Went herping with another professor at the college where I teach yesterday. Actually, our purpose was to set some live traps for his zoology class. He was borrowing my minnow traps. Since last week, I feel like everyone wants my minnow traps. Actually, I find myself catapulted into popularity among the biology department. Everyone is asking, what's my secret? Lifetime herpers are wondering, how'd I pull a stunt like that? Everyone loves me. I can't go into the woods anymore without the biology paparazzi thronging to every stone I overturn. Nigel Marven called me the other day and asked for an autograph. David Attenborough asked me to join him for tea.
But I exaggerate.
It all started on Friday, November 6. A pair of great horned owls were singing over the ponds at West Campus on the shores of Perdido Bay. Like many Fridays, I chucked my minnow trap into the cold glassy waters and watched it sink into the dark. A beaver slapped its tail.
And then I bought a pizza and took my sister to the wharf, but that's another story.
Bright and early the next morning I drove out to the pond alone. At 6am, the roads were shrouded in fog and I pulled my sweater up around my neck and my hat down over my ears. I bounced my minivan off the road through the grass to were my trap was set. I jumped out and sleepily pulled it from the water. I was both excited and intrigued when I saw the large, eel-like creature inside. Several things crossed my mind: snake, eel, salamander? It was, indeed, a salamander, but far from average. At almost two feet long, the Amphiuma is among the largest of the aquatic salamanders. And its legs are so small that it moves more like a snake than a salamander, especially on land.
Funny thing about amphiumas. Some have three toes, some have two, and a few have just one on each foot. This one had two. That makes it Amphiuma means, the two-toed amphiuma.
A not so funny thing about amphiumas. They can bite cruelly. Lock their little teeth into the skin and then twist. Usually peals the skin right off and stitches are in order. But I didn't know that at the time so I handled it liberally. Thankfully, I was never bitten. Only coated in the slime the amphiuma exudes from its body.
Finding an amphiuma to a herper is like finding sasquatch to an anthropologist. We think of them often, but we don't really take the thought seriously. But there it was, real as life, in my minnow trap. I took it out and put it in a bucket (along with a sunfish I'd caught in the same trap). After texting and calling everyone I could think of, sending pictures and bragging disproportionately, I released it back were I found it. What a profound feeling. Releasing a dream after only fifteen minutes of contact. Like baling liquid gold out of a sinking ship.
So back to yesterday, I've got high hopes that we'll have something in my traps. But first, I have to take this call from Jeff Corwin. I'll probably set the traps next weekend if you want to come. As long as you don't mind Austin Stevens coming along for the ride. If you come looking for me, I'll be in the center of the crowd, were all the lights are flashing. Get my good side.
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