Episode 81: Gray-banded Kingsnakes with Gerold Merker

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Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Eighty One!  And Season Four!  And while we’re at it, I hope you all remain safe and healthy out there.

In this episode, I talk with Gerold Merker, who with his son Walter recently published an updated edition of The Gray-banded Kingsnake, which I think is a fabulous book.  I talk with Gerold about the book, about west Texas, and of course, Gray-bands!  The book is available from Eco Wear and Publishing.

So Much Pingle Patrons! A big thank you to Gerold Merker, our newest patron and the star of this episode as well.  And as always, I want to thank everyone who keeps the show rolling along. And if you’re out there listening and you would like to kick in a few bucks, it’s easy to do, you simply go to the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can support the show for as little as three bucks a month – less than a fancy cup of coffee! You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

And given that we’re now kicking off Season Four, I want to take a little time to mention all of the folks who have contributed to show via Patreon or one-time contributions:  Justin Michels, Jason Jones of Herp MX, Smetlogik AKA Rob Kreutzer, Ryan Borgmann, Joshua Wallace, Jill Rials, Marty Whalin, Chris Smith, Dr. Emily Taylor, John Burris, Kamil Scepanski, Brandon Kong, Issac Chellman, Dr James van Dyke, Brandon Ballard, Mike Rochford, Josef Thompson, Dr. Alex Krohn, Matt Ratcliffe, Jeroen Speybroek, Bryan Hughes, Brandon Bourassa, Josh Holbrook my favorite co-author, James McGhee, Michael Moffat, Andy O’Connor, Jake Scott, Deb Krohn, Duane McDermott, John Sullivan, Josh Emms, Justin Elden, Matt Cage, Patrick Connolly, Chris McMartin, Michael Cravens, Ana Ware, Tim Warfel, David Burkart, Adam Cooner, Dr. Bill Peterman, Cynthia Samake, Paul-Erik Bakland, William Bone, Jeremiah Easter, Richard Legere (AKA Squeaks), Tom Eles, Jeremy Schumacher, Neill Jones, Alec Gordon, Martin Habecker, Daniel Dye, Clint Henke, Ross Maynard, Nick Sobel, Moses Michelsohn, Myles Masterson, Ben Genter, Pearson McGovern, Tom Eles again, Sal Scibetta, Alicia Ballard, Ben Stegenga, Kam Delahoz, Dave Weber, JJ Apodaca, the Urbanek family, Will McManus, Jason Folt, Lawrence Erickson, Wes Redridge, Christian Diederich, Brad Allen,Ian Kanda,  Kim Brown, Andrew Davis, Dick Bartlett, Craig Howard, Sheri Monk, Ian Kanda again, and finally, Gerold Merker.  My apologies for any mispronunciations, or if I left anyone out (pretty sure I didn’t).  What can I say?  Thank you, all of you, for supporting this show, I am more grateful than I can possibly express to you all.

I also want to thank all the folks who I’ve talked to over the course of three seasons –easily a hundred or more people and I’ll skip reading all those names.  I’ve enjoyed talking with each and every one of you.

Thank you Gerold Merker for starting off Season Four on a high note!  And thanks for listening everyone! And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, tips for herping better, etc.

-Mike

 

Episode 80: Wet Feet by the Fire

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Josh, Whitney, Brenna, Sam, John, and MJ

Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Eighty!  A nice round number and I hope you all remain safe and healthy out there.

First up, I want to give a shoutout to Claire Pedersen, who only found out about the show recently but has been working her way through the episodes in chronological order.  She’s more than halfway through so I expect it won’t be long before she hears this.  I also want to give a shoutout to Charlotte Pedersen as well.  She’s Claire’s younger sister and both of them are just nuts about herps and other kinds of wildlife.

So Much Pingle Patrons! I want to give a shoutout to Ian Kanda.  Ian is one of the show’s patrons and he recently made -another- one-time donation to help the show.  Thank you so much, Ian!  And as always, I want to thank everyone who keeps the show rolling along. And if you’re out there listening and you would like to kick in a few bucks, it’s easy to do, you simply go to the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can support the show for as little as three bucks a month – less than a fancy cup of coffee! You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

It’s no big secret that I love hanging out in the field with biologists and ecologists and pretty much any kind of ologist, and I have been fortunate enough to assist with a number of survey projects over the years.  Last April I drove to North Carolina to help Josh Holbrook and his students with some wetland surveys, which consisted of wading into freshwater ponds to set traps and then return to survey their contents.  I had a great time, as you might expect, and then we recorded this episode after dinner, around a campfire.  Stories around a campfire, it doesn’t get any better than that.  And some of Josh’s students were just getting their feet wet, so to speak, and I enjoyed hearing their perspectives on their first forays into field work.

Thanks to Josh, John, MJ, Sam, Brenna, and Whitney!  And thanks for listening everyone! And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, tips for herping better, etc.

-Mike

 

Episode 79: Herping Suriname with Dick and Lieke

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Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 79!  It’s been a while since an episode dropped and I hope you all remain safe and healthy out there.

I’ve had the best excuse for not getting a show out for a while – I’ve been traveling!  I just got back from two weeks in Madagascar, and before that I spent most of January and February in Peru.  I am home for a while now, so the show schedule will go back to something close to regular for the near future.

So Much Pingle Patrons!  I want to give a big shout-out to the show’s newest supporter, Sheri Monk!  Thank you Sheri!  And as always, I want to thank everyone who keeps the show rolling along. And if you’re out there listening and you would like to kick in a few bucks, it’s easy to do, you simply go to the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can support the show for as little as three bucks a month – less than a fancy cup of coffee! You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

Our guests this week are Dick Lock and Lieke Verwoerd, who operate the wildlife tour companies Unlock Nature and Herping Suriname.  Dick and Lieke came down to Peru on one of our expeditions, and I got to spend some time getting to know them and it was a pleasure to interview them about what they are up to in Suriname, a place I really want to visit someday.  You can follow Unlock Nature on Facebook and Instagram, and you can follow Herping Suriname on Facebook and Instagram as well.

Thanks for listening everyone! And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, tips for herping better, etc.

-Mike

Episode 78: From Kansas to South Africa with Daren Riedle

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Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 78 and I hope you all remain safe and healthy out there.  After three weeks at home, I am heading back to Peru this afternoon for this year’s third and final tour.  I’m happy to get another show out before I leave, and we will touch base again in early March when I return.

So Much Pingle Patrons!  As always, I want to thank everyone who keeps the show rolling along. And if you’re out there listening and you would like to kick in a few bucks, it’s easy to do, you simply go to the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can support the show for as little as three bucks a month – less than a fancy cup of coffee! You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

Our guest this week is Daren Riedle. Daren is the Wildlife Diversity Coordinator for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks and he wears many hats as a researcher, administrator, and avid herper.  I recorded this interview in Peru this past January, and I enjoyed the opportunity to herp and just hang out with Daren during our stay.  Our conversation took us from Kansas to South Africa with many points in between.

Thanks for listening everyone! And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, baby monitors to watch baby monitors, tips for herping better, etc.

-Mike

 

Episode 77: Herp Science Sunday with Dr. Alex Krohn and Jules Farquhar

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Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Seventy Seven!  And I hope you all remain safe and healthy out there, and I want to wish all of you a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year.

It’s the first week of February and it’s good to be back home and to be turning out another episode, after being away for nearly a month in Peru.  It was an interesting trip, to say the least, with a lot of travel issues going both down and back.  I’ll spare you the details, but I am beginning to suspect that the golden age of air travel is behind us.  All travel issues aside it was a great trip to Peru, and across 25 days and two back-to-back tour groups we managed to find a total of six bushmasters.  Pretty incredible and I’m still processing all of that.  Needless to say, I recorded segments with some of the folks who encountered their first bushmaster, and I will put that out sometime in the next few months.

So Much Pingle Patrons!  I want to give a shout-out to Craig Howard, the show’s newest patron.  Craig was on our first Peru tour last month and he took some awesome photos, I especially liked some of his frog shots.  It was good to meet you Craig, and thanks so much for your support. And if you’re out there listening and you would like to kick in a few bucks, it’s easy to do, you simply go to the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can support the show for as little as three bucks a month – less than a fancy cup of coffee! You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

Well, here we are again with another edition of Herp Science Sunday with Dr. Alex Krohn.  That’s right, two in a row, even if they are a month apart, and, this one again features a guest from Australia.  As I said before, this is more by accident than design, but Alex and I are happy about it and we hope you are as well.  Our guest this week is Jules Farquhar, a doctoral candidate in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University in Victoria, Australia.  Jules is a co-author on a paper published in the Journal of Biogeography last year entitled “Using Crowd-sourced Photographic Records to Explore Geographical Variation in Colour Polymorphism” Alex and I talked with Jules just before Christmas, about this paper, which concerns Lace Monitors, and we cover some other cool Australian herp stuff as well.

Thanks for listening everyone! And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, baby monitors to watch baby monitors, tips for herping better, etc.

-Mike

 

Episode 76: Herp Science Sunday: Hemiclitores in Snakes with Megan Folwell

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Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Seventy Six!  And I hope you all remain safe and healthy out there, and I want to wish all of you a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year.

Well it’s Sunday, and New Year’s Day, and that can only mean that the first episode of 2023 is a Herp Science Sunday show with Dr. Alex Krohn!  I’m happy to get one more show in before I head down to Peru in just a few days. This visit is a prolonged trip, actually two trips back-to-back, and I won’t return home until almost the end of the month, which means the next SoMuchPingle episode will drop the first week of February.  But as always, I will be bringing my mobile recording gear and I should come back with more content, complete with screeching jungle birds as a backdrop.

As always, I want to say thank you to all of the show’s patrons!  I’m grateful for everyone’s contributions and it does keep the show rolling along. And if you’re out there listening and you would like to kick in a few bucks, it’s easy to do, you simply go to the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can support the show for as little as three bucks a month – less than a fancy cup of coffee! You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

This edition of Herp Science Sunday centers on serpent genitalia. The paper we discuss is “First Evidence of Hemiclitores in Snakes”,  published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society on 12/14/2022.  The paper should be available for download here, and as always, you can also request a copy of the PDF from me.  The co-authors are Megan J. Folwell, Kate L. Sanders, Patricia L. R. Brennan and Jenna M. Crowe-Riddell.  I believe Alex and I both got wind of it from a post made by Dr. Emily Taylor. And we nearly simultaneously decided we needed to talk to at least one of the co-authors of this paper, and soon, since so many people have been interested in the discoveries outlined in the publication.  Long story short, Alex and I had a lovely chat with co-author Megan Folwell recently, and I rushed it through the production process to have it ready for New Year’s.

Thanks for listening everyone! And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, entertainment partitioning ideas, tips for herping better, etc.

-Mike

Episode 75: Herping with Kids Panel Discussion

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Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Seventy Five! It’s the day after Christmas, and I hope you all are safe, healthy, and warm. The temperatures at my house are back into the mid-teens Fahrenheit, after a few blustery and frigid days leading up to the holiday.  I’m working to crank out a few episodes over the next week or so before I head to Peru for another visit.

I want to give a big shout-out to Dick and Patti Bartlett, the show’s newest patrons.  I appreciate your one-time contribution and I really enjoyed spending a little time with you two earlier this year.  And a happy new year to you both.

And as always, I want to say thank you to all of the show’s patrons!  I’m grateful for everyone’s contributions and it does keep the show rolling along. And if you’re out there listening and you would like to kick in a few bucks, it’s easy to do, you simply go to the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can support the show for as little as three bucks a month – less than a fancy cup of coffee! You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

Now let’s turn our attention to the show.  I want to thank Jason Folt for suggesting this topic, leading to me talking with him, Mike Rochford, and Liz Hughes about the challenges and rewards of getting the little kiddos out there in herp land.  And of course, I have many other friends doing much the same and I was thinking about you all as well as we had this discussion, and again as I put this together.

Thanks for listening everyone! And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, entertainment partitioning ideas, tips for herping better, etc.

-Mike

 

 

 

Episode 74: Origin Stories VI with Stacey and Kim

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Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Seventy Four! I want to wish you all a happy and peaceful holiday season.

I have shoutouts to some new patrons of the show!  Ian Kanda, thanks so much for your one-time contribution.  Ian is strictly listening to the show in order so hopefully he’ll hear my shout-out before the fourth of July.  I have some new Patreoners as well!  Kim Brown, thank you so much and your timing is rather excellent!  And a special shout-out to Ruth and Henry, who love to go herping with their dad Andrew Davis.  That makes me happy (and thanks for the nice note Andrew, and for supporting the show). I appreciate y’all.

As always, I want to say thank you to all of the show’s patrons!  I’m grateful for everyone’s contributions and it does keep the show rolling along. And if you’re out there listening and you would like to kick in a few bucks, it’s easy to do, you simply go to the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can support the show for as little as three bucks a month – less than a fancy cup of coffee! You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

I also want to give Kris Haas a shoutout for both his kind words and some very thoughtful comments, thank you sir.  I do like hearing from folks – your thoughts, opinions, guest suggestions, whatever you got.  You can email me at somuchpingle@gmail.com.  Also please note that I am on Instagram, been there a long while now, but I’m also on Post dot News, and Mastodon now, under the SoMuchPingle handle. 

This week we’ve got our sixth installment of Origin Stories, and this episode features Stacey Schenkel and Kim Brown.  I owe Stacey a bit of an apology because it took me a while to get this one put together – I think we recorded her segment at the end of February.  And then I traveled a bunch and went back to work, and didn’t get a bookend interview recorded until this fall with Kim, and so this project got a little dusty.  But I like how this one turned out, I think Stacey and Kim pair well together.

Thanks for listening everyone! And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, tips for herping better, etc.

-Mike

Episode 73: Life Underfoot with Zach Truelock

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Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Seventy Three! Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the US and I wish everyone a good holiday.  It’s good to be back in the studio again after a few weeks off.

As always, I want to say thank you to all of the show’s patrons!  I’m grateful for everyone’s contributions and it does keep the show rolling along. And if you’re out there listening and you would like to kick in a few bucks, it’s easy to do, you simply go to the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can support the show for as little as three bucks a month – less than a fancy cup of coffee! You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

Our guest this week is Zach Truelock, an Indiana native who is currently doing some very important conservation work in Florida.  Zach has been involved with a number of very cool herp conservation projects over the past few years, and also a co-creator for the Life Underfoot YouTube channel.  I want to highlight a few links for Life Underfoot, some of which we talk about in the episode:

Can We Save North America’s Rarest Salamander?

Spotted Salamanders In A Vernal Pool

Timber Rattlesnake Male Combat

Jefferson’s Salamanders

Thanks for listening everyone! And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, tips for herping better, etc.

-Mike

 

Episode 72: Weird Tales from the Field

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Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Seventy Two!  It’s the day before Halloween, an appropriate time to release these tales of strange occurrences from the world of field herping.

As always, I want to say thank you to all of the show’s patrons, including our newest Patreon member Brad Allen!  Thank you so much Brad, and I appreciated your note as well.  I’m grateful for everyone’s contributions and it does keep the show rolling along. And if you’re out there listening and you would like to kick in a few bucks, it’s easy to do, you simply go to the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can support the show for as little as three bucks a month – less than a fancy cup of coffee! You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

This week’s show came out of a suggestion from someone (I can’t recall who) last fall to do a show on the weird/creepy/spooky/unusual things that happen out in the field.  I began soliciting stories and recorded the first of them back in January, and the last was recorded a few weeks ago.  I want to say thanks to everyone who contributed to this episode – Matt Ratcliffe, Jake Scott and his alleged litter robot, John Burris, Tim Warfel, Matt Cage, Jeff Martineau, Rob Kreutzer, Pat Kain, and Bryan Hughes.  I also want to thank the folks who sent in stories that I couldn’t include for one reason or another.

Thanks for listening everyone! And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, lifting curses cast by Hungarian witches, tips for herping better, etc.

-Mike