Mark and I went and hiked the Seven Hollows Trail on Petit Jean earlier today. We were thinking it would be nice and cool with all the clouds and threats of rain. Well, fortunately for us (*sarcasm*), the sun decided to stay out the whole time we were exposed and it only really became cloudy after we finished the grueling trek. But it wasn't all for naught!

About two miles into the hike, we came into a clearing with a lot of exposed bedrock, and suddenly something bluish green caught my eye.

I couldn't believe it, and maybe I'm getting a little too excited over this, but a COLLARED LIZARD!!! I didn't even know they had such bright colors. This thing just really blew me away. Best yet, he seemed completely unconcerned as Mark made his way around one side to take pictures while I approached slowly from the other to get a better look. If you can believe it, he only lightly skittered away maybe a whole 3' when my hand came within an easy 4" of him. This was just a spectacular find, and one I never would've expected. I had heard collareds lived on Petit Jean, but my field herping luck is just generally so terrible it wouldn't matter anyway.

A little later, as we made the turn into the last half of the hike, we ran across another very unexpected animal.

Yes, that's a cottonmouth on Petit Jean Mt. Odd eh? Even stranger is that we ran across this big guy/gal in roughly the same area we came across a common snapper a few years ago. There's a small creek that flows through the gully and I guess it's just enough to attract these aquatic denizens.

The rest of the trip was punctuated with more Sceloporous than I can count, one anole, several skinks, and even a 4'+ black ratsnake. That ratsnake, by the way, was the first of the year surprisingly. I was hoping to see an atrox or two, and we certainly poked around in enough dry, rocky, brushy habitat in the higher elevations to turn up one, but that kind of luck was not to be had. Oh well, it was a productive trip nonetheless.