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which_chickI am more or less interested in the natural world, the animals and plants and whatnot that live near me. It's a thing. I've seen a lot of the things that live near me, from porcupines to rattlesnakes to black bears to turkeys. Box turtles, ladyslipper orchids, red tailed hawks, pileated woodpeckers, etc. Just... stuff.
When I find things of interest, specifically things of the reptile/amphibian sort, I post them to PARS, the PA Reptile and Amphibian Survey. It's for ordinary folks and for research folks to report sightings of Pennsylvania's reptiles and amphibians, to help the state track stuff.
The last thing I posted to PARS was a skink (cat brought it in the house in summer 2024). It was the first skink I'd ever seen in my area, so that was interesting.
This time, I was raking leaves around my fenced tomato area. And I uncovered a small snake that was different from other small snakes I've seen previously. It was not a garter snake. It was not a ringnecked snake. It was not a red-bellied snake. I've seen all of them and I know what they look like. This was a different snake, one I hadn't seen before. And it was tiny. Very tiny.
See?
A google or three later, I was pretty sure that this was an Eastern Wormsnake (Carphophis amoenus), a species of special concern in my state and also one for which the most-recent county record in my county was... 1989. The one before that was from 1951.
Now these are small, mostly-underground snakes that are not super obvious. And I live in an underpopulated part of the country where there are not a lot of people interested in looking at tiny brown snakes that mostly live underground. So, yeah, there's not like a gazillion reports of these guys. But today there is one more. Go citizen science!
When I find things of interest, specifically things of the reptile/amphibian sort, I post them to PARS, the PA Reptile and Amphibian Survey. It's for ordinary folks and for research folks to report sightings of Pennsylvania's reptiles and amphibians, to help the state track stuff.
The last thing I posted to PARS was a skink (cat brought it in the house in summer 2024). It was the first skink I'd ever seen in my area, so that was interesting.
This time, I was raking leaves around my fenced tomato area. And I uncovered a small snake that was different from other small snakes I've seen previously. It was not a garter snake. It was not a ringnecked snake. It was not a red-bellied snake. I've seen all of them and I know what they look like. This was a different snake, one I hadn't seen before. And it was tiny. Very tiny.
See?
A google or three later, I was pretty sure that this was an Eastern Wormsnake (Carphophis amoenus), a species of special concern in my state and also one for which the most-recent county record in my county was... 1989. The one before that was from 1951.
Now these are small, mostly-underground snakes that are not super obvious. And I live in an underpopulated part of the country where there are not a lot of people interested in looking at tiny brown snakes that mostly live underground. So, yeah, there's not like a gazillion reports of these guys. But today there is one more. Go citizen science!
