Today was the first day that we did not have to run around everywhere trying to get things done. Unfortunately we did not find any mice and we only found an anolis (Anolis carolinensis), which was not in any of our traps. But we did find a cotton rat (Neotoma floridana) this morning. It managed to get into a Sherman trap, which it barely fits into. Russ and Kaety we able to maneuver her out of the trap by collapsing the cage while everything was in a bag. The hold to pin down a mouse or rat is typically to grab the tail, which is what we did. Then the outer layer of skin of the tail slid off the bone. Surprisingly she did not bleed nearly as much as you would expect. Once we had her in a good hold she calmed down and did not seem too distraught. Like all the other mammals we caught there were no ticks as far as we could tell. The anolis we caught also had no ticks but this species is not known for carrying ticks. It rained last night so the amphibians came out. We caught 15 frogs and toads, most were the southern leopard frog (Rana utricularia) and we also had pickerel frogs (Rana palustris), which are morphologically extremely similar. Our two biggest toads were the Southern toad (Bufo terrestris) and the Woodhouse’s toad (Bufo woodhousei woodhousei). Both of these toads were as big as my palm. I never thought I would counting warts on a toads to id what species it is but they were the cutest toads.
The first picture is of an Anolis.
The second picture is of the rat being checked for ticks.
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