San Diego Alligator Lizard

The San Diego alligator lizard has a slim body, short legs and a very long tail. The tail can be up to twice the length of the body. They can be from 3 to 7 inches in length, from the snout to the vent, and up to 16 inches overall, including the tail. They are brown, gray or yellowish above and can have reddish or orange coloring on the middle of the back. There are usually 9 to 13 dark bands along the back, sides and tail with adjacent white spots. The scales are keeled on the back, sides and legs and this subspecies is more heavily keeled than others. The eyes are a light yellow. This particular alligator lizard was caught in our yard on our back hill in a pile of tree limbs.

A closer look at the body reveals the keeled scales and the fold along the side of the body that allows them to expand when necessary.

I caught this alligator lizard on a backpacking trip in Mission Creek Canyon at about 5,900 feet, much higher than the high range of 5,000 feet stated on an on-line herp guide. Note the dramatically different coloration. It is very gray, compared to the brown we find in Redlands. The combination of their large head, elongated body and powerful jaws are where it gets the name "alligator" from. I have been bitten by them several times and they tend to hold on and not let go. They also tend to let go the contents of their cloaca when caught. As a consequence, many people that are familiar with them are afraid of them.

A closer look at the keeled scales of the gray alligator lizard.

A view of the yellow eyes.

These two, contrasting colored, alligator lizards are on our front lawn. They move with the undulating motion of a snake, but are more awkward in their motion and are very funky to watch.

A side view of the gray lizard. The San Diego alligator lizard is found in southwestern Southern California, northeastern Baja California and the center of central California.

The first time I saw an alligator lizard was when we first moved to Redlands in 1986. I got a call from Judy saying that they had found a large mean lizard in our garage and didn't know what it was. I came home and didn't have a clue what kind of lizard it was. I caught it and it bit me good. In fact I ended up having to pry its mouth off my finger and it left a nice indentation. Then it wasn't until we moved into our home off of Live Oak Canyon that we encountered alot more. We had the large brown and large gray alligator lizards in a terrarium at home for about a year, along with some other lizards and a snake or two. The large brown lizard, in particular, ate a pretty healthy diet of crickets.

Look at his enormous fat tail compared to what it was when we first caught it.

Another view of its long, fat tail.

A little view of the belly, while it stares at a spiny lizard which was also sharing space in the terrarium.

Young alligator lizards lack the dark barring that the adults have. This young lizard was found in Redlands.

Finally, a photo of four alligator lizards in the terrarium. These were caught by Sam in our yard in April 1993.

Updated April 10, 2010:

A week or so ago Judy found an alligator lizard on our back porch. Its tail was much longer than its body (the picture is of it climbing our outdoor wall and the picture has been turned)

and it had a red coloring

I've never seen in an alligator lizard.

That makes a brown, gray and red phase we've seen locally, in addition to the yellow phase I found in the Sierras.

Coastal Rosy Boa

The rosy boa has three subspecies: (1) the desert rosy boa, found in north and southeastern Southern California and southwestern Arizona; (2) the coastal rosy boa, found in southwestern Southern California and northwestern Baja California; and (3) the Mexican rosy boa, found in extreme southern Arizona and along the eastern edge of the Gulf of California in Mexico.

They are wildly popular as pets in Southern Californa because they are docile, they eat mice readily (which can be purchased at pet stores), they are slow moving and very unthreatening looking, as far as snakes go. They range from about 24 to 42 inches in length, have a thick body and small head, not much larger than the neck, and three broad longitudinal stripes. The primary difference between the coastal rosy boa and the desert rosy boa, is that the stripes on the desert rosy boa are pretty solid and the stripe color is not present, or is at least less significant, between the stripes. The coastal rosy boa usually has scales with the stripe color scattered significantly between the stripes.

The rosy boas I've seen in our area tend to be intergrade, a little bit between the coastal and the desert rosy, with a tendency toward the coastal characteristics. The rosy below was caught in our neighbor's driveway on October 2, 1993.

The general color can by slaty, beige or rosy and this one was a particularly beautiful slate color. The stripe color is a purplish red.

This picture, in comparison with my hand, illustrates how thick the body is and how small the head is in comparison.

It also had very interesting horizontal strips on the bottom, whereas others I have seen tend to be more splotchy.

The next rosy boa was caught near Verbenia Avenue, past Cabazon, in Riverside County in the spring of 1995. Its background color is much lighter and its stripes are more orange.

The next photo illustrates how small the head is compared to the rest of the body.

This picture clearly shows the vertical pupils.

A closer look at the stripes.

For snake hunters, they are generally considered a prize. I think I've only seen one driving roads at night. We have some friends that caught one about thirteen years ago on a road not too far off the freeway, in Redlands. They still have it as a pet and it is very large and very thick.

California Toad

The California Toad is a subspecies of the Western Toad. One identifying characteristic is an oval parotoid gland behind each eye which is larger than the upper eyelid.

They also have a white or cream-colored dorsal stripe and warts set in dark blotches.

This toad was caught at the Live Oak Canyon Treefarm in Yucaipa, San Bernardino County.

They can be greenish above, like this one, or dusky gray, tan, reddish brown or yellow.

This was a very big toad.

This California toad, more of a dusky gray, has rusty warts on the dark spots, another common characteristic. This one was found near Lake Perris, outside Moreno Valley in Riverside County in April 1996.

This similarly colored toad was caught near the Whitewater River in Whitewater Canyon in April 1996. This one was much smaller than the Live Oak Canyon toad.

This toad is nocturnal and unlike frogs, generally walks and does not hop.

San Bernardino Ringneck Snake

In February 1995 our next door neighbor found a San Bernardino Ringneck Snake while digging in his garden. It was very small, but amazingly colored: dark green on the upside, with a reddish orange ring around its neck, a bright orange belly with black spots, and toward the end ot its tail, bright red on the underside.

When alarmed, the ringneck snake coils the end of its tail to reveal the bright red color at the end.
They are very slender and found in moist habitats, like gardens, forests, grasslands and farms. In arid areas like ours, in mountains and near water courses. They are usually not found in the open, but in rotting logs, under rocks and boards.

They eat salamanders, small frogs, lizards, worms, insects and small snakes.

They are mildly venomous, but not dangerous to humans. They have enough venom to help incapacitate small prey.

Mushrooms: Chanterelle, King Oyster & Maitake

It has been quite a while since I've tried a new type of mushroom. We were in Los Angeles on Saturday and stopped by Whole Foods and got three varieties I've not had before: chanterelles, king oyster and maitake. They were all quite pricey. The chanterelles were $29.99 a pound and we got .13 pound for $3.90, consisting of three heads. They are only grown in the wild and are very textury.

A different view.


I cut them up into pieces

and fried them in butter.

WOW, what a treat. They are amazing. They have a very distinctive, deep taste. They are firm, but tender. I have read they have a pepper taste to them, and I guess they do, a little bit, but the taste is more complex than pepper. Judy sensed almost a vinegary, beefy taste, with a texture very unlike ordinary mushrooms. They are definately on the buy list again.

The king oyster mushrooms were $19.99 a pound and we got three that were .32 pounds for $6.40. They had a very light, rubbery feel to them, and almost seemed like a cartoon version of a mushroom, with the small cap and large bulbous stem.

They are native to the Mediterranean, but are also now grown commercially.

I cooked them in butter, garlic and a little olive oil. They are much more like the traditional white oyster texture and they kind of take on the taste of whatever they are cooked in. They were good, quite good actually, but did not hold a candle to the chanterelles.

The maitake mushroom, native to northeastern Japan and the northeastern United States, are also known as hen of the woods, ram's head and sheep's head mushrooms. They are very interesting looking, almost like a nicely carved Bernini sculpture. They are full of leaf like structures with twists and turns.

Another view with a different look to it.

They were also expensive, $29.99 a pound. We got .17 pounds for $5.10. It was our least favorite of the three, by far. I also cooked it in a mixture of butter, garlic and olive oil. I may not have cooked it enough, but I think it is just naturally harder and more rubbery. The texture is not as nice and it was not as pleasing. I suspect it might be much better cooked in a different way, like a Japanese soup.

This was definately a worthwhile taste test and chanterelles are on my radar. I would like to try them in many kinds of dishes. I read that they hold up well and stand out taste-wise, even in meat and other dishes.

Antojitos Bibi: Honduran Food

I was looking for a good Honduran food restaurant recently as Ryan Richey is going on an LDS mission there and I wanted to take the young men out to try it. The best reviews in the Los Angeles area seemed to belong to Antojitos Bibi, located at 2400 W. 7th Street in Los Angeles, across from MacArthur Park. It was too far to take the young men, but Judy and I went to Westwood on Saturday to visit Andrew. So we took Andrew and Lexi there for lunch, and it is a great find!

We ordered mostly based on what we read in reviews from Yelp and Chowhound. The following is a balleada, a flour tortilla with filling.

I pulled it open to show the filling of beans, cream, avocado, egg and sausage. You can order different combinations and I ordered this one based on a recommendation and it was very good.

Next we had a chicken tamale (we ate all of the food family style, which was nice as we were able to simple a little bit of everything). I am not a real fan of Mexican tamales. I'll eat them, but don't really enjoy them. I find them dry and tasteless. The Honduran tamales are cooked in banana leaves and they are very moist and flavorful. I really like them.

We got an order of catrachitas, 6 small tostada type tortillas with a ground beef layer, followed by a layer of cabbage and pickled onions (the red on top). They are good, but nothing I would go out of my way for.

The next picture shows a little nibble of baleada, top, chicken hanging out of the tamale, left, and a catrachita.

Next we had pastelitos, like a small turnover or pot sticker, filled with ground beef and covered with cheese, cabbage and pickled onions. They were good and different, but again something I woudn't go out of my way for.

Below, a small piece of remaining pastelito, showing the inside, and in front, cabbage and onion.

We had a cheese papusa. The cabbage it came with was not as marinated, and it also came with a separate bowl of red sauce which was nice on top. The papasu was bigger and better than the other papusas I've had before.

Below, a portion of the papusa, showing the cheese inside.

By far the best thing we had was Tapado de res, a soup served in coconut milk, plantains, yucca and, best of all, beef short ribs. It is only served on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Now that is worth a drive, a long drive. Lexi pronounced the short ribs the best she's ever tasted. Judy seconded her thought. The short ribs were wonderfully tender and melt in your mouth good.

The soup came with a couple of tortillas and rice, and we followed the recommendations of other bloggers and put the rice in the soup. FANTASTIC! The coconut base is rich and creamy, the fat from the beef adds flavor and the plantains are nice and mushy and swallow without chewing.

The other recommended soup was Sopa de caracol, conch soup. It was also good, but not on the same planet as the Tapado de res. The conch was a little rubbery and chewy. It was also a coconut base broth and had yucca, carrot and potato. It was not as spicy, a little more sweet and understated. It was good, but because the other was so good, we did not eat anywhere near as much of it.

It was really a blast having a menu of items I've only tried once or twice before, and many items I've never even heard of. It was so good that I'd like to go back and systematically try the entire menu. However, on a weekend, I'll be hard-pressed to avoid the Tapado de res. That is one fantastic bowl of soup!