gründler  graduated in 2010 and spent time in Trinidad studying guppies, then at Archbold Field Station in Florida studying sand skinks and beetles. Now he is a Luce Foundation fellow in Mongolia translating Futuyma’s evolution textbook from English into Mongolian.



Photos courtesy of Eric Rittmeyer

Post by Jessica Tingle

Salamander Migration

The weather is getting warmer and rainy, and that means it's about time for salamanders to start migrating from the woods to breeding ponds.

The salamanders you will see in vernal ponds around Ithaca are in the family Ambystomatidae. The two likeliest species are spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) and Jefferson's salamanders (Ambystoma jeffersonianum), though just north of Ithaca is a hybrid zone between Jefferson's salamander and it's northerly relative the blue-spotted salamander (Ambystoma laterale). They are relatively large salamanders measuring 5-7 cm and sporting heavier bodies than many of our other local salamanders.

Spotted salamander, Ambystoma maculatum

They spend most of the year under debris or underground, but like most amphibians their life cycle is tied to the water. Unlike reptile eggs, amphibian eggs don't have a shell to protect them from desiccation, so females lay their eggs in small ponds or other moist locations. Spotted and Jefferson's salamander courtship and fertilization also take place in the water. 

In the early spring, warm rain signals to these salamanders that it is time to breed. Males and females migrate to their breeding ponds, where the males court the females using pheromones released from their cloacal glands. They may use their their tails to fan the pheromones towards the females underwater. When a female becomes interested, the male walks and she follows him. He deposits a gelatinous packet of sperm called a spermatophore onto the bottom of the pond, then she walks over it and picks it up with her cloaca. Fertilization is internal, as it is with all other salamanders except for Cryptobranchids such as hellbenders.

Ambystoma maculatum in shallow pond

Jefferson's salamanders generally come out earlier in the spring than spotted salamanders do, and have even been known to crawl over snow on their way to the pond.

Ambystoma jeffersonianum braving the snow to breed

Many years, tens or possibly even hundreds of salamanders will come to a pond during a single night in a phenomenon often called explosive breeding. It is a fantastic thing to see and it attracts many people. While going out to see the salamanders provides an exciting night and a good learning experience, we must take care that we do not negatively impact the salamanders and their habitat.

-If you drive to a pond, make sure to park your car far enough away that you do not run over any salamanders that may be crossing the road.

-Each person in your group should have a bright light to see the ground around them. Keep your eyes on the ground and walk slowly, taking care not to step on any animals.

-Salamanders, like all amphibians, have very delicate skin. They easily absorb anything in environment, so touching one when you have lotion, bug spray, or anything else on your hands can harm them very badly. In addition, their skin must stay moist at all times. It is best not to pick them up, but if you do, first get your hands wet with damp leaves or water from the pond (not tap water from a water bottle-it has chlorine that can hurt them).

Notice how he got his hands damp before holding the salamander.

While you are out at the pond, you may hear or see other breeding amphibians. Some that we have locally are spring peepers, pickerel frogs, and wood frogs.

Happy spring and please enjoy the amphibians responsibly!



Photos: Brian Sherman

 Post by Jessica Tingle