Notes from the field

Indigo Field Notes

Close Encounters With Snakes – Memoirs of a Herpetologist

Oct 26, 2020

Close Encounters With Snakes – Memoirs of a Herpetologist. Over the years I have been blessed with some incredible animal encounters, and many of them have been with snakes.

When Identifying Coral Snakes

Aug 7, 2020

When Identifying Coral Snakes When identifying coral snakes we often think of ‘red to black venom lack, red to yellow kill a fellow’. This...

Notes from the field

A journey from ponds to jungles!

Field Notes Revisited: I am fortunate to spend a significant portion of the year in the tropics surveying the forests of Guatemala for amphibians and reptiles. This is a dream come true for me. While there is a huge need for conservation work in tropical regions, it...

Largest sea turtle release on record for Guatemala

Largest sea turtle release on record for Guatemala December 2019 saw the largest release of sea turtles known in Guatemala. During the first week of December 16,643 baby olive ridley sea turtles were released on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala. The endangered turtles...

Searching for sea turtles on the Pacific Coast

Sea turtles are elusive creatures that spend most of their lives at sea. Only the females return to land to lay their eggs, and although olive ridley turtles visit the beaches of the Pacific Coast of Guatemala almost year round, it is difficult to predict where and...

Oxyrhopus petolarius turns up for dinner at Las Guacamayas

While waiting for our dinner last night this false-coral calico snake (Oxyrhopus petolarius) turned up outside the dining room. I have not seen one for a few years now. It was one our target species during the El Niño Biodiveristy Assessment. This is the first one I...