Outdoors

A herpetology hike sounds, eh, inviting enough, but organizers of this past weekend's reptile search made their ad hiss.

"Join Dr. Chris Murdock, JSU biologist (and herpetologist) on a fun adventure hike looking for creepy crawly creatures!" the item on the Little River Canyon Field School's Web site reads.

Sound good?

It sounded good to about 120 people who participated, a much-higher-than-anticipated group that prompted Field School organizers to break the hike into two groups.

The herp hike was part of a herpetology family weekend at DeSoto State Park, with activities including two campfire talks: "Can Snakes Crawl Backwards?" and "Venomous Snakes of Alabama."

The fang gang also saw a herp show, which featured some of Murdock's and Field School coordinator Renee Morrison's "pets," as well as venomous species in the state park's nature center.

Morrison described the clientele as eager.

"We had church groups. We had several family groups," Morrison said. "… It was just amazing. We had expected to have nice interest shown, maybe 25-30 people."

The weekend started with Friday's herp show, where Morrison showed off a 12-foot, 90-pound red-tailed boa constrictor named "Buttercup". She also showed native corn snakes, king snakes, a scarlet snake, a hog-nosed snake and a pine snake.

"We just talked about what sized snakes live in Alabama versus other parts of the world in tropical climates and tried to dispel some myths about herps in general and teach facts and pretty much glean interest," Morrison said. "With that many people there, it wasn't very difficult.

"They were all just ready to learn more."

Participants also got a look at turtles, a salamander named "Sally" and a bearded dragon named "Arwyn," after the Lord of the Rings character.

Some of the animals came from the JSU collection, some from Morrison's personal collection.

"We showed them what they would see on the trail and probably what they would not see on the trail," Morrison said. "… When most people go hiking, they don't want to see snakes. Being a Field School, we think it's very important that people don't go into the woods with the attitude that all reptiles and all amphibians (are dangerous) ... that there's a negative connotation associated with those.

"Yes, there are some that are dangerous, but for the most part those animals are much more afraid of humans than humans are of them. We thought it would be neat to offer a hike where, instead of avoiding reptiles, we're actually looking for them."

Friday progressed to the first campfire talk, "Can Snakes Crawl Backwards?" Murdock gave the talk, which was designed to dispel snake mythology.

Like the fabled hoop snake, for example. There is no snake that bites its tail and rolls in a hoop, Murdock said.

And no, snakes cannot crawl backward, and they don't go out of their way to bite humans.

Venomous snakes in Northeast Alabama have heat sensors in their venom pits. They sense large mammals approaching and usually hide.

"What they want to see are small little blobs of heat, like mice," Murdock said. "When they see something large, their primary defense is to hide.

"Even rattlesnakes will do that. They won't always rattle when you're close to them. Sometimes they'll just rely on camouflage."

The herp hikes occurred during the day on Saturday. The two groups hiked for about two hours roundtrip, with their guides turning over rocks and logs.

Murdock led one group, and his group saw no snakes. Interns led the second group, which saw two banded water snakes.

Both group leaders had hoped to see more, but Murdock said the summer heat forces most snakes back underground. Nocturnal hunters, snakes are more likely to be out at night or early in the morning.

"Since we weren't finding them, what I turned it into was pointing out areas that would most likely contain a snake," Murdock said.

Organizers saved the "Venomous Snakes of Alabama" campfire talk for Saturday night. The talk covered the state's six venomous species and what to do if bitten.

Murdock recommends calm.

"In most cases, you're going to be fine," he said. "There are some estimates where half to 60 percent of all of the bites are what we call 'dry bites', where the snake doesn't actually inject any venom or very, very little.

"Snakes can control how much venom they inject. To them, it doesn't make sense to give us a full load of venom often times, because they want to save that (for prey)."

He recommends a "snakebite kit" including a cell phone, car keys for transportation to an emergency room and a hiking buddy.

"A lot of those old-fashioned snake-bite kits where you cut at the bite and then supposedly you suck the venom out … that's not a good idea at all," he said. "You're going wind up causing more damage cutting than you ever would from any small amount of venom that you can suck out."

He also calls tourniquets "a bad idea". Applied too tightly, they cut off blood flow.

"A lot of times, they wind up losing the arm or the appendage, not because of the bite but because of the tourniquet," Murdock said. "The best thing is to remain calm; don't do those (other) kinds of things."