Fires, Fields, Turtles, and Trees

“Do you have muck boots with you?” Todd asked.  I kicked myself.  When packing for my Magee Marsh trip, I had neglected to bring either my boots or waders.  Would they be necessary to look for snakes, I inquired?  “Depends on whether you want to see spotties or not,” he said with a winky emoji.  My eyes widened and my pace quickened.  I hadn’t even considered looking for spotted turtles.  Finding my first Blanding’s turtles (and a mating pair at that) had seemed like a dream come true.  Now I was confronted with an opportunity so good I couldn’t pass it up.  Luckily, Todd had a pair he could lend me.  I raced back to my car, leaving the birds behind (again).  

Todd was out front loading his van as I arrived.  His open trunk was filled with boots, aquatic measuring equipment, and books from recent trips afield.  A wetsuit hung drying on his back fence near a sign that designated his garden the winner of the “best native wildflower planting.”  As a lecturer at the University of Toledo, Todd is an educator at heart.  His hands-on, in-your-face enthusiasm is contagious.  

The complexities of the ecosystem are what really get Todd excited.  He has managed everything from wet prairies and watersheds to local fish species and endangered mussels.  Todd was an excellent guide through the unfamiliar (to me) landscape of northwestern Ohio, pointing out fascinating hydrological phenomena and natural history at every turn. 

“See that field?” He gestured to a small woodlot along the road no bigger than my suburban backyard.  Widely spaced trees allowed a dense understory of vegetation to grow.  “Over 30 state listed plant species can be found right there,” he said.  

Most wouldn’t think of Toledo as a land of extremes—or that some of the rarest ecosystems on earth sit just west of the city.  Stretching over 180 square miles across three Ohio counties (and one Michigan county) the Oak Openings is perhaps the most unique part of the state.  Here, vast sand barrens intersperse with mesic prairies and oak flatwoods.  As many as 145 state listed plant species have been recorded from the Openings, including our only native cactus (Opuntia humifus).  

Wild Lupine (Lupinus perennis), a rare Ohio plant found only in the Oak Openings.

These rare ecosystems are maintained by annual cycles of extreme wet and extreme dry.  The secret lies in the sand.  The Oak Openings look as if someone dropped a little piece of the Mojave Desert into Ohio.  These rolling dunes are actually ancient sandbars, first deposited by a late-glacial precursor to Lake Erie between 11,000 and 9,000 years ago.  The sand can be 50 feet thick in some places, obscuring another important geologic layer: the till.  This impermeable clay holds any water that soaks through the porous sand.  Oak forests grow in uplands where the sand is thick and dry, while emergent open-canopy wetlands form where the till sits just below the surface.

The need for boots was immediately apparent as Todd and I stepped off the road.  The trail quickly opened up into a wide expanse of whispering Bluegrass, submerged in ankle-deep water.  We sloshed along, peering intently into every grassy hummock, hoping to catch the inky glint of a yellow polka-dotted shell.  Spotted turtles don’t typically bask on exposed logs like the more common painted turtle.  Instead, they bask nestled among vegetation, slipping into the shallow water at the first sign of trouble.  When the wetlands dry up by late summer, a complex network of underwater turtle highways are revealed.  Turtles not traversing their typical routes disappear into the muck without a trace, making them near impossible to find—unless you’re lucky enough to step on one.  “If you feel a rock beneath your foot,” Todd said, “it’s not a rock."

A female spotted turtle.  Note the pinkish-orange chin.

Once a common species throughout the state, spotted turtles (Clemmys guttata) have declined across the east coast and the Great Lakes region.  Ohio has lost close to 90 percent of its original wetlands, including most of the suitable spotted turtle habitat.  These turtles rely on wetlands to overwinter, moving into upland woods by late spring and summer.  The prime time to look for spotties is April and May while they are still basking near their aquatic hibernacula.  Once the temperatures start to heat up, these turtles become harder and harder to find as they spread out into the surrounding landscapes.

Todd called to me from several yards away.  I ran as best I could through the ankle-deep water, heart pounding at the thought of my first spotty.  Todd had bumped a small female with his boot, exposing the turtle’s hidden basking spot within the grass.  Held firmly but gently in his hands, the little turtle didn’t seem the least bit concerned.  She looked around bright-eyed and curious, legs waving as if walking in slow motion.  I was immediately struck by just how tiny this turtle was; she could fit comfortably in the palm of my hand.  Adult spotted turtles max out at around four inches in carapace length, making them one of our smallest native species.  

I was beyond delighted.  We took copious photos before releasing her back into the shallow water.  An hour later, I stumbled upon another, larger female basking out in the open.  We could tell these turtles were female for two reasons: one, the classic flat belly (males have a concave plastron) and two, her chin was a soft pinkish-orange.  Male spotted turtles have a much darker black or brown chin. 

As we half hiked, half sloshed our way back towards the vehicle, my foot brushed something hard.  Looking through the vegetated water, I was just able to make out a strip of bone nestled in the sediment.  My mind jumped to the sun-bleached shells of long-dead box turtles and snapping turtles that I’ve been lucky enough to stumble upon in the past.  I flipped the object over and was surprised to find a black plastron.  I knelt and plucked the small shell from the water.  Surprise number two: clenched between my thumb and index finger, a very much alive spotted turtle squirmed for freedom.  The large, keratin scutes that normally cover the animal’s back had completely fallen off, revealing the smooth bone beneath. 

A male spotted turtle missing the scutes along its back

It is unclear just what would could cause this kind of bizarre and dramatic disfigurement in a spotted turtle's shell.  It is possible this turtle survived being caught in a controlled burn that scorched just the outer layers of keratin and left the rest of the animal unharmed.  Alternatively, it could be suffering from some other physical trauma, exposure to toxins, malnutrition, or a bacterial or fungal infection. The fungus, Fusarium semitectum, is known to cause skin lesions and scute necrosis in desert tortoises.  Regardless of its ultimate cause, this deformity is symptomatic of many larger issues impacting the habitat these turtles call home. 

"A few years ago, this whole wetland would have been overrun with buckthorn," Todd explained.  Despite its natural appearance, the Oak Openings is anything but pristine. Human impacts are evident everywhere you look.  Settlers cut down the old growth oak stands and drained and channelized the groundwater in an attempt to farm the sandy soil.  Agriculture proved unprofitable, but the damage was done. As the surrounding areas developed, suppression of fires and a lower water table transitioned many natural openings into closed canopy forests. Even where the ground held enough water to exclude trees, introduced plants like buckthorn and cattails turned the once diverse fields of grasses, sedges, and rushes into mono-cultures. 

Intensive management is now necessary to maintain the Oak Openings’ unique ecosystems.  A strict regimen of selective cutting, herbicide use, and prescribed burns are integral to the plant and animal communities that depend on open habitat.  Without these scheduled burns, many native species, from butterflies to birds, would disappear. Spotted turtles would quickly become a distant memory.

Three spotted turtles by mid-afternoon was better than I could have hoped for, but I couldn't help but notice that another wet meadow species was conspicuously absent.  “There used to be massasaugas here?” I asked, knowing that the pygmy rattlesnake had been extirpated from all the lake counties thanks to human persecution.  “Yup,” Todd replied forlornly, “they were last recorded here in 1981."

Spotted turtles don’t suffer from the same violent disdain as snakes, but they face their own gauntlet of human mistreatment.  Plenty are killed on roads each year by oblivious drivers. Roadways and development have heavily fragmented the Oak Openings, splitting off habitats the turtles depend on.  Spotteds not killed crossing are commonly scooped up by star-struck drivers and taken home to waste away in captivity.  The pet trade is one of the biggest threats to the persistence of spotted turtle populations.  Black-market poaching focuses on adults (often gravid females) and can quickly collapse healthy turtle populations. 

Upwards of 500 breeding adult turtles is considered a viable population.  Many Ohio locality records are known from just one individual turtle, and groups of as many as 50 are still not considered sustainable long-term.  Being such a long-lived vertebrate, it can take decades before local extinctions are realized.  The Oak Openings is home to some of the larger remaining populations of spotted turtles in Ohio, but this rare wetland-loving woodland-dweller can still be found in isolated prairie remnants, bogs, and fens from northern to southwestern Ohio.  Their numbers are often so low that detecting them can be tricky, but given space, respect, and a little human help, they will hopefully persist long into the future.

Thanks for reading.
RBW  

Another Snake with a Red Belly: Kirtland's Snake

The flooded vegetation sloshed underfoot, threatening to flood my muck boots with each step.  After driving two hours through a torrential downpour, a break in the weather had my snake senses tingling.  We were slogging through one of the more unusual of midwestern Ohio’s habitats, a wet meadow.  Every few feet, my friend Daniel Moniz—The Herpetographer—paused to flip pieces of rusty roofing tin, now submerged under several centimeters of water.  Tall grass and small trees obscured my view of the boards until we were right on top of them.  After two days of near constant rain, the wet meadow held true to its name.  We were actually concerned that the boards would be too wet, driving Ohio’s most terrestrial water snake to occupy alternative shelter.  

Daniel was conducting a survey for Kirtland’s snakes (Clonophis kirtlandii)—part of a team effort across western Ohio to determine the species' current status.  Kirtland’s snakes are seen so infrequently that its difficult to know where they still occur in Ohio.  Having disappeared from many previously occupied counties, Kirtland’s snakes can still be found in a few scattered localities across the western half of the state.  As an already threatened species, we were sure to have all our permits in order.  

As we flipped one of the larger pieces of corrugated metal, the tail end of a little snake protruded from the only patch of dry vegetation.  “That’s a Kirtland’s,” Daniel exclaimed.  I plucked the snake from the grass, breathing a sigh of awe and relief.  As we brought the snake into the light, however, we immediately realized our mistake.  The snake was speckled with a row of parallel spots, not large, black blotches.  This little snake was a Dekay’s or brown snake (Storeria dekayi).  An interesting, if not uncommon find.  We returned the snake to its shelter, and moved on to the next board.

This time, we hit pay dirt.  Nearly the same size and shape as the Dekay’s, the juvenile Kirtland’s snake sat coiled near a crayfish burrow.  Daniel picked the snake up before it could disappear back underground.  Kirtland’s snakes require crayfish burrows in which to spend the winter and the hottest, driest days of summer.  They are a relatively sedentary snake, moving only short distances from their personal crayfish getaway.

The juvenile Kirtland’s was in mid-shed with blue eye caps and dulled colors, but I could still tell what an attractive species it was.   Its pattern consisted of a series of large, black blotches, running the length of a red-brown and cream-colored back.  Flip a Kirtland’s snake over, and you will reveal one of the most surprising and stunning bellies of any snake species—bright red ventral scales bordered by a series of black spots.

The Kirtland’s snake is named for Dr. Jared Potter Kirtland, an 18th century physician and Ohio born naturalist from Lakewood.  Birders may know him for the warbler species that also carries his namesake (Setophaga kirtlandii).  Kirtland’s snakes are found only in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana, and are considered rare and declining across their entire range.  They still maintain local strongholds, and have even been able to eke out a living in some urban and residential areas.  

As we began our search for an adult Kirtland’s, we happened upon another snake species I had only heard about in legends.  This black racer wasn't black—it was gun metal gray—likely an intergrade between the black and the blue subspecies (Coluber constrictor subspp).  I couldn’t believe our good luck.  The black subspecies in the east is separated from the blue in the west by a blurry band of hybrids and intergrades of varying shades.  As I attempted to pose the little racer for photographs, it gave me one smart bite on the thumb before disappearing back into the tall grass.

With two rare Ohio snakes under our belts, we had our minds on another species.  The eastern Massasuaga rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus) could occur here as well.  Having lived in Michigan for several years, Daniel knows what and where to look for this endangered pygmy rattlesnake.  If anyone can find them here, it’s him.  With the help of old locality records, Daniel has also been hot on the trail of the spotted turtle (Clemmys guttata), another threatened species in Ohio.  The state’s rarest herpetofauna may still be at home in the wet fields and meadows of western Ohio.

The following boards we flipped seemed impossibly waterlogged.  They practically floated on top of several inches of inundated vegetation.  I was astonished to find a large, likely gravid, female Kirtland’s snake hanging suspended in the water under one of the sheets of tin.  The rain and rising water level hadn't frightened her away.  In fact, Daniel thought he recognized the snake from a previous trip—and it was under the very same board.

This Kirtland’s snake was an impressive specimen, about the length of your average eastern garter, slightly chunkier, and with heavily keeled scales.  Her detailed pattern and colors were astonishingly vivid—that belly is no joke.  Kirtland’s snakes occasionally mock strike, but never bite when handled.  Daniel pointed out this species' bizarre, exaggerated breathing as the little snake sat placidly in my hand.  Her ribs visibly expanded and contracted as if she were trying to pump out a sound. We released the handsome snake back under the tin, beyond satisfied with the scaly encounter.  

Threats to Kirtland’s snakes still persist across their range.  Much of their habitat has already been lost to agriculture and development and succession of forests continue to reduce natural meadow habitat. The use of pesticides and other chemicals threaten to damage the crayfish burrow micro biomes which these, and others snakes, depend upon for shelter.  Road mortality, controlled burns, construction, and illegal collection for the pet trade have all taken their toll.  Where they still are found, Kirtland’s snakes are an essential link to a more pristine and wild Ohio.

I thanked Daniel for the excellent trip, hoping to meet back up with him in the field soon.  I left for home, brain swimming with kirtland's snakes, spotted turtles, and imaginary massasaugas, nothing but rainy oblivion on the darkening horizon, and two hours home. . .

Early Spring Egg Masses

Before the trees have leafed out and obscured the brown tangles of understory, the early months of spring reveal hidden features across the forest's barren landscape.  White and pink wildflowers start to poke up through the leaf litter, attracting the season's first insects.  The stillness in the air makes the absence of migratory birds conspicuous, as the quiet forest awaits their jubilant calls.  Large mammals, like deer and coyotes, tread the same well-worn paths winding in thin lines up and down the wooded slopes. They have managed to eke out a living on this sparse landscape for months.

It is easier to navigate the rolling hills and ravines this time of year.  Little things, left behind by the fall and winter, now stand out.  White, sun-bleached bones—the vertebrae of a deer or the empty shell of a box turtle—linger eerily in the leaf litter.  The signs of other humans—an old beer bottle or an abandoned glove—reveal that you are not the first to venture this way.

These transitional months also reveal larger structures: the rusted out hood of a truck, or the crumbling outline of bricks where a cabin once stood.  As Carl and I hiked, the huge maw of a long abandoned train tunnel loomed into view.  Decommissioned over a century ago in 1916, the route of the old Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad still snakes through the forested ravine bottoms.  The tunnel is lodged out of view of most hikers, sitting in a state of decay among the hillsides.  I was amazed to see this forgotten chunk of Ohio's history, still standing as a token to the past.

A Jefferson salamander egg mass.

The early March morning was between 39 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit—right on the cusp of frog calling weather.  The brisk air felt full of potential.  With a little luck on our side, I imagined we could find anything.  Spotting the year’s first surface active garter snake or the first batch of salamander eggs feels like stumbling upon a secret.  For that moment, just you and the frogs know that life is beginning to stir.  Herps are true harbingers of spring. Following the subtly rising temperatures, salamanders start moving, frogs start calling, and egg masses start popping up everywhere.  

Carl had picked out a series of small pools on his topographic map for us to survey.  This spring was turning out to be rather fickle.  Temperatures had briefly risen into the mid-seventies only to plummet back into snow and ice days later.  We weren't sure what would be active, if anything.

The first small pond we arrived at was nothing special.  Around 15 feet across and almost perfectly round, it was clearly an old man-made farm pond that had been reclaimed by the forest.  The sparse shoots of reeds and gasses that grew around its edges were still brown and bent.  Spring warmth felt a long way off.  

As I stood on the bank, I noticed dozens of speckled, floating blobs attached to the woody reeds.  Most of these blobs were about the size of my fist, but a few were even larger.  They sat singly or in aggregations, revealing that just nights before, countless mole salamanders had migrated here to breed.  I scanned the shallows in case any adult salamanders had been left behind, but the cloudiness of the water obscured everything below a few inches.  By now, most breeding adults would have already returned to the woodlands or buried themselves in the muddy banks.    

A large group of spotted salamander eggs. Note the white egg mass in the center.  Front left there is also a wood frog mass.

Carl leaned forward with his dip net and gently scooped up two of the gelatinous balls.  One was an opaque, milky white, like the glassy eyes of a dead frog.  The other was so clear I could see each of the tiny embryos developing within.  Carefully, so as not to drop the precious cargo, Carl placed the clearer of the two in my cupped hands.  

The egg mass didn't feel like anything I had ever held before.  There was nothing slimy or unsettling about it.  Instead of oozing through my fingers, it firmly retained its shape—splitting along seams between eggs rather than melting together.  Its weightiness reminded me of a water balloon threatening to slip out of my grasp with the slightest movement.  The circular embryos were evenly spaced, each with a little, glowing halo of protective jelly.  As sunlight defracted through its multiple layers, the egg mass seemed to radiate its own light and warmth.  It was really a beautiful object. 

A spotted salamander egg mass.

Composed of around 50-150 eggs, these large masses would develop into larval spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) in 4-7 weeks.  Why some spotted salamander eggs are opaque while others are clear isn’t fully understood.  This variation is determined by the presence or absence of a glycoprotein found in the outer jelly layer.  In Ohio, there doesn't seem to be any fitness advantage for clear versus opaque eggs.  Some research, however, suggests clear egg masses may contain fewer eggs with a higher hatching success rate.

Red-spotted newts feasting on developing spotted salamander larvae.

As we moved down the pond, Carl came across a cluster of eggs that had turned yellow with a type of symbiotic algae.  This algae helps speed up the embryo’s rate of development, improving the larvae’s chances of survival.  The protective jelly that surrounds each egg was starting to break down, revealing the more developed embryos within.  Two red-spotted newts (Notophthalamus viridescence) feasted happily away on the not-yet-motile larval salamanders (a Type I Functional Response for my ecology nerds out there).  For newts and other cannibalistic amphibians, salamander eggs are an all you can eat buffet.  Requiring no time or effort to catch, the number of eggs a newt can eat is only limited by stomach size and speed of digestion.

Of the give or take 50 egg masses in the pond, most had been laid by spotted salamanders. Carl identified a few smaller masses, composed of only two dozen embryos, as the eggs of Jefferson Salamanders (Ambystoma jeffersonianum).  Despite adult Jeffs growing to similar dimensions as spotted salamanders, their egg masses are consistently smaller and hatch within a month’s time.

A raft of wood frog eggs.

While mole salamanders typically breed in fish free ponds and vernal pools, many of Ohio’s amphibians aren't picky when it comes to shallow, temporary water.  Road side ditches and tire ruts can provide breeding habitat for many salamander species and their froggy relatives.  

As we hiked back towards the vehicle, we stopped to examine a flooded patch of trail filled to the brim with egg masses.  Female wood frogs (Rana sylvatica) breed earlier than any other ranid frog in Ohio.  Eggs are laid in a communal raft that can span several meters (each female produces well over a thousand eggs).  These large aggregations can be distinguished from spotted salamander egg masses by the lack of a gelatinous sheath around the eggs.  Tadpoles become free swimming in as little as 1-2 weeks.

Three mountain chorus frog egg masses.

Having developed my search image for eggs, I realized we had overlooked a few tiny masses in the cloudy tire ruts next to the truck.  Similar in size to the egg masses of Jefferson salamanders, these eggs belonged to a specialist of tiny, shallow pools and roadside ruts: the mountain chorus frog (Pseudacris brachyphona).  These chorus frog eggs were covered in a thin layer of sediment and would take only a week to ten days to hatch. We scanned the pool, hopeful that a lingering adult might be within grasp.  These small treefrogs are a real challenge to spot, and often stop calling at the first sign of inquire. 

Carl dip netting for mountain chorus frogs.

On our way to the next pond, I thought I heard the deep, throaty croak of a mountain chorus frog coming from a series of roadside ditches.  We immediately pulled over to investigate.  While Carl sampled the water-filled ruts with his dip net, I scanned the shallow pools for eggs and amphibians.  I was met with a surprise floating just centimeters below the surface: an egg mass made up of a single strand, tightly coiled into a series of corkscrews.  I knew immediately these eggs belonged to an American toad (Anaxyrus americanus).  What was so surprising about this find was the fact that American toads don't typically start breeding until late March or early April.  These eggs were nearly a month early!  This spring was turning out to be very peculiar indeed.

American toad eggs.

The second pond we arrived at was more picturesque than the first.  Green shoots were beginning to push up through its murky water.  We found more floating spotted salamander egg masses as well as adult frogs.  Several spring peepers were beginning to call as the day warmed.  One frog made a more distinct gck-gck-gck call.  To my amusement, Carl imitated the call in hopes of locating the chorus frog, but his dip net only managed to snag a few peepers, tadpoles, and a red-spotted newt.  The mountain chorus frogs remained illusive.

We hiked along the old railway, following the calls of chorusing frogs.  Just as we reached a series of vernal pools, a large four-wheeler plowed its way through the mud and water towards us.  We watched from the sidelines, grimacing as our frogs fell silent as their habitat was torn to shreds.  Thankfully, the four-wheeler avoided the largest and most prominent of the vernal pools (sparing at least some animals, although we did find several egg masses that had been flung into the woodland).

As I got ready to dip net one of the pools, a frog leapt from the bank.  Frantically, I plunged my net under the spot where the amphibian's ripples had disappeared.  The net came up empty, but the disturbance coaxed the frog back up to the surface.  As it hung in the water, I could tell it wasn't a spring peeper.  In fact, it wasn't just one frog, but an amplexing pair of mountain chorus frogs.  I scooped the floating pair up easily.

With frogs in hand, I was able to examine my catch more closely.  I was immediately impressed by the size of these chorus frogs.  They were certainly on the larger end of the spring peeper scale, and well over twice the size of a western chorus frog.  Still only an inch or so in length, their bumpy, gray skin reminded me more of a small gray treefrog than their closer peeper relatives. Their two deep orange eyes were lightly masked and their legs and back were marked with subtle, dark striations.  Mountain chorus frogs are found only in the southern portion of the state, where they are extremely scarce during most of the year.  They emerge during the spring breeding season to call and breed, before disappearing again by early summer.

Soon, the egg masses we had discovered would start hatching, and the still pools and roadside ruts would be transformed into a bustling ecosystem of baby amphibians.  Carl and I had plans to return to some of these pools in the future to monitor their progress.  I always enjoy documenting the various life stages of Ohio's reptiles and amphibians.  Observing an organism during all parts of its life cycle is key to understanding its natural history.  There is no substitute for getting out into the woods and studying the real thing.

Until next time and keep living the field life,
Ryan B. Wagner

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.

Roads and Red Efts

The sun hadn't yet risen as we drove down 33 towards Charlene’s research site.  I looked out into the blackness and yawned.  The cloudy night sky was offset by the solid silhouettes of trees, giving the landscape two-tones of darkness.  Red taillights and reflective traffic cones emerged out of the fog as if from nowhere.  We turned off of the highway and instead of heading left towards Marcel’s site, Charlene turned right.  We parked along the side of the road just off of the exit and stepped out into the chilly morning air.  A light, blue outline of sky peeked above the trees and reflected against the wetland—the only hint that it was 6:30 in the morning and not midnight.  I shivered and rubbed my arm as my breath formed little clouds of water vapor. 

I had recently been hired by Charlene Hopkins, a PhD student at Ohio University studying the effects of roadways on amphibians.  Like Marcel Weigand’s project (which you can read about HERE), Charlene’s study is situated around the Nelsonville Bypass.  I met Charlene a few weeks into my freshman year at a research talk hosted by the OU Wildlife Club.  Volunteering with her project was my first formal introduction to ecological research.  The nature of Charlene’s study makes it perfect for someone like myself who is interested in seeing as much of Ohio’s biodiversity as possible.

A series of 4 pitfalls, each with a different front and top for amphibians to choose from.

Along the road, Charlene has constructed tarp fencing which directs and funnels amphibians and other small animals into a series of pitfall traps.  She has recorded more than 30 species of native reptiles and amphibians dead or alive at her site.  This includes eleven species of snakes, four species of turtles, nine species of frogs, and eight species of salamanders.  She has even found a few dead copperheads, but, “no live ones yet,” she informed me, sounding disappointed.  

Small mammals are another commonly trapped vertebrate.  In spring, Charlene puts a branch leaning up against the side of the pitfalls so that the shrews and voles can escape.  If there is no way out, mammals are at risk of dying of hypothermia when it rains.  Later in the season, when it is warm enough for the amphibians to start moving and breeding, shrews will kill anything trapped with them.  This includes snakes, frogs, salamanders, and even other shrews.  “They are like little zombies,” Charlene explained, “and will usually start by feeding on their prey’s brain.”

We donned headlamps and began our survey of the road for bodies.  Amphibian bodies, that is.  Each and every morning, weekday or weekend, rain or shine, Charlene heads out to her site to survey the road and check her traps.  Impressive, to say the least.  The Nelsonville Bypass is situated between a series of ephemeral wetlands and forested hillsides.  The ideal amphibian highway—now trampled by vehicles.  

The night before had been rainy; it wasn't long before we found our first casualty.  The newt appeared nothing more than an orange smudge on the pavement.  I suspect that even the most observant of herpetologists would have walked right past it.  Charlene didn't even flinch.  She nonchalantly waited for a car to pass, before walking out onto the road to scrape up the smeared body with her fingers.  She spread the gelatinous innards around, exposing some of the newt's defining skin spots.  “One red eft,” she said as she tossed the sludge into the grass. This might sound gross, but it is a reality of field research.  To work with live animals, you must also be able to work with dead ones.

A tiny red eft found on the road.  One of the few lucky survivors.

Red-spotted or eastern newts (Notophthalmus viridescens) exhibit a fascinating three-phase life-cycle which puts them at particular risk from roads.  The newts hatch from eggs laid in a wetland or vernal pool.  There, they grow as aquatic larvae, before emerging as tiny "red efts" in the fall.  The lizard-like efts are fully terrestrial, venturing away from the wetland and into the surrounding forested hillsides (often crossing roads in the process).  The efts are bright orange in coloration and are easily spotted wandering around the forest floor.  This boldness is due to the extremely potent tetrodotoxin excreted by glands in their skin.  The efts will grow for the next 2-3 years before returning to the wetland and metamorphosing into the adult stage (forcing them to cross roads again).  Fully grown newts are entirely aquatic, with a rudder-shaped tail used for swimming.  

An adult red-spotted newt.

We continued walking, scanning the road with our headlamps, trying to pick out the minute reflections from squished bodies.  On days when it has rained recently, the amphibians will be out in force.  We paused every few feet to remove entrails and record data.  During heavy migration events in the spring and fall, Charlene might see somewhere in the vicinity of 800 amphibians dead on the road in a single night.  It is truly shocking how much damage one road can do.  Seeing DOR (dead on road) animals is a reality for all herpers.  Reptiles and amphibians are slow and vulnerable, making them particularly susceptible to collisions with vehicles.  Charlene’s site isn't unique.  Countless roads throughout Ohio (and the world) account for untold numbers of amphibian deaths every year.  

Systematic surveys of amphibian road mortality are rare—for obvious reasons.  Prior to Charlene taking over the project, surveys had been done in cars.  Driving at any reasonable speed would mean missing nearly all of the tiny bodies.  It wasn't until she started walking the mile-long stretch of road every morning that the true impact was realized.  In order to prevent further road mortality, mitigation structures were clearly an imperative.

The Ohio Department of Transportation, which funds Charlene's research, has already installed two amphibian tunnels beneath the road.  Charlene's findings, however, have shown that not only are these tunnels built in the wrong places, but they are also poorly designed for amphibian use.  The bulk of amphibian movement occurs upstream of the tunnels.  Even if frogs and salamanders did have the option to utilize the structures, few would risk entering.  The tunnels are dark and narrow, and don't provide a view of the other side.  Would you want to venture into a huge, black cavern that might not even take you where you want to go? 

Using Charlene's findings, ODOT has recently finalized plans to build a new amphibian tunnel beneath the road.  This tunnel will take into account where most of the amphibians are crossing.  It will be much wider than the previously-built tunnels, as well as provide a level view to the other side.  The top will be grated, allowing sunlight to reach the soil-covered floor.  This tunnel will not eliminate road mortality for amphibians, but—if all goes as planned—it will greatly reduce it. An encouraging step towards ensuring the long-term survival of our native herpetofauna.