Is this the cutest thing ever? This a a baby Desert Horned Lizard sitting on a quarter. Unbelievable...but true. No tricks on this one. I took the photo myself. 

Latest Herp Expedition.

Saturday I get a call from my cousin and he has to run his girlfriends' son and friend out to a concert in Corona, CA. He wanted to know if I wanted to go with him, because the concert was to last about 6 hours...and that meant 6 hours of herping. For those who aren't familiar with that term...it means hunting for reptiles. Sounded good to me. We went to our usual spot and began our hunt.

Probably the most interesting thing was 2 baby...and I mean baby...horned lizards (horny toads). These little guys were maybe an inch long. Cute as hell for a lizard. We also caught 2 California tarantulas...a large blue centipede...a red velvet ant...one scorpion...and an very large rattlesnake. We let him go. That was the live stuff we saw or caught.

Now for the DOR (Dead on the Road) stuff. First there was a adult horned lizard...what a shame!
Numerous California kangaroo rats. One large gopher snake...still twitching. One large fresh killed barn owl...no marks at all...would have been great to stuff and mount. One dead rotting dog carcass. A dead sheep...and 2 dead possums. Too bad we found more dead stuff than we did live.

Unfortunately...most people don't give a damn about desert dwelling animals out on the roadways after dark. A real shame...especially the owl. They eat tremendous amounts of rodents every night. Overall though...a very good night of herping.