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CHAPTER 10 The Fu.tu.re of Reptiles and Amphibians: Can We Find a Hiding Place, Too? The beam from my headlight picked up the yellow chin, held aloof and arrogant above the black swamp mud. Cottonmouth moccasins either know they are poisonous or at least know they are special in some way-because every one you see, whether coiled on a rotting cypress stump or crossing a logging road through a southern swamp, holds its head up, proudly. I always say that you're safer from cottonmouths in the swamp at night (with a light) than in the day. Their chins reflect even the dimmest light and make them easy to spot. We caught this one by hand as we always do and put it into the sack with the other two. I argue with certain other herpetologists about whether it's safer to pick up snakes by hand than mess around with snake tongs. You lose a few snakes with tongs, either by injuring them or letting them escape. Hand holding a pit viper behind the head, finger and thumb firmly pushed against the rear portion of the poison glands, is the sure way. I always use my left hand, though, to play safe. Catching cottonmouths is a pretty straightforward endeavor for a snake collector down South. They're fairly predictable about the habitats in which you might find them, the seasons and times of day they're likely to be active, and the type of behavior they're going to display. That night, my knowledge of cottonmouths revealed the depth of my (and other people's) ignorance about a particular environment-for after catching the three cottonmouths in the Savannah River swamp, we drove to another site, a place that I had assumed would be excellent for finding plenty of cottonmouths and nonpoisonous water snakes. All of us in the jeep that night, as we drove out of the swamp, considered ourselves true ecologists-involved in, dedicated to, immersed in the study of the environment. And because we were 134 • The Future also herpetologists we assumed that we knew a lot about snakes, especially poisonous cottonmouths and harmless water snakes. We drove with a mission, from the swamp to the reservoir, ready to make a major haul along the margins of the big lake. Any southern herpetologist knows you can catch snakes easily from a boat if you patrol the banks of a southern reservoir at night. We enjoyed the bliss of our ignorance during the fifteen-minute jeep ride. The 2lh-hour boat ride that followed was one of the most disappointing field trips, from the standpoint of snake collecting, that I have taken. No one knew much about the ecology of the Par Pond reservoir in 1968. What is today the most-studied thermal reservoir in the world was a black box of environmental mystery to the local ecologists at that time. Comparatively few trips had been made onto the lake by biologists. Most sampling had been done by limnologists or health physicists taking water samples. How was I to know that Par Pond's snakes were different from those anywhere else I had been? Surely any herpetologist who worked with snakes would have expected to find them along the banks of Par Pond that night. The reactor was on, pouring millions of gallons of unmercifully hot water into the far end ofthe reservoir, a mile away. By the time the waters reached midlake they had cooled considerably, but they elevated the upper reaches of the reservoir a few degrees above normal temperatures-not a lethal level, but a mild, lukewarm bath. At that time I thought any reptile would be too impressed to leave. We drifted through the mist, using the outboard along the long, open shores and paddling back into the coves. The shifting headlight beams reminded one of a prison escape as we searched the water-land interface, the open water, the overhanging branches, and the shore for cottonmouths or water snakes. None was to be found. We continued, covering unexplored parts of the reservoir. Dangling a hand overboard I could feel the thermal change as we moved from warm to cool and back. I was most impressed. Not a snake in two and a half hours! A record for a warm spring night in South Carolina. I felt wiser as we pulled away in the jeep from the shoreline area we defined as a boat landing. Driving back to the lab...

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