Pos­ing for the cam­era at 3 AM.

Desert band­ed geck­os are unusu­al as geck­os go, whose large, bul­bous eyes gen­er­al­ly muster only unblink­ing stares.  But the noc­tur­nal Coleonyx var­ie­ga­tus var­ie­ga­tus, with their mov­able eye­lids (and charm­ing lit­tle squeaks) make them per­fect­ly qual­i­fied to audi­tion for cer­tain late-night insur­ance com­mer­cials. Tal­ent scouts will have to look pret­ty hard to find them, though. They wear some of the best cam­ou­flage out there, blend­ing into the desert floor to give them ultra-stealth abil­i­ty when brave­ly hunt­ing spi­ders and insects, like baby scorpions.

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A lucky sidewinder is nar­row­ly missed by the wheel…

Anza-Bor­re­go’s night shift fea­tures ani­mals that are phys­i­cal­ly small­er than their coun­ter­parts in East San Diego Coun­ty’s Pacif­ic Crest moun­tains only a few miles to the west. The sidewinder rat­tlesnake, Cro­talus cerastes, as one exam­ple, at an aver­age adult length of about 24″, weighs in at less than a half pound and is approx­i­mate­ly half-scale (in length) of the west­ern dia­mond­back and the red dia­mond­back rattlesnakes.

Three oth­er snakes work­ing the Anza-Bor­rego night shift, seen in the wee hours of the July 4 hol­i­day, were the shov­el-nosed, the leaf-nosed, and the glossy. The first two are small species, bet­ter suit­ed to sur­vive with less­er food sources than their moun­tain and coastal counterparts.

A Col­orado Desert shov­el-nosed snake forages.

The Col­orado Desert shov­eled-nosed snake, Chion­ac­tis occip­i­tal­is annu­la­ta, is an ele­gant, liv­ing neck­lace that deserves a more ele­gant name. They’re tiny, adults are only 11–17 inch­es long. Be that as it may, they dive forth­right­ly into the sand in search of pro­tec­tion, and food. It is not so far from the truth that these snakes actu­al­ly swim in fine gran­u­lar sand, and in the same sense dive for prey below the sur­face. Their body con­tours and smooth scales allow very fast trav­el on the pul­ver­ized sand of desert roads, where they may be observ­able with high­er fre­quen­cy and, serendip­i­tous­ly,  more con­ve­nient­ly by humans study­ing their noc­tur­nal behav­ior.

A spe­cial note: Californiaherps.com is an excel­lent web­site for all Cal­i­for­nia rep­tiles and amphib­ians, in fact the high­ly rec­om­mend­ed go-to site for the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of any­thing you’re not sure of—herpetologically that is—including such ques­tions as what-is-that-sub­species-any­way? The pho­to libraries are exten­sive, fea­tur­ing some of the best rep­tile images any­where, with inter­pre­tive doc­u­men­ta­tion from aca­d­e­m­ic, pro­fes­sion­al and ama­teur her­petol­o­gists who take great care in the dis­sem­i­na­tion of cor­rect information.

Anoth­er great noc­tur­nal sand-swimmer.

The spot­ted leaf-nosed snake, Phyl­lorhynchus decur­ta­tus, is a not-so-friend­ly preda­tor of the band­ed gecko. They eat small lizards, lizard eggs and snake eggs. A small snake reach­ing only 12″-20″ in length, they hang out at the local desert road­side pri­mar­i­ly in the month of June, keep­ing a close asso­ci­a­tion with allu­vial areas, sandy bajadas, where they live most of their lives in the ground. Their cam­ou­flage is excel­lent, as stealthy as the band­ed geck­o’s; nei­ther are eas­i­ly resolved until move­ment is seen, which may be against a dark­er back­ground of road asphalt.

The desert glossy snake aver­ages 3–4 feet long.

An adult desert glossy snake, Ari­zona ele­gans ebur­na­ta, is 3–4 feet long, giv­ing it a few more options when for­ag­ing for food in the night. Sleep­ing lizards are at risk, as are birds and small mam­mals, and even oth­er snakes who may have no defense against the glossy’s con­stric­tions.  They’re not poi­so­nous and con­sid­ered harm­less to humans.

Pho­tos by Bar­bara Swan­son unless noted

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