A Marbled Migration

It was raining.  My water-logged boots had turned my feet into prunes long ago.  Storms from one of the recent hurricanes had brought a steady downpour that continued throughout the mild October afternoon.  Carl Brune and I were out on one of the final snake trips of the season.  With autumn temperatures steadily dropping with each passing day, the reptiles were few and far between.  After spending a miserable rain-soaked day hunting for snakes, we decided to do what any sane person would: spend a rain-soaked night hunting for salamanders.  

We started our amphibian search road cruising after dark.  The weather seemed perfect, and with the scarcity of reptiles, we were eager for some action.  The trouble with road cruising in autumn is that the pavement is often covered in fallen leaves and other debris.  Spotting the shiny, hot-dog bodies of salamanders is difficult even when roads are clear.  Green frogs, on the other hand, were out in force, franticly slip-sliding on splayed legs across the frictionless road.  Like tiny body surfers, they hydroplaned over the two-lanes on shear momentum.  

After about an hour of nothing but frogs, we stepped out into the storm to hike the road on foot.  It was an eery night, silent except for the distant sound of rock-n-roll.  An amish horse and buggy trotted out of the darkness, quickly switching off the blaring music as it passed us (a bit peculiar I thought).  As the beam of my flashlight fell on the night's first marbled salamander (Ambystoma opacum), I was transported back to a similar night nearly a year before.  

It was another rainy day in early October 2016, only a few months into my freshman year at Ohio University.  It felt like a lifetime since I had left campus.  Going so long without seeing any wildlife had me in a rut.  When I received an email that a professor was looking to round up some undergrads for a salamander hike, I jumped at the opportunity.  As the sun set, a small group of eager salamander seekers gathered behind Irvine hall.

Dr. Carl Brune, an OU physics professor, introduced himself to the group.  His camera and headlamp only hinted at his encyclopedic knowledge regarding Ohio’s reptiles and amphibians.  Accompanying us was a small film crew, intending to document some of OU’s undergrad field research.  With Marcel Weigand, a first-year graduate student (studying box turtles of course), behind the wheel, we set off.  I didn't know it at the time, but both Marcel and Carl would become major influences in my herping and undergraduate careers (check out the research I did with Marcel HERE). 

My first Marbled.

A film crew, a physicist, a graduate student, and a gaggle of undergrads, all packed into a rickety van in search of salamanders.  I sat, smushed in the middle, a freshman scared out of his wits.  As we crossed over the Hocking River I looked out into the streaming darkness.  A nervous excitement began to stir in the pit of my stomach.  We were on a mission. 

As the van bounced along, the others talked of spring salamander ranges and recalled experiences with eastern spadefoots.  I couldn't help but grin in anticipation.  I had dreamed of seeing Ohio’s different herpetofauna for years, but until now, lacked the means and the know-how.  With this knew-found camaraderie, herping had never felt more possible.   Crammed on all sides by rain-gear clad researchers, I knew I was exactly where I was meant to be. 

It was a short drive to the location—a well loved spot among OU herpers.  We parked along the side of the road and filed out of the car.  Half a dozen flashlights sprung to life.  I had seen my share of salamander migrations growing up in northeastern Ohio—but never one in the fall.  

The marbled salamander is an oddity among mole (ambystomid) salamanders.  These rotund, four and a quarter inch sallies breed not in the spring (like their spotted and Jefferson cousins) but in the fall.  On stormy October nights, they emerge from mammal burrows where they have spent the summer and head in the direction of vernal pools.  Peculiarly, marbled salamander courtship takes place on land.  Plump with eggs, females cannot swim and risk drowning if they enter the water.  Hidden beneath rocks, logs, and clumps of grass, the females guard their clutch until rising water levels overtake the nest.  

Laying eyes on my first marbled was a dream come true.  Our team split up, searching the road and the adjacent bike path.  Coyotes took up howling as the light rain pattered all around us.

When someone announced the first salamander of the night, I raced down the path unable to contain my excitement.  A plump, black, curled C plopped into my cupped hands.  The salamander sat motionless, eyes blinking in the bright light of my headlamp.  True to its name, the salamander’s back and head were elegantly patterned with white bars and splotches.  Its expression seemed perplexed, as if it was wondering, “how did I suddenly get four feet off the ground.”  

The final video.  My camera and Cleveland Metroparks 

hat make an appearance in the first few seconds.

Undaunted by its sudden height change, the salamander proceeded to crawl up my arm in an effort to complete its journey.  The urge to breed surpasses fear of heights.  The rain began to pick up, bringing with it more and more salamanders.  We discovered over half-a-dozen marbleds crawling over the asphalt, all with the same focused determination.    

I lay on my belly, eye-to-eye with another naturally single-minded creature.  When photographing or observing wildlife, I can't help but get tunnel vision (much to the annoyance of my friends).  I don't know what it is about herps that so enchants me.  Watching the way they move with such intense purpose, it's easy to get pulled into their world.  They have one set goal in mind, and nothing (not even being picked up by giants with flashing lights) is going to dishearten them.  These unassuming creatures have more to teach us than we give them credit.  

I returned home feeling revitalized and eager to get back out in the field.  I never would have imagined the adventures to come.  Exactly 12 months later, Carl and I were back out on a rainy road.  We found a few small marbleds and one spotted.  It was a slow night, but a nostalgic one.  Sometimes I don't know where the time goes.  What will I be nostalgic for in another year's time? . . .

To Sex a Snapping Turtle

Charlene hauled over a hefty, plastic crate and placed it forcefully at my feet.  Popping open the lid revealed a very large and very groggy snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina).  The turtle shifted grumpily in the bright morning light.  Gripping the edge of the lower shell, I raised the 30-pound reptile to eye level.  An elongate, serpentine neck ending in a gaping maw rolled back in agitation.  The turtle’s glittering eyes glared sideways at me.  In slow motion, the snapper’s beak clamped shut with an audible crunch (the day was thankfully too cold for rapid strikes).  Clawed feet pried forcefully at my frozen fingers; its scratches would likely have hurt had my hands not gone numb from the frigid pond water.  Like shaking a piggy bank, I began to bounce the turtle up and down as Charlene had instructed.  Its long, plated tail flopped limply in my face.  I thanked my lucky stars this was a female.  Had the turtle been male, the jostling would have extruded its large, fleshy penis.  Its moments like this that life choices are inevitably called into question. 

Charlene demonstrates the proper way to hold sex a snapper.

You won't see “experience sexing (determining an animals' gender) large, reptilian vertebrates” on many job applications or resumes.  “Willingness to crawl into fortresses of thorny greenbriar,” or “comfortable intimately examining road kill” likely won't show up on any online career questionnaires.  The life of a field hand isn't something that can be described in a short, concise, user-friendly document.  Every day is an adventure.  To work in the field, you have to roll with the punches and expect the unexpected.  There is always something new (albeit sometimes crude) to learn.  Some would prefer a consistent, sanitary desk job.  Give me the option between paperwork and getting up close and personal with nature, and I'll choose the latter every time.

It was another early morning in Charlene’s wetland.  The fall colors had finally emerged; goldenrod and sumac added vivid splashes of yellow and red to the landscape.  The road survey had been slow, with little dead on the asphalt or alive in the traps.  Instead of heading home, however, we took a short, dirt access road to one of the ponds.  

Charlene pulled several pairs of waders from the back seat of her car.  The pair she handed me were comically oversized.  I pulled on the aquatic clown pants, embracing my ridiculous new apparel.  As we stepped into the water, I felt the waders tighten around my ankles—not quite a hug and not quite a massage—but somehow comforting.  The mud squished under my enormous boots, suctioning my feet with each step.  Charlene stomped around like we were on solid ground.  I teetered as I walked, clumsily stepping over vegetation and stumbling into submerged logs as we entered deeper water.

Mist drifted over the pond’s surface, slowly melting away in the advancing sunlight.  The turtle traps were anchored by two wooden posts, sticking up like rabbit ears on either side.  Checking the traps involved thoroughly soaking each forearm in the muddy, cold, duckweed-choked swamp.  As I freed each post from the muck and lifted the net’s contents into view, I was met not by a turtle, but by a brick.  I felt like Charlie Brown.  I reinserted the post and moved on to the next trap.  This time, a small, rounded stone lay at the bottom.  No, not a stone—a stinkpot.  The little musk turtle had retreated into its shell, making it look like nothing more than a lump of algae-covered rock.  I reached in and plucked the turtle from the seeping mesh and placed it in my bucket.

Another musk turtle.  This one lacks the lines and has a much more bulbous head.

By the time we made it back to shore, we had caught four little eastern musk turtles (Sternotherus odoratus) in the traps.  Commonly referred to as stinkpots because of the obnoxious smell they excrete when stressed, musks are one of Ohio’s smallest native turtles.  They usually grow fewer than five inches in length with a high-domed shell (shaped like something between a baseball and a football).  They look rather like little snapping turtles, with prehistoric bulbous heads and cryptic markings.  The face often exhibits two white or yellowish lines which run from the tip of the snout above and beneath each eye.  Like snapping turtles, stinkpots are almost entirely aquatic, only emerging to lay eggs or occasionally to bask.  They are inhabitants of shallow, vegetated pond margins where they can easily "bottom walk" in search of invertebrates and detritus.

We processed the turtles, notching the shells of new captures and weighing and measuring each individual.  The stinkpots bitterly accepted this treatment.  They withdrew their flabby limbs and gaped, willing a careless finger to inch too close to their sharp beaks.  After we had finished with the stinkers, Charlene hauled over that large plastic crate.  The snapper had been caught in the turtle traps the day before, and now we had to process it.  This monster was going to make measuring, weighing, and sexing the tiny musk turtles look like child's play.

Contrary to popular belief, snapping turtles should never be picked up by the tail alone.  This can cause serious (and often fatal) damage to the animals' spinal cord.  The safest way to interact with a snapper is to avoid picking it up at all.  If an animal truly needs to be moved (across a busy road, for instance) the best method is to grip the turtle by the rear end of the carapace and carefully lift it away from your own body.  A snapping turtle's neck is capable of reaching back half of its own body length.  Charlene drew an imaginary line down the middle of the turtle's back. "Never pick up any portion of the turtle that is towards the front," she explained.  While stories of snapping turtles biting broom handles in half are fantasy, a snapper can inflict a painful and serious bite to a misplaced extremity.  

Using the biggest pair of calipers I had ever seen, Charlene flipped the turtle upside down and began taking measurements.  The snapper was not enthused.  She then demonstrated how to determine its sex, shaking the turtle like she was trying to get a pick out of a guitar.  "Female," she determined.  "Now you can practice," she said, returning the turtle to the bucket and handing me the calipers.  The things I do for research.

Snapping turtles may not be cute, cuddly, or charismatic, but they need our attention just the same.  The trapping season has placed an unsustainable pressure on snapping turtle populations in Ohio.  The harvest lasts from July to December with no daily regulation on the number of snapping turtles hunters can take from the wild.  Hunters are limited to turtles 11 inches in carapace length or larger.  While this protects hatchlings, it puts an intense pressure on adults. Snapping turtles rely on adult longevity to keep populations viable long-term.  Hatchling predation rate starts high and tapers with age.  Adult snappers are nearly invincible except when it comes to hunters and roadways.  Gathering information on snapper health and abundance is not flashy or sexy.  It is, however, imperative if we are to ensure the survival of Ohio's largest turtle long into the future.