Chicago Herpetological Society

[DassenKoningin]

It's that time of year again! Alex and I are hoping to start putting our clues together soon, so we're looking for volunteers to use in our scavenger hunt. For anyone unfamiliar with it, we'll put a frame with a few facts about your animal and a clue for the next one, with some paper tickets, on your table. Kids follow the clues, and take a ticket to prove they found you (so, you won't have to stamp things or sign things or anything like that). It tends to bring more kids to your table, many of whom are really interested in learning more about your beautiful animals. We always get a few adults doing it too

We usually like to have a variety of animals, and at least one big one (it's often a burmese python, but it doesn't have to be!)

We can't do the hunt without you guys! We've been lucky in the past to have such enthusiastic supporters, but we also love to get new volunteers. Post here or send me a PM if you're interested!

Thanks!

[aasagan]

I'm happy to participate. The relatively unique things on my table will be an Eastern Indigo snake, A dwarf boa constrictor from Mexico, and an adult black ratsnake.

My experience is that the kids don't actually show any interest in the animals, or stop to look or discuss the animals at all; they just run around looking for tickets and clues, like they do frantically at a birthday party scavenger hunt! Might be interesting to tie the clue to a fun fact about the animal or something a wee bit educational. But it seems like they're having fun anyway, and not complaining. Actually, I get so many kids stopping to hold animals who are interested that its probably good to keep the road runners occupied anyway.

[Jason_Hood]

Hey guys, sorry I read this and forgot to respond. I will likely be right by Andy but I can still have some animals available for you. I will be bringing carpet pythons, blackhead pythons, woma pythons, white lipped pythons, amazon tree boas, okeetee corns, and some others. Let me know if there is anything you need to know about them.

Jason

[nick]

hey guys glad to hear you guys coming again... i will be there again and will have an array of different pets. Burmese pythons, ball pythons, argentine boas, geckos, beardie, and iguana

[DassenKoningin]

Thanks everyone! We'll let you know for sure what animals we pick a little closer, after I've hopefully gotten some more responses.

[J_Foster]

I'll have my stars (tortoises) again , of course, if you're interested.

- Jim Foster

[wildlrastalux]

I have a chinesse twin spotted rat snake, tiger salamanders (I am letting linda use two for herps of Il.) but I will have one on display also, A cane toad, a red legged running frog, a asian bullfrog or (chubby frog), tokay gecko, white's treefrog, african clawed frog (not from chicago) that can be used in the hunt.


Lawrence Huddleston
_________________
only the strong survive and the weak fall by the waist side and die like fly's feed that to your herps and get a bunch!

[DassenKoningin]

[wildlrastalux]

[Rob_Carmichael]

We'll have Illinois' four native venomous herps: timber rattler, eastern massasauga, cottonmouth and southern copperhead....should be easy t come up with some nifty clues. I'm also bringing a BIG Mud Snake which is one of the most striking snakes we have in Illinois and will be in the Herps of IL section.
_________________
Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center
City of Lake Forest
1401 Middlefork Drive
Lake Forest, IL 60045
847.615.4388

[DassenKoningin]

Thanks so much, everyone! We got a couple volunteers at the last meeting, too, so it looks like we have plenty of people I'll probably post here tomorrow or Monday with a final list.

[wildlrastalux]

Ok, hunt runners. I have white lips treefrog,cuban treefrog, fire belly toads, blue spot salamanders, tiger salamanders (my own not the one's for linda), cane toad, southern leopard frog, whites treefrog, chubby frog,pac man frog,red legged running frog,african clawed frog (not in the city), and to dan or whomever thats makes labels for each animal, I want to add my CAECILIAN WORM if my buddy drops it off to me. To my list of animals oh and add the northern cricket frog for linda, I just picked one up for herps of IL.
_________________
only the strong survive and the weak fall by the waist side and die like fly's feed that to your herps and get a bunch!

[DassenKoningin]

I think we have our final list! We got a couple of volunteers at the meeting, and all you wonderful people here, so we ended up going from "oh crap! Are we gonna have enough animals?" to "oh crap! Who do we have to leave out?" in a matter of days We even added a fifth animal this year. We went for variety, mostly, and tried to include all the new volunteers so the kids wouldn't look for familiar faces. We're also REALLY excited to have a kid volunteering his animals this year (thanks for the tip, Jason!), so hopefully the kids doing the hunt will be able to relate to him and imagine themselves as herp owners

I based my list on what people posted that they'd have. If I have an animal on my last that you've decided not to bring after all, let me know soon, and I can change things around.

Joey's corn snake
Danielle's Sulcata Tortoise
Lawrence's red legged running frog
Rob's eastern massasauga
Nick's beardie


Thanks to everyone who volunteered! We really appreciate you being there for us, even if we can't use everyone's animals.