Anna and David's beetles

Anna and David went camping with Jay over the weekend (it was amazing how quiet it was around here) and this is what they caught. They were expecting to catch horny toads and lizards, but on their hikes they only saw a glimpse of one lizard and a mouse. They were bummed to only come home with two beetles.The home they made for them...see the piece of licorice?

Brandon's catches

This is Bryan writing.

This is our Lepard Geco we saved from the garbage last year.

Brandon found this baby geco on the porch the other night.

He is tiny! He saw this baby spiny while he was running in the evening.

3 minutes away

This is Bryan Posting. Brandon and I went out to the desert near our neighborhood. Of course you can always find a couch in the desert. It was a lizard hotel. We had to get a picture.

We tried to catch this baby wiptail.


This guy kept us running around the couch. Here he is peeking around the corner.

This roadrunner posed for us.

Night Hike

Sorry this is so late. We went on a night hike last weekend with Brandon, Jaxon, Jayden, Gage, Jordan and Me. Some of these pictures got posted on our family blog, but they are not at home until they arrive here...

Jordan shined his black light on him while I took this with the flash turned off. I think it turned out pretty good. This was not a small scorpin.

Nature's Transformers

The fuzzy caterpillar (above) that I brought down from the Rim made himself a cocoon. We forgot about it for a few weeks and this is what emerged:

Helaman's Camp

The Buckeye Stake did the Senior Aaronic trip up on the rim north of Payson. These are some of my findings:

Jayden, I am sorry I did not save this bug for your collection, he would have been awesome.

I have not seen a tadpole this big in a long time. I caught him in Fossil Creek.

This grasshopper was laying her eggs right in the trail. The camera was about one inch from her and she just kept on laying...

We caught two horny toads and a common "Bernard" lizard. I put the lizard on my shoulder and he stayed there for over 4 miles of hiking and never jumped off. We let him go in camp.

This caterpillar is now in a cocoon in our horny toad cage.

Provocation of the Skink

Here is the initial provocation of a skink we encountered upon our path at Charlestowne Landing. This "Broaheaded Skink" was not friendly and could reach his neck around to bite unsuspecting victims (if you could call the aggressor a victim). His mouth is larger than any other lizard I have seen and his bite is stronger than any lizard except maybe a collared lizard.

This is a female Broadheaded Skink. Her bite was tame.
After I caught 3-4 skinks I got tired of washing my hands at Lindsay's insistence. I just took a picture of this one.

Cambria started looking for skinks too and spotted this one from atop a bridge. She was so excited. Lindsay is mad at me for teaching my girls to look for skinks.