Favoritos de leppinm

There is a nice paper written with contributions by many people in Herp Review on this species. This was the most northern found boa sigma as of this date. I waited for the paper to be final before posting this. People always try to capitalize on others and take finds. Feel free to read the published paper now.

Location: North fork Mad river, Korbel
Weather: Foggy, drizzly, high 50’s, very high humidity
Habitat: Very wet Doug fir/sitka spruce forest with a permanent, cold clear stream.

Found in a small offshoot of main stream under a rock in the water. ID determined due to vertical pupils and namesake tail.

This is a high elevation site (5100 ft/ 1555 m) located well in to the western Cascades. While this is a high elevation site that receives a large amount of winter snowfall (Tsuga mertensiana and Abies lasiocarpa grow close by), the site is a warm microsite sheltered by a south-facing cliff. I am a bit perplexed because these higher elevation oaks often have the bud shape characters of vars. breweri and semota as per FNA (http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=233501033), but I don't believe these plants are actually var. breweri or var. semota as they are outside the known ranges of those vars.