>> [Guitar plays] >> [Laughs] So this is a little American alligator, it's not a crocodile.

Okay, here we go.

Here's a couple more.

In fact, one of them just flew.

Wetlands are great places for reptiles and amphibians.

And one of the great parts about this wetland is that there are no fish in it.

A lot of the things that fish eat -- like frogs, toads, salamanders, things like that -- can't make it in a wetland like this if there are a bunch of fish around, but the first thing we want to do is, let's check some turtle traps and see what we got.

Okay, so here's how a turtle trap works.

Let's come down here a little bit closer and have a look at it.

This thing has a funnel on one end and it has bait -- canned sardines inside the trap.

And turtles swim into the funnel and then they get caught in this mesh and they can't figure out how to get out.

And this one's already been pre-baited with sardines.

So let's see what we got here.

Oh, look.

If you look in the back here, this is one we've got to be a little bit careful with handling.

This is a snapping turtle.

Not an alligator snapper, but a common snapper.

And so let's get him out of the trap and see if we can have a better look at him.

And you can -- it's pretty obvious which is the business end.

And so we're going to stay away.

I mean, they get the name "snapping turtle" because they have the ability to bite really, really hard.

So I'm going to get him from behind right here.

And he's gonna... [Laughs] You want to keep them away from your body.

Okay, so here is a snapper.

They also have pretty good claws, too.

Let me see if I can get that rope off of him.

I don't know.

Can you hear him?

You may be able to hear him hissing.

But they make kind of a loud hissing noise, as well.

And, boy, look at that hooked beak.

So this animal, if it bit you, it could probably give you a couple stitches.

So we're going to stay way away from his mouth.

Look at the tail.

He has this great dinosaur-looking tail.

And that's why a lot of people want to call these alligator snappers, because of the tail.

It's really kind of a misnomer, because the alligator snapper -- the true alligator snapper that lives in the Mississippi River drainages -- has a smooth tail.

And the common snapper has that alligator-looking tail.

So you can see how people get confused.

Snapping turtles have a lot of different ways to hurt you.

I mean, obviously, they're not out to hurt anybody, but if you pick one up or catch one in a trap, it's going to try and protect itself.

It can scratch.

It has spikes on the back of its shell.

Even the tail's sharp and, of course, it has the ability to bite.

But you know what?

They're fabulous animals.

It's really neat having them around.

They're prehistoric-looking.

They're not out to hurt anybody.

They're just making a living like any other animal.

Okay, here's another trap.

Let's see what we got in this one.

Let's see if I can sneak down without going in over my head.

There's a deep hole right in here that I'm trying to avoid.

[Laughs] Not a turtle in this one, but definitely a reptile.

Let's see if we can get this guy up on the bank here so we can get a handle on him.

Obviously, this is not a big one.

This is a little tyke.

But he still can bite pretty hard, so we're going to be careful of him.

See if I can pull him out without getting bit.

He's got his tail wrapped around something.

[Laughs] Okay, you can see.

So this is a little American alligator.

It's not a crocodile.

The only thing we have in South Carolina is American alligators.

And you notice... you know, he looks like a regular alligator, only smaller.

And at this size, they still have sort of a pattern left to them.

As adults, they get kind of a dark gray or black color.

But, boy, when you talk about an alligator, you're talking about -- you know, in nature you talk about form following function, and this is a good example of it.

And if you look at this back foot, look at the webbing on this thing.

I mean, this is an aquatic animal, so it has webbed feet.

He's streamlined like a torpedo.

He has these things on the back, these bony plates called osteoderms, that protect him.

But they also help to take sunlight and transfer it to the rest of the animal to help warm it up, to help it to thermoregulate.

He has a strong tail for propulsion.

Of course, he has strong jaws.

If I can get him to open up a little bit.

And even at this size, he can bite really hard.

Very sharp teeth, and very strong pressure.

Look where his eyes are mounted.

On top of his head so he can swim with just his eyes exposed, and his nostrils, too, so he can breathe.

Here's another trap.

I'm going to pull this up and see if there's something in it.

And nada.

So there's nothing in this one.

Even the delicious allure of sardines -- In fact, it looks like the can's partially open.

Um, so nothing in this trap.

I'll tell you, you know, we set these traps because a lot of reptiles and amphibians are pretty secretive.

So they're going to -- they're hard to just walk up on.

So if you set a trap, you have a much better chance of seeing one in one of these habitats.

So we'll keep checking.

Next thing we're going to check is some minnow traps.

And these are the very same minnow traps that are used by fishermen to catch mud minnows and other bait for saltwater fishing.

But we're using them in freshwater, and what we're trying to do is catch salamanders and frogs and things like that.

So let's see what we got.

Oh, there's lots of activity in here, but not really what we were looking for.

There are no salamanders, there are no frogs.

But what I see is something that's potentially not real good for amphibians, and that's redfin pickerel.

And these really are the great white sharks of these little wetlands.

They're extremely predacious.

Some people call these jackfish or pickerel or pikes.

But this particular one is called a redfin pickerel.

And they don't get very big, but, boy, they eat a lot of things, including frogs and salamanders, and things like that.

Let's check another minnow trap.

And there's something.

Oh, it's not -- it's not what I thought of at first.

This is really cool.

This is an animal that eats crayfish.

And we've caught a lot of crayfish in these traps so I'm not surprised.

And it is called a glossy crayfish snake.

And I had a hunch these might be here.

I found a hatchling in a drift fence near here.

But this is the first young adult I've seen.

And as you can see, it's not a very big snake.

And they get a little bigger than this, but not much.

So I'm just having a look at this.

As I said, this is only the second one I know of being found in this county, although there may be one that's recorded that I don't know about.

But having a look at this, this is a young adult male.

And I can tell it's a male because if I look at the tail, I can tell that the tail's very long and it's sort of wide at the base.

And that's because the male reproductive organs fit into the base of the tail right here.

And so that's how I can tell.

We have a whole bunch of these to check, so here's another one.

And...neat snake here.

This is one that's really, really common, and it's going to be very common in a wetland like this.

And the first thing I'm going to do is have a close look at it, make sure that's it's not a cottonmouth, which it's not.

Because cottonmouths, or water moccasins, live in the same wetland, and they might go in one of these traps, as well.

But I can have a look at this and realize that it is definitely not a cottonmouth.

In fact, let me see if I can get it out.

They do bite, but they're not venomous.

And this is, in fact, a water snake.

And it's called a banded water snake, 'cause it has these nice bands on it.

There's a couple ways I can tell.

First of all, it's fairly slender.

A cottonmouth would be much heavier bodied, and a cottonmouth would have a great big head, whereas this thing has a relatively narrow head.

Here's a trap to check.

Let's see what we got in this one.

Oh, neat.

This is really a cool animal.

It's one called an amphiuma.

And this is going to be kind of hard to look at, so I think what I'll do is put him in a Ziploc bag.

This is actually not -- it looks a lot like an eel, but it's actually a salamander.

So it is an amphibian.

And it's called a two-toed amphiuma.

May be a little bit hard to see.

And the legs are so small, you can't even see them unless you look very, very close.

These things are really common in sort of muddy, weed-choked wetlands in this county, and we see lots of them.

And they get quite big.

Unfortunately, this is a little guy.

I was kind of hoping to catch a great big one.

But these get almost three-feet-long, and probably this big around or so.

I mean, they can be massive.

And the little guys, believe it or not, can bite.

I mean, they're not going to attack anybody, but if you pick one up, they can bite pretty hard.

Let's see if we can get him out of the bag and hold him.

This one's kind of small so I don't think he's going to bite.

He's not big enough to do much damage if he does.

Let me kind of squat down here a little bit.

He's going to be kind of hard to hang onto, but I'm going to do my best.

You see, he's really, really slimy, and he's super-hard to hold onto.

Little, tiny front legs.

He has a pretty big mouth, actually.

Eats small crayfish, aquatic insects, and all sorts of things like that.

But he's really slimy and really hard to hang onto.

But fabulous little animal.

And as I said, very common.

But you'd never see it.

Because you could spend your whole life in Beaufort County and never see one of these because they live in these weed-choked wetlands and, you know, a lot of places that, you know, where we don't spend a lot of time.

Let's go ahead and let him go.

Let him swim off a little bit.

That's why you never see them.

[Laughs] 'Cause that's where they spend all their time, is down in the muck.

Okay, we got one more turtle trap to check.

Let's see what we got in this one.

We got a couple things here.

Couple different kinds of turtles.

This is one that I was expecting to catch in this wetland.

Okay, I'm going to spin this around.

And these are not very big ones.

Both of these species get much, much bigger than this.

I'm going to get just one of these at a time.

Let's start with this little guy.

And this first one -- let me rinse him off a little bit -- is a young slider turtle.

So this is a yellow-bellied slider.

You can see how he's got that neat blotch on the side of the head.

And this one's probably -- it'd be hard to tell for sure -- but it's probably just three or four years old.

It could be a little bit older than that.

It's kind of difficult to age turtles when they're this size, but I can kind of get a rough idea, because each one of these annuli, or growth rings, represents a year of growth.

So this guy looks -- he's 1, 2 -- he's at least 3, and maybe 4 or 5.

It's hard to know for sure, but these are kind of like tree rings, and you can get a pretty good idea how old a turtle is by looking at these growth rings.

Turtles live a long time.

A turtle can live to 50 or 60 years.

And this particular one has a long life ahead of him.

Really common turtle.

If you see a turtle, you know, in a wetland, at a golf course or a pond in town or something, chances are it's a yellow-bellied slider.

Okay, well, let's let this guy go back into the pond now that we've had a good look at him.

Okay, this next turtle's one of my absolute favorites.

This is called a chicken turtle, and I'm going to show you why.

Let's see if I can get my hand in the trap here.

And chicken turtles are a little less common, although there are quite a few of them in the lowcountry here.

I'm going to see if I can pull some of these weeds out of his face.

But a couple neat things about chicken turtles.

One is they have striped pants.

This looks to be a...

It looks like it's a young female.

It's a little bit hard to tell.

This one isn't quite mature yet.

These don't have the long claws that the yellow-belied sliders do, so you can't use that to determine, but you can sometimes look at the tail.

Males have a much longer tail than females do.

And one other thing about chicken turtles -- Let me see if I can get him to let me do this.

Okay, I'm going to try and pull his neck out a little bit.

And you can see, he has this spectacularly long neck -- much longer than that yellow-belied slider.

And I know it looks like I'm stretching his neck.

It looks really brutal, but all I'm doing is just extending the neck to the full length.

And chicken turtles will stick their head, you know, in crevices and kind of in weeds and things, and that's their way of foraging and catching dragonfly larvae, all sorts of things like that, some spiders.

So I'm going to let him pull back in.

You can see he's just fine.

But he doesn't look like he's going to stick his head out again.

So let's go ahead and let this little guy go, too.

The salt marsh is not a particularly good place for reptiles and amphibians, but there are a few really hardy species that make their home here.

Let's see what we can find.

Okay, I think I see one of the species that I was hoping to see here.

See if we can get a better look at him.

He may wiggle.

You can see him wiggling a little bit.

This is actually called -- you're probably thinking to yourself, this is a snake.

But believe it or not, it's a lizard.

It's a legless lizard, or glass lizard.

And there are a couple ways we know.

First of all, it has ear openings.

These little holes right here are ear openings -- external ear openings.

It also has eyelids.

It has the ability to shut its eyes.

Snakes don't have either of those two things.

And even more importantly, legless lizards have the ability to drop the tail, and from here down is all tail, and if I was to handle this guy too roughly, that tail might break right off.

In fact, sometimes they break into several pieces.

And that's where they get the name "glass lizard."

Besides that, don't they look a little bit like porcelain?

Okay, I didn't just catch this terrapin.

This is one that actually came from our nature center.

But this is the kind of habitat that terrapins live in.

They like saltwater.

They like salt marsh.

And the reason for that is a lot of the things that they eat live here.

Things like periwinkle snails, things like fiddler crabs, and all sorts of other salt marsh treats.

And they live in the salt marsh.

In fact, it's the only turtle in the world that lives exclusively in the salt marsh.

This is arguably one of the most beautiful turtles in the world.

I mean, you see this diamond-back pattern that he has?

In fact, it's called a diamondback terrapin.

And also, look at that beautiful sort of blue-gray skin.

Terrapins are actually protected in the state of South Carolina.

They're protected from commercial collecting.

One of the real hazards that these guys run into, though, is crab traps.

And not so much commercial crabbing, but more recreational crab traps.

The trap that someone puts out, and leaves out, and forgets about for a few days.

And unfortunately, these guys swim into the trap to eat the crabs, or whatever else is in there, and they get caught underneath the water.

And because they're reptiles, they have to breathe air, and unfortunately, they drown.

So it's a real shame.

This is an animal that's beautiful.

I mean, it has a right to be here, and it's part of Beaufort County.

Grassy fields like this are really great places for reptiles and amphibians.

But as I said earlier, reptiles and amphibians -- both groups are very secretive animals.

They spend a lot of their time hiding.

But if we look very, very closely, right here on this vertical piece of grass, you can see a little frog -- a tree frog.

And that tells us a couple things.

One is, it tells us that this area floods occasionally, that it gets wet with fresh water.

Let's see if I can get a better look at him and we'll decide what kind he is.

Oh, this is a little guy.

And it appears to be a young, green tree frog.

Let me see if I can... [Laughs] Had to be a little bit quicker.

Now we'll be really gentle with this little guy.

And this is a very, very small green tree frog.

And I can tell that because there's a line that runs all the way on the lip, and then all the way down to the end of the body.

Gorgeous little tree frog.

So this guy is probably going to get about three or four times this size.

And at this size, he's got to hide, and that's why we saw him sitting on that piece of grass vertically, 'cause that helps him to kind of blend in.

Could be this line even helps him to be cryptic, too.

Now, this is called a tree frog, and we know that because it has little suction cups -- toe discs.

And so I'm going to see if I can real carefully show you this.

See how his little toe pads can kind of stick to my finger?

And that's the same thing that allows him to stick to the trunk of a tree, or possibly to a leaf or a branch.

Here's a green anole.

Looks like it's probably a male by size.

Let me see if I can get a -- get a shot on him.

Okay, and here, let's get a good look at this guy.

This is one of the neatest little lizards.

And they're so common.

I think we have a tendency really to take them for granted.

And I can tell this is a male.

And one of the ways I can tell is because of this dewlap.

He has a great big dewlap.

And that's one that he uses to signal other males and females.

In fact, he wants to attract females and he wants to tell other males to stay out of his territory.

And so what he'll do is, he'll actually do pushups.

He'll spread that dewlap out to advertise for females and also to run males off.

And he has a territory.

And his territory may be this tree and this whole tree line down to the water, and basically this whole area.

And he may have several females that he's kind of keeping a watch over.

And if another male comes into his territory, boy, he's going to fight.

Okay, let's let this little guy go, and go back to his territory.

So we have a lot of snakes in Beaufort County.

The majority of them are nonvenomous species.

But we do have venomous species.

And this is an animal from our nature center, and I just wanted to show you guys how incredibly cryptic these animals are.

Uh, this is a canebrake rattlesnake.

And canebrake rattlesnakes are beautifully designed to blend in with the forest floor.

And you can see this guy, unless you're looking right at him, you can't even tell that he's there.

Camouflage or cryptic coloration not only protects him, but it also allows him to get closer to his prey.

If he sits coiled up and is very well hidden, a mouse might walk right up to him and not even realize he's there until it's too late.

Okay, it looks like I'm pretty close to this snake -- and actually I am -- but I'm well out of striking range.

So this snake can strike about a third to two-thirds of his body length, and I'm well out of that range.

Notice a couple things.

This is a rattlesnake -- a canebrake rattlesnake.

And canebrakes have a rattle.

They don't always use it.

Many times I've walked up on canebrake rattlesnake in the field, and they didn't even vibrate their tail, so you couldn't hear rattling at all.

Beautiful.

You can see this kind of rusty stripe that's characteristic of this particular group and these neat chevrons radiating out from that.

It is a venomous snake, and there's a couple ways we can tell that.

One is its head is sort of triangular-shaped.

The venom glands are right in the base of the head.

And he has big, folding front fangs that sort of go up to the roof of the mouth.

And when he bites, they kind of flip into position, and this allows him to bite a squirrel or a mouse, or anything that he wants to eat.

And here's the problem -- I mean, this snake really has an ecological purpose here.

It eats a lot of harmful, pesky rodents, and it's just part of the ecology of Beaufort County.

And sure, it can hurt us, but that doesn't mean it should be destroyed.

I mean, it's part of nature around here, and it has a right to be here the same way we do.

And besides, it's just an absolutely fabulous animal.

If you come across a venomous snake in Beaufort County, there's a good chance it's going to be a copperhead.

Copperheads are really, really common.

They're really cryptic, too, and they blend in beautifully in the leaf litter.

It's a pretty good place to find one, coiled up in the base of a tree like this.

And they eat frogs and lizards, and even small mammals.

Uh, the good news about copperheads is it's probably the least dangerous of our venomous snakes.

That being said, the bite from a copperhead needs serious medical attention, and it can be very, very dangerous.

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and pick this guy up, so we can get a better look at him.

These are beautiful snakes.

And that same cryptic coloration that makes them blend in so well really stands out against this solid background.

This is a close relative of the cottonmouth or water moccasin.

In fact, this one is a member of the same genus.

The best way to deal with copperheads if you encounter one is to just leave it alone.

If you try and kill it or try and catch it, you may well get bitten by one.

Um, copperheads probably are responsible for more venomous snakebites than any other species in the United Stakes, so people do get bit by them.

And one thing I can guarantee -- if you pick one up, you got a real good chance of being bitten by it.

Okay, so we're on the edge of a wetland here.

In fact, this is an ecotone, or an edge.

And there's sort of higher, drier ground up here, and then if you look down through the trees, you'll see there's sort of an opening.

You also see a little bit of red, which tells me that there's a wetland down here.

That's maple trees, probably, or trees that are just kind of changing color.

But look how it drops off.

So we're kind of in a transition zone between the uplands and the wetlands.

So what we want to do is figure out what types of reptiles and amphibians use this habitat.

And so we use a drift fence.

And this is a drift fence.

This particular one's about 400 feet long, and it sticks about a foot out of the ground, and then about 8 to 10 inches underground.

And animals walk along the fence, walk along through the habitat, they run into the fence.

So they walk along the fence and come all the way down here until they fall into a bucket.

And they're temporarily caught in the bucket so we can come along, check the buckets, see what we've caught, measure the animals, mark them, do whatever we want to, and then let them go on the opposite side of the fence.

Let's check some buckets and see what we got.

Oh, here's something.

And see, this is an animal that was obviously hopping along the fence, and then fell in the bucket.

And it's a southern toad.

Now, first thing I look for -- 'cause I want to know what kind of toad this is.

And the first thing I notice is these big parotoid glands.

And these glands actually exude a potion called bufotoxin.

And if animals were to grab this toad and try and eat it, poison, bufotoxin, would come out of these little parotoid glands and potentially poison the animal that's trying to eat this toad.

And the other thing I notice is he has little cranial nobs and then little cranial crests right along his head.

And that's what I use as a diagnostic to differentiate between other toads.

So this is really the only toad like this we have around here.

Called a southern toad.

Look at him.

[Laughs] That's kind of a cute little toad.

Okay, let's go check another bucket.

Let's see what we got.

Oh, this is one that I was hoping to find.

And this is an animal that -- I don't know if you can see this.

This is an example of an animal that doesn't live in the wetland the whole time.

But what it does is it uses the wetland for reproduction.

So let me get him out and get a good look at him.

So this is called a marbled salamander.

And marbled salamanders spend the majority of their lives in the areas around wetlands.

And what they do is move down in the wetlands to reproduce, to lay their eggs.

And so this one, I'm going to see what sex it is.

Have a look at it.

Looks like -- it appears to be a female.

And the females are a little more drab.

The males tend to have much more contrast and tend to be a little bit more vivid.

And these guys spend most of their lives underground, so we don't see them very often, so something like a drift fence gives us an opportunity to see what secretive animals might live in this habitat.

Good example of what we call hidden biodiversity.

So we have lots and lots of things living here.

We just don't see them very often.

Okay, we're headed down towards the end of the fence.

Let's see what we got in these last couple buckets.

Oh, here's something that's kind of neat.

And I'm going to reach in and get this guy out.

And he's running around the inside of the bucket.

[Laughs] I'm going to see if I can catch him without...there we go.

And this is -- it looks kind of like a salamander, but it's actually a lizard.

It's a skink.

And skinks are lizards -- Scincidae is a family of lizards with sort of small, shiny scales.

And I can already tell that this is a big male.

And if you look at his head, he's got a big, wide head, and very strong jaws.

But this particular one is called a broadhead skink.

And that's the only one of our skinks that gets quite this big.

Ouch!

Boy, they pinch hard.

[Laughs] And you can see this guy's... he really pinches hard.

And they're called broadhead skinks because they have great big muscles, and during the breeding season, males will get just this bright orange head, and if they see another male in their territory, they'll fight.

And these are spectacular fights with these guys grabbing each other's jaws and flinging each other, you know, short distances and stuff.

And you can probably look inside and just see how much muscle there is on the inside of those jaws.

This guy's missing the very tip of the tail, so it could be a predator grabbed it, or maybe even another skink bit the tip of the tail off.

But he'll grow this back.

Like other lizards, he can regenerate portions of his tail, and so he'll grow the rest of that back, probably.

All right, here's a snake that we often associate with wetlands.

And this is one that eats a lot of things that live around wetlands.

It's called a king snake.

And king snakes' claim to fame is that they can kill and eat venomous snakes.

They can eat rattlesnakes, they can eat copperheads.

And they're at least partially and maybe completely immune to the venom of pit vipers.

At least the eastern kings like this one are.

And this guy's crawling along the fence.

Obviously, he wouldn't get caught in the bucket.

He could crawl right out.

But a lot of times what you find with these drift fences is things like king snakes will just be crawling through the forest, they hit the fence, and they get kind of guided.

So it looks like this guy's just crawling along the fence.

Sometimes they'll even crawl along and look and see if there are frogs and other things to eat in the buckets.

So let's see if we can pick this guy up and get a good look at him.

And king snakes bite sometimes, too, but again, they're nonvenomous.

King snakes love to eat turtle eggs, too.

It's one of their favorite foods, and so that's another reason that they live around wetlands.

We had a great field trip today.

We saw an awful lot of really neat neat things.

One of the great things here is the diversity of life, and what we need to do is realize what we have and do anything we can to take care of it.

Thank you very much for joining us.