The Calusa Herpetological Society Of Southwest Florida

This Month's Meeting

Thursday, January 8 , 2004  

C'mon out this evening for an adventurous taste of Herping Mexico's Baja California Peninsula .  Tonight's speaker, Bill Love , has visited southern Baja four times over the last half decade, finding it to be a place of incredible beauty and charm, friendly people and great food.  The desert terrain is radically different than Florida with its diverse cacti, granite banked flashflood rivers, and rugged mountains.  The abundance of 'exotic' herps like blue rock lizards, speckled rattlers, and red gopher snakes makes it a pure delight to explore, and there's always Cabo San Lucas to relax in afterward.

The crew at El Serpentario in La Paz showed Bill how to find one of his particular goals -- the two-legged Mexican worm lizard (amphisbaenian) Bipes biporus , a creature unique to the region.  Folklore abounds about them - you won't believe what local people actually think that they do to someone who.... well, ya'll have to come out to hear this one in person!!!  You'll also join Bill on his 5-day quest last spring on a hiking / camping trip into the southernmost mountains in hopes of discovering a new, as-yet-undiscovered mountain kingsnake.

                                                                                  The Mexican worm lizard, a.k.a. 'ajolote', Bipes biporus

MEETING SITE : In Ft. Myers, Florida at the Calusa Nature Center , near Colonial Blvd. (S. R. 884) and Interstate 75. Get off I-75 at exit #136 (old exit #22) and go west (towards the coast) on 884 (Colonial Blvd.) for one-half mile, then turn right at the first traffic light onto Ortiz Ave., and then left into the Nature Center after only one-quarter mile. The Iona House meeting site is an older dark green house located to the left (as you enter the grounds) at the rear of the complex, back near where the school busses are parked.  The meeting opens at 7:00 pm, and the speaker usually starts no later than 7:15 pm.  Click HERE for a map to the meeting site.  After each meeting, all attendees are invited to join "the core" for an informal nightcap at RJ Gator's Restaurant / Sports Bar on Colonial Blvd. where we usually gather following meetings which end at 8:30 pm.

WHO'S INVITED ? You are! Anyone with an interest in any aspect of herpetology or herpetoculture is welcome to attend, learn, and exchange their experiences with our friendly membership. Come out to meet others who keep, breed or study reptiles and amphibians, and let them share their fascination with you. We average 35 – 70 people attending every meeting.

Cookies and cold soda, a nightly raffle of live herps, herp products, and books follow each speaker's talk, and lots of herp camaraderie, gossip, and fun can be counted upon at all meetings !

For more info , call (239) 728-2390 or (239) 481-3525 or  EMAIL: info@calusaherp.org