In the Footsteps of Conant: Herping Ohio’s Hill Country

“Also, there were many objects to overturn, and there was always the chance of finding something unusual beneath any log or rock. Springs and both clear and muddy streams abounded. In short, there was a great variety of habitats to be explored. The net result was that we probably spent more man hours in the hill country than in any other part of the state. Southeastern Ohio was unquestionably our favorite collecting area.”

—Roger Conant

Herpetology in Ohio—50 Years Ago 

Northern Red-bellied Snake.

Gravel crunched under our tires as we pulled off Route 50 onto the first backroad of the day.  The morning sun was already beginning to bake away any evidence of last night’s rain, but by midday, our sweat-stained shirts and hair would look as if a storm had caught us by surprise.  My backpack held two full water bottles, a tablet of dissolved electrolytes in each.  A third and a fourth were stashed below the rear seat next to Carl’s water-filled orange juice containers.  Neither of us wanted to tempt fate by running out of water in the heat of Ohio's Hill Country.

As we pulled to a stop along the roadside, the fluttering hum of cicadas died down and the air hung still for a moment as if the forest was waiting to inhale.  I grabbed my snake stick from the bed of the truck as Carl slipped his backpack over his head.  We both knew the drill.  The hillsides all around us held promise of snakes, lizards, and turtles hidden below cover.

Eastern Black Kingsnake.

During each of our treks into Ohio’s backwoods, I can’t help but feel we are a small instance of history repeating itself.  Just shy of a century ago, Roger Conant might have hiked these very same hillsides and ravines.  In the 1930s, Conant was the first to attempt an exhaustive survey of Ohio’s reptile diversity (an undertaking sorely in need of updating since the previous survey by Kirtland in 1838).  During his six years as Curator of Reptiles at the Toledo Zoo, he would eventually make it to 87 of Ohio’s 88 counties, drive some 41,000 miles, collect countless voucher specimens, and publish his collective work in The Reptiles of Ohio in 1938.  

Like us, weekends were Conant’s designated field days.  He would travel from his home base in Toledo, accompanied by a small and variable band of zoo colleagues, local naturalists, and a few wide-eyed teenagers, all eager to indulge their persistent childhood urges to catch the scaly and slimy.  The crew would pack snake bags and collecting jars into Roger’s 1931 Chevy and set out for the unknown.  Their findings were quintessential, helping to verify species records and contributing to the state’s first range maps.

Eastern Smooth Earthsnake. 

Conant’s work wasn't limited to Ohio alone.  Take down your copy of A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America and you’ll find a conspicuous authorship.  For most of us fascinated with reptiles and amphibians (Carl and myself included), this field guide was our ticket into the world of herpetology.  Anyone who herps Ohio today (or anywhere in North America) is indebted to the work of Conant and his colleagues.  

For over 15 years, Carl Brune has spent his free weekends and rainy evenings ‘filling in Conant’s gaps.’  Originally from California, Carl moved to Ohio to teach physics at Ohio University.  He has helped to expand the known ranges of species from copperheads to streamside salamanders, and has even authored two chapters in the Amphibians of Ohio Textbook.  

Northern Copperhead.

I began herping with him in late August 2017.  Growing up in a suburb of Cleveland, reptile diversity was somewhat lacking.  For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamed of seeing the creatures hidden among the rolling hills of Ohio’s southern counties.  In 2016, I moved to Athens to study Wildlife Biology and Conservation.  By luck or fate, I found myself in the middle of one of Ohio’s most herpetologically diverse regions.  

A map of the physiogeographic regions of Ohio from Conant's The Reptiles of Ohio.

It is no secret that Roger Conant preferred the Hill Country over any of Ohio’s other physiogeographic regions.  Eleven of the thirty reptile species he documented there were found nowhere else in the state.  The Hill Country encompasses the southeastern third of Ohio and sits on the Unglaciated Allegheny Plateau at the base of the Appalachian Mountains.  Except for the blue grass region, the Hill Country is the only part of Ohio that was free of ice during the Pleistocene.  When the glaciers receded at the end of the last ice age, their melt waters carved out the labyrinth of ravines and hilltops that define the Hill Country of today.  

Black Racer.

Before the arrival of Europeans, 95% of Ohio was covered by huge stands of old-growth forest.  Oaks and hickories cloaked the rolling hills and provided habitat for wolves, bison, elk, black bear, and even wolverine.  By the beginning of the 1900s, the state’s megafauna would be gone, and the forest would be reduced to 10% of its former grandeur.  The trees were cleared for timber and to allow access to the exposed layers of coal, iron, and oil.  Once these natural resources were fully exploited, industry moved on, and the forests were allowed to regrow.  Remnants of old coal towns and iron districts still stand in isolated pockets of the backwoods, totems to this past age.  

Northern Ring-necked Snake.

By the 1930s, second-growth had returned to much of southeastern Ohio.  Conant described the state of the forest in his autobiography, “The charm of the hill country lay largely in the fact it was mostly wild in those days.  Agriculture was confined to some of the valleys, and second growth had re-clothed the hillsides and many other areas to the point where the forest had more or less returned to its original climax stage.”  As much as 70% of the Unglaciated Allegheny Plateau is now forested.  Glacial melt waters washed away most of the area’s rich soil, sparing the land from agriculture.  Had the soil been more profitable, the Hill Country would likely be a very different place today.

Despite the disappearance of many of Ohio’s native fauna during this era of rapid and intense deforestation, there have been no documented extinctions for any of Ohio’s 47 species of reptile or 40 species of amphibian.  Just how and where these fragile creatures survived is something of a mystery.  Logging took place over many decades, and it is possible species found refuge in small, remaining tracts of habitat, recolonizing the surrounding land once the forest had regrown.  Considering the scale of habitat loss that swept through Ohio in the 1800s, it is remarkable any native herpetofauna survived at all. 

Black Ratsnake.

One thing is clear, however, Ohio’s reptiles and amphibians are no strangers to adverse environmental conditions.  A year (or even a day) in Ohio can fluctuate wildly in temperature and weather conditions.  Winter lasts for nearly half the year, forcing ectothermic species to remain inactive for months on end.  Summer is prime herping season, but with midday temperatures easily reaching 90 degrees Fahrenheit in southern Ohio, most species are forced to seek shelter to avoid overheating or desiccating.  

Logs and rocks provide cool, moist places for snakes to hide during the heat of the day.  Nature, however, can be supplemented with a little human ingenuity.  In Conant’s time, logging operations left behind huge saw dust piles strewn along the steep slopes.  When covered with pieces of hacked-off bark, these damp, sturdy piles provided the perfect escape from the elements.  Conant recounts one exceptionally good find, “a large slab-covered pile in Hocking County yielded a fence lizard, three young broad head skinks, a northern water snake, eleven hatchling black rat snakes, and two juvenile copperheads.”   As mill practices shifted, Conant’s fruitful saw dust piles became a thing of the past.  

Eastern Milksnake.

Today, man-made cover is still important for finding snakes.  Plywood boards and tins scattered throughout the roadsides and hilltops of southern Ohio are easily flipped and are a proven way to find scads of snakes in an otherwise desolate landscape.  Reptiles aren't picky; old pool liners, ratty carpets, deck chairs, smashed televisions, and gas tanks might be an eye sore for most hikers, but for folks like us, they’re a treasure trove.  A good trash pile always gets my blood pumping in anticipation of what might be lurking below.

During the course of our search, Carl and I might flip upwards of 100 pieces of cover and hike ten miles through the ravines and hilltops, all to find a handful of serpents.  Somedays, the snakes are plentiful, others require hours of work to find the most common of species.  There is really no telling where or when a species might turn up; it's often a matter of being in the right place at the right time. 

Eastern Wormsnake.

Carl and I have been lucky enough to find more snakes in Ohio than most people will see in their entire lives.  Even where snake populations appear stable, however, the impacts of humans are plainly visible.  Whether it be road mortality, habitat loss, or direct persecution, "snakes engender mighty little sympathy from the general public," a statement that still rings true today. 

Conant was well aware that with each decade, more species were pushed closer toward extirpation.  Fifty years after his surveys, Conant lamented that, “many places that once supported thriving colonies of various species have vanished.”  Rattlesnakes, spotted turtles, Kirtland’s snakes—species Conant would have commonly encountered in his day—have all but disappeared from most of the state.

Timber Rattlesnake.  

Conant laid the ground work for our modern generation of herpetologists.  It is now up to us to protect the species and populations that remain.  Efforts to mitigate the damage we have done to our natural environment can often seem confusing and convoluted, but I have found there is something very down to earth about the study of reptiles and amphibians.  Even someone unaccustomed to the complex and long-winded jargon of scientific literature might be able to detect a hint of the adventure and mystery only thinly veiled behind tables of snout-vent lengths and scale counts.

Hobby, obsession, the ‘weird’ cousin of birding, call it what you will, but herping has captivated my life ever since I first opened Roger Conant's field guide.  In a few months time, the snakes, lizards, and turtles will begin to emerge from their frozen retreats. Carl and I will soon be back among the rolling hills of Southern Ohio, flipping logs, boards, and carpets for the secrets hidden beneath.  Only time will tell what we find.

Carl and myself after a day of dip netting for salamanders in 2018.

Ryan Wagner is a student studying Wildlife Biology and Conservation at Ohio University.  He is an avid herper, birder, nature blogger, and wildlife photographer.  You can read more of his articles at ryansweeklywildlife.blogspot.com or follow him on twitter @weeklywildlife.  You can read the guest post version of this blog at Jim McCormac's Birds and Biodiversity Blog.

Tracking Timbers

“Everything uses these habitats along the road,” Garrett Sisson explained to me as we drove down a highway in southern Ohio.  I gazed out at the familiar grassy hills and rock cliffs that seemed to turn the landscape into a funnel.  “The deer use the open areas for grazing and the reptiles—the snakes, turtles, and lizards—find the perfect basking sites in these fields.  The wildlife in the area is really taking advantage of the space we have opened up for them.”

I was surprised; Garrett was the first person I had heard say anything positive about a roadway's impact on wildlife.  The impression I had of most roads was one of environmental disaster.  In my mind they were killing machines, luring unsuspecting ectotherms to their warm surface, only to be thoughtlessly crushed by the barrage of speeding vehicles.

Garrett continued, “Both of the gravid female rattlesnakes I have tracked used rock piles along the highway to thermoregulate.  Ironically, the road has created the perfect place for snakes to develop their young.”  Garrett Sisson is a master’s student studying one of Ohio's remaining populations of timber rattlesnakes.

Garrett Sisson showing us one of his rattlesnakes

In the three years of his study, Garrett hasn't lost a single snake to road mortality.  The timbers just don't seem interested in trying to cross.  They come close to the road, but never actually venture out onto its deadly asphalt.  Instead, they use the highway as a tool.  Construction of the road has provided sunny, southward-facing slopes, which the snakes utilized for thermoregulation.  The road is actually helping these State Endangered reptiles to reproduce. 

“It’s not as black and white as it might appear,”  Garrett continued, “There is a give and take here.  If the land could stay habitat instead of becoming an ecological trap, then the highway’s impact could have some real positive effects.”  I had never stopped to question whether a road could actually do anything good for wildlife.  The crushed snakes, turtles, and salamanders I was used to seeing with Charlene and Marcel had convinced me that they were just glorified deathtraps.  

“This is not to say we should pave forest and destroy and fragment more habitat,” Garrett assured me.  “The road mortality is a terrible thing.  What this highway teaches us is mitigation.”  

Mitigation—the action of reducing the severity, seriousness, or painfulness of something.  In the case of this road, mitigation efforts include miles of snake and deer fencing, amphibian tunnels, and underpasses.  These structures attempt to prevent wildlife from getting near the road (or at least provide a way under it).  Some of it works; some of it does not.  That’s what we were trying to figure out.

Roads that cut through habitat are environmental nightmares.  This road's presence probably means a lot of the wildlife that live along its margins are doomed—including Garrett’s snakes.  If we choose to ignore the warnings, then more terrible roads like it will be built.  If we study and learn from it, however, then we won't make the same kind of mistakes in the future.  This road, with all its detrimental effects, could be telling us to change our ways, to become more careful, and to care about the wildlife we risk losing.

I was accompanying Garrett, Dr. Popescu, and Popescu’s former PhD adviser, to look for Garrett’s snakes.  I had briefly seen one of his rattlesnakes a month earlier when I had accompanied him tracking.  Like our turtles, the timbers were fitted with radio transmitters (in this case implanted internally).  Unlike our 30 turtles, however, Garrett had only 3 snakes he was tracking.  This population is so small that he had found just 18 animals during his entire project—twelve of which were neonates too small for transmitters.  Of the five snakes large enough to track, one had died during hibernation and another was killed by a mesopredator like a raccoon or coyote.  Garrett now had just two big females and a juvenile male.

In Ohio, timber rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) are listed as critically endangered.  Prior to settlement, timbers were found across nearly 30 counties and on the Lake Erie Islands.  Today, they are found sporadically across just seven or eight southern counties.  Persecution and habitat loss are largely to blame.  Destruction of mature forests with suitable rocky crevices used for overwintering, coupled with unwarranted killing, have reduced their populations to a few broken colonies.  

Timber rattlers are large snakes, growing up to six feet in length.  They are bulky, heavy-bodied serpents with distinct arrow-shaped heads and rattle-tipped tails.  They are distinguished by their two color phases: black or yellow.  The yellow phase is light in color with chevron or lightning bolt crossbands extending from the neck to the tail.  The black phase is dark brown or black with brown or yellow markings and crossbands.  Garrett’s snakes are the black phase, with beautiful dark heads and lighter markings.

Anyone who has worked with timbers will tell you of their gentle disposition.  They take considerable provoking just to entice rattling, let alone a strike.  However, if a timber feels truly threatened, it will defend itself vigorously.  A bite would be serious; the hemotoxic venom is highly potent and can be fatal if not treated.

Venom, however, is an expensive cocktail of proteins to make.  Using this liquid gold on a human—far too large to eat—is a waste.  When feeling threatened, timber rattlesnakes will use every other tactic in their playbook before reverting to striking.  Upon first encounter, a timber will either remain motionless, hoping the threat will pass by, or slip away silently to safety.  If the threat persists, the second line of defense is to rattle.  

Baby rattlesnakes are born with a single button on the end of their tail.  Each time a snake sheds, it deposits a new keratin bead (the same material as our hair and fingernails).  Rattles cannot be used to age a snake as shedding can take place several times in a year and long rattles are prone to breaking.  The rattle is truly an ingenious communication tool.  Snakes have no external ears—they cannot even hear their own rattle.  The rattle’s function is purely cross-species communication, warning large mammalian predators “I am here.  I am dangerous.  Do not get closer.”  Rattlesnakes are practically begging us not to get bitten.

If rattling is not sufficient to warn off the threat, the snake will coil in a characteristic S-pose, and launch a strike nearly a third of its body length.  Even if a snake does bite, it may deliver a “dry bite.”  This is yet another effort to conserve its precious venom.  A dry bite does not result in envenomation—no venom is released.  This strike would merely be painful, not life-threatening.  When encountering any snake, the best course of action is to let it be. Ironically, most envenomations occur when people harass or try to kill snakes for protection.

We hiked up the ravine, over rocks and small crevasses.  Garrett used the same telemetry equipment as Marcel and I.  When tracking rattlesnakes, however, we had to be careful, plodding, and watchful.  It wasn't a race to the finish like it was with our turtles.  Accidentally stepping on a rattlesnake had much riskier implications than did stepping on a box turtle.

As we closed in on the snake, Garrett hiked down into the green briar while our group waited on the trail.  After a moment of searching, Garrett called up to us that he had found her.  Nestled under the tangles of thorns, coiled tightly in the leaf litter, sat Martha.  She was a handsome serpent, approaching four feet in length, with a dark head and thick, light zig-zagging bands.  She sat motionless, allowing our group to surround her without the slightest indication that she had even noticed us.

We examined her elegant patterns and reflected on how easy it would have been to walk right past her, none the wiser.  I was transfixed; it was hard to comprehend that fewer than three feet in front of me sat a venomous viper—the endangered timber rattlesnake, no less.  Garrett also took us to see Nosferatu, an even larger female that was almost solid, coal-black.  She too sat coiled in the leaf litter, a few intermittent tongue flicks the only sign that she was aware of our presence.  I could easily have spent hours staring and snapping photographs of these two snakes.  Garrett had to remind me, “you can’t take them home with you, unfortunately.”  

As I watched the timbers, it dawned on me that they were some of the last remaining snakes of their kind in the state of Ohio.  Repatriation, translocation, and relocation (RRT) efforts have proven unsuccessful.  Timber rattlesnakes exhibit high site fidelity—if moved from their home range or introduced into a new one, they will do everything in their power to return home. Timbers share communal dens for hibernation, which they use their entire lives.  Without a suitable den in which to escape the harsh winter temperatures, a snake will die.  Homing snakes not only face the problem of hibernation, but also the issue of habitat fragmentation.  

Roads have split up countless wildlife populations throughout the state. Their isolating force turns one, interbreeding population into several small, segregated groups. These small groups easily fade out of existence one by one, until sadly, no snakes remain. Hated, misunderstood, unperceived, and fading into extinction—do these beautiful reptiles really deserve this fate?  I don't think so.  A creature with such power and mystique should be our state's pride—a rare woodland jewel.  

Timber rattlesnakes play as important a role in the environment as any mammal or bird. They consume disease vectors such as mice and rats, which serve as hosts for ticks and other parasites.  Infected ticks can transmit diseases like Lyme and Rocky Mountain spotted fever to humans.  Without snakes to reduce rodent populations, ticks and their deadly pathogens run rampant.  Rattlesnakes are not only fascinating and beautiful, but they directly benefit us.  They belong in our woods, and we owe them space and respect.

A new rattlesnake in one of our box turtle sites was unlikely, but not beyond the realm of possibility.  As we hiked out, I imagined how incredible it would be to discover a timber rattlesnake without telemetry.  I would be looking, that much was certain.