Gopher tortoise

It seems like all my cool wildlife sightings have been in the same place lately. Today in St. Augustine, Florida, at the GTM National Estuarine Research Reserve, I saw this gopher tortoise.

He or she is definitely hiding because I was walking by and stopped to take a photo. It was just hanging out on the trail, and wasn't in a hurry to move as I passed (so typically tortoise). It pulled its head into its shell, but not all the way, so I could take this photo. 

Rattlesnakes, oh my!

I was super lucky and got to see multiple snakes in one day on a recent fieldwork day in St. Augustine. Just off the trail at the GTM National Estuarine Research Reserve sat an Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake. It was rattling!

Then on the way back down the same trail, I saw a pygmy rattlesnake. If you're afraid of snakes, you don't have to worry here: it was less than a foot long! But it is venomous. I almost stepped on it. Good thing I didn't!