After installing my camera's software to one of the computers here in the science building computer lab, I can now give you photos of some of the beasties we found on Saturday. (I didn't take pictures of everything, so I'll have to wait for Lisa to put up her photos before I can show off the rest.)

I'll go ahead and get the sad part over with. I went back up there today and found a baby cottonmouth beaten to death along the stream that runs by the garden. I guess some people just can't resist...

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The one good thing to come out of this is that you can see the cool belly pattern that c-mouths have. It's kinda hard to get that shot when they're alive.

The best you can do is educate people and hope that they change their ways... and try to resist the temptation to beat them with your snake hook.

Anyway, here's some of the critters from Saturday...

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A caterpillar with wasp eggs laid on him. When they hatch, they'll eat him from the inside out. The life of an insect is rough.

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The green treefrogs like to spend their days resting on the fence that goes around the garden.

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If you believe in ring-neck subspecies, this is a Mississippi ring-necked snake. Regardless, it's pretty. The belly is yellow with black spots on it, which, unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of.

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We were talking about mole salamanders, and I said that I didn't think they came this far north. Nathan corrected me and then reached into the leaf litter and proved his point by randomly pulling one out. This was a new one for me, getting my Tennessee salamander life list up to 27 species.

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Isn't that gorgeous? This is my first copper-bellied water snake. I saw a couple more of them today, but I wasn't able to grab them before they slipped away into their holes.

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Northern cricket frogs are supposed to live all over Tennessee, but I'd never seen one before I moved to Murfreesboro. And then the ones in the Basin around M-boro are solid brown, so this green little guy was new to me. Isn't he pretty?

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He's climbing a tree. (He didn't get very far.)

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A rough green snake, demonstrating his camouflage.

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Spotted dusky salamander. This one's pretty dull, but some of the ones in the Smokies have pretty bold spots on their back and an orange face.

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...and this is what we were after. Success at last! I had no idea cottonmouths could be found only an hour away from Murfreesboro, and the Agkistrodon vipers (copperhead, cottonmouth, & the cantils) are my favorite snakes. So finding this little dude made me very happy :-)

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I'm angry! Back off! (See the "cotton mouth"?)