Reptiles

There is another type of Anole in the area.  They're brown all of the time, though they can change the shade of brown a bit.  They usually have some type of pattern on their backs, and sometimes a crest on the back of their heads.  They're called Brown Anoles (Anolis sagrei), and they are an invader from the Caribbean that are starting to push out our native Green Anoles.

This is a Little Brown Skink (Scincella lateralis).  Skinks are a type of lizard, which makes them reptiles, but a lot of people mistake them for amphibians, because their shiny tiny scales look a little like wet skin.  People also mistake them for snakes, because it's hard to see their tiny legs whenever they go shooting along the forest floor.  

This is a Red Eared Slider (Chrysemys scripta) that we named Erik (as in Erik the Red, a famous Viking).  He's a young fellow, only a little bigger than a silver dollar.  We went out to our little five-foot-diameter pond one day and there he was, swimming around- we have no idea how he got there.  He hung around for a couple of months, but after a raccoon tore the pond up a bit we never saw Erik again.  Hopefully he avoided the raccoon and moved on to safer waters. 

At the freshwater pond near our school I can often see Broad Banded Water Snakes (Nerodia fasciata) such as this one.

The top picture is a Marsh Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi limnetes), and the bottom is a Texas Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi texana).  Notice the different facial markings (a line behind the eye in the first one, and a spot under the eye in the second) identifying them as separate Brown Snake subspecies.  

The previous two snakes (Broad Banded Water Snake and Gulf Salt Marsh Snake) have been known to interbreed, and I believe that this photograph shows the offspring from such a pairing.  Notice how its markings show hints of both parents.

This is a Western Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta).  They eat a lot of rodents, as the common name suggests, but they also like climbing trees to go after birds.  This one was about four feet long, and they do get longer.

This is a Plain-Bellied Water Snake (Nerodia erythrogaster), another species that I've seen at the pond near the school.  This particular one I rescued from where it had wandered indoors looking for food.  If you look closely you can see the spots down its back that gives the species the earlier name of Blotched Water Snake.

If you see a long, thin, striped snake it's probably a Gulf Coast Ribbon Snake (Thamnophis proximus orarius) like this one.  They love to eat amphibians and crustaceans and are often found around water, though they're not technically water snakes.  When they are moving the stripes make it hard for attacking predators to judge speed, and it helps them to blend in amidst twigs and pine needles (like the ones littering the ground along the trails by the school, where this picture was taken).

This is another snake seen in the pond near the school.  I had a hard time getting a photo of it, because the camera kept focusing on the treetops reflected in the water.  I'm still not sure what it is, but my best guess is that it's an Eastern Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) with an unusual pattern variation.

Many people identify any water snake as a venomous Cottonmouth, but in my experience they are almost always seeing some other, nonvenomous species.  This, however, is a true Cottonmouth, Agkistrodon piscivorous leucostoma (often called a Water Moccasin by Texans, though in other parts of North America that common name is used for other, nonvenomous water snakes as well).  

Here is a Southern Copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix controtrix).  It was basking in the street at the Houston Arboretum, which is why I noticed it.  With that wonderful camouflage I probably never would have seen it if it was in dried leaves.  That's why this venomous snake bites more people than any other in the U.S.- it's not that it's particularly aggressive, it's that people don't see it until they are close enough that the snake feels threatened and strikes.  Fortunately the venom isn't deadly (just very painful).