Hello and welcome to another edition of
FNR "Ask the Expert". First of all
happy World Snake Day, and also National
Forest Week. Did you know that there are
3500 species of snakes in the world, and
600 of them are venomous and many of
them are protected on public lands? So,
we'll talk more about snakes a little
bit later. Today we're going to be talking
about wildlife myths, or commonly held
wildlife "facts" that many of you may have
heard. Today we're going to be joined by
wildlife extension specialists Brian
MacGowan and Rod Williams. We will be
discussing everything from birds, to
toads, to hellbenders and coyotes. If you
have questions, put them in the comments
section here on Facebook and we'll
address them throughout the broadcast.
But to get us started, this time of year
there's lots of baby animals around.
We're seeing birds falling out
of nests. You might see a baby bunny
in your yard, or a deer that seems to be
left all alone. I know many of us have
been told for years don't touch them
because the mom won't come back and
they'll be abandoned for life. I know
I've heard that with rabbits and
many other animals. So, Brian let's start
there. Is that really the case? Is the
mama gonna leave them alone if I have to
touch them and put them back in the nest
or whatever? Yeah. So hello. It's good to
see everyone out there. So that's a good
question and it's one that comes up
every year. But, the truth is really
that's not the case.
People touch animals all the time
and they still come back. So, from that
standpoint it's probably something that
people just told their kids just to
keep them from picking things up and
messing with them, but the truth is
the mom, the parents will come back and
there won't be any issues. Probably the
only sliver of truth out of that is with
some birds in nest construction.
And so, the presence of people around that or
some type of a disturbance around that
can cause them to abandon a nest,
but for the most part it's fine.
People and wildlife coexist all the time.
I think, Brian, if I can chime in and
add on to what you just said.
The scenario you gave with abandoning
the nest, that's before the parents are
investing in laying those eggs.
Usually once the female either lays eggs
or the mother gives birth, one, that
maternal bond is very, very strong, and
the female has a lot invested in those
offspring. So they're highly
unlikely to just abandon them based
on a simple touch by human here and there.
Well good to know. Myth number one, busted.
So, it's okay to save the baby animals.
Okay, so switching gears a little bit.
Since it is world snake day, let's give
our snakes some love, or not, in my case. But,
I know Rod is a herpetologist so we'll
let him we'll let him have this one. A
few snake questions for you. Is it true
that if I encounter a snake it will
chase me? Highly unlikely that snakes are
going to chase you. In most of the
scenarios that I've had people describe
that to me, it's where a person is 
walking or hiking and they
encounter a snake and they usually
become startled. Most people get startled
when they see a snake, unlike Brian
and myself where perhaps maybe we get excited
when we see a snake. But most people get
startled and then they may take a couple
of steps in any one direction. But if you
think about that snake, they oftentimes
have home ranges that are set up. They
know their immediate vicinity.
They know their immediate
surroundings very well. And oftentimes,
many wildlife species, including snakes,
have predetermined escape routes. So, when
they encounter a human the first thing
the snake is often time thinking is "I
need to flee." And if their escape route
happens to be in the general direction
of that person, or where that person is
going, it appears that the snake is
chasing you when really what it's trying
to do is use its predetermined escape
route to elude you. Brian
want to add anything
on the snake front? Don't let Rod had Rod
have all the fun.
No I think that's perfectly
 accurate.
The only time I've had snakes come after
me is when I'm trying to pick them up. So
they're just defending themselves. 
They got other things to do besides mess
with people. They want to catch some
things, they want to eat, and do what
snakes do. While we're on the topic, are
there any snakes I should be wary of, or
places maybe I shouldn't be going, or
things I shouldn't be doing if I do
encounter snake, just to protect myself
as someone who is one of those people
who would be likely to freak out and run.
Well, we only have four venomous
species of snake in Indiana, two
rattlesnakes, massasauga rattlesnake,
and a timber rattlesnake, the copperhead,
and then the cottonmouth or water
moccasin, there's another name for that.
Most of those are very rare. Some of them
have very unique habitat niches. So
for example massasauga
rattlesnake, you only find them in
certain types of wetlands in parts of
northern Indiana. Again, most of these
snakes are very rare. Just to give an
example, for my master's project years
ago, I spent two years walking and hiking
and doing research in Southern Indiana
woods and I never once came across a
timber rattlesnake. Well, years later I
did a project on timber rattlesnakes in
the same area and, obviously,
when I'm doing that project I came
across some. So they're out there,
but it's like other things
we just talked about. Animals
tend to kind of want to do their own
thing. So, if you are in an area where
there are venomous species, for example,
with rattlesnakes, timber rattlesnakes or
copperheads, you certainly don't want to
be reaching underneath rocks and logs
and things like that. You've got to watch
for your step and those kinds of things.
But really for the most part, those
animals are in areas where people
wouldn't be hiking and things like that
and if they were along a trail you'd be
able to see them pretty easily. Brian you
want to mention if you are hiking and
you have a fallen log on the trail, the
best way to approach that log if you're
in an area with high densities of venomous
species?
Yeah. So I actually have a slide here I
can show. I'm going to attempt to share my
screen.
Okay. So, timber rattlesnakes get their
name because they spend a lot of time
around timber. They are ambush predators,
so they're waiting for a chipmunk or a
squirrel or something like that to come
along. So they spend a lot of time in
and around logs. So if you're in an
area where these things are at, you
really need to step on the log and step
a good distance beyond the log. You never
want to step right off the log you know
where that snake might be. Again, a very
rare species. They're not common at all,
but it's something that's a good
 habit to get into.
The other thing Wendy, since you
mentioned what should you do,
should you not do, one is always just try
to identify the snake. And, I know Brian
and I have written some books on
that and there's a really great
reference to the snakes and lizards of
Indiana. So if you're in the Hoosier
State, you can look that up on the Purdue
Education Store and purchase that
for a pretty nominal fee. It has all
the snakes and lizards that we have in
Indiana, including the venomous ones
that we're talking about. And Brian,
you correct me if I'm wrong, but I
believe many, if not the majority of
bites of venomous snakes with people, are
people handling, or attempting to handle,
or in some way shape or form and manipulating the animals. Oftentimes if you can
see the snake, you can identify it and
you just back away your encounter is
gonna be pretty pleasant. You'll get to
see some really brilliantly
colored venomous species, and you guys
can just kind of go on your separate
paths and no harm no foul. But, it's
usually when people try to handle them
in any way where they get into trouble.
Okay note to self, don't touch the snake.
And I'll just add too, if you if you see
those snakes, that's probably the
number one question I get in extension,
since my specialty is herpetology. In
fact, I got three snake questions just
yesterday and it's mostly snake
identification questions. And so if you
can take a safe distance, feel free to
either email Brian MacGowan or myself and
Wendy you can provide that in the chat
window, our emails. You can send us those
emails or those pictures via email and
we're happy to try to identify those
snakes as long as you can photograph
them at a safe distance.
Yeah absolutely. You know, we both
get a lot of questions like that, and those
those are the fun ones to answer. In my
20 years of doing this, I get a lot of
snake question emails with pictures and
things, and only one time in those 20
years was it was one of those pictures
an actual venomous species. So, I'm
sharing my screen right now. right
I can't see it. Maybe you
can't, I don't know. So all of our pit
vipers have that heat sensing pit
between and below the eye and the
nostril. The eye, when at rest
at light is a cat-like vertical
slit. Now obviously when there's limited
light at night, that slit would open up
just like our pupils get bigger in the
dark that kind of a thing. So
that's a good example. And then this is a
southern black racer, round pupil, no
heat sensing pit where that arrow is
pointing between the below the nostril
and the eye. So if you don't
hang around snakes a lot, sometimes it
can be difficult to tell. There's
variability in a lot of these species, but
sometimes the way the snake
presents itself, and things like that are
really good clues as well. So I'll add to
what Brian's saying since he just
showed those two great slides on snake
identification. There's two other
things that often times, people have
been on the phone with me and they're
very frantic that they think they have a
rattle snake in their yard or on their
property. And they say, well the snake has
a really wide triangular shaped head and
it's rattling its tail. I said is
it rattling his tail against a dried
leaf, or does it have a rattle on the end
of the tail? Those are two very different
things.
And if you think about it, many of these
non-venomous snakes will have behaviors
that mimic some of our venomous species.
So we have two venomous rattlesnakes
that Brian mentioned, but there's a lot
of non-venomous species that when
they're approached or they're threatened
they'll take their tail and vibrate it
against whatever structures in the
habitat to make it sound like a rattle,
because humans are programmed right, most
mammals are programmed, when they hear a
rattle they know what rattle snake is
around and their response is to
back away and leave the area. Snakes have
adopted that particular strategy. The
other thing with flattening the head, so
many species like that black racer that
Brian showed, if approached or harassed
or aggravated will oftentimes flatten
its head and when it flattens his head
it makes it look like it has a really
wide, triangular
shaped head as well. Again, that is a characteristic of our
venomous species, but many of the
non-venomous species will flatten their
head to give that same appearance. So,
those are a couple of behavioral
things that non-venomous species will do
to emulate or imitate or mimic our
venomous species. Great. We'll
depart from this snake department for
a moment to talk about bats. Most people are probably scared
of them. Most people have probably had
them in their barns or their houses and
not known how to get them out. Okay, a few
questions. First of all, are they blind?
Second of all, do they really drink your
blood?
Third of all, I've heard they can get
stuck in your hair? Brian you want to
start with that one for me please? Yeah,
sure. So are bats blind? No they're not
blind. They can see, but they just don't
rely on their site, they rely on
echolocation. And so, all of our Eastern
bats are insectivores and can
communicate with echolocation where they
send out pulses of sound, they bounce
back and then they can kind of find the
prey and that's how they do that. And so
they can see, but they just
rely on other senses beyond their
eyesight. Rod, do you want to take that
one a little bit? Anything you want to
share about bats in relation to either
them being blind or drinking your blood
or getting in your hair? I can honestly
say I have never ever had a bat land
in my hair, in the last 20 years of my
life, never happened. I'll let you be the
judge on why that may or may not be
the case, but they have never done so.
But, actually as Brian mentioned,
they're insectivorous. If you've ever
watched a bat flying, and some bats are
very good at flying, even in a forested
setting, and they're doing it at
night and rely on their echolocation.
They're incredibly agile fliers and so
they're oftentimes flying very agilely
in the air trying to catch those
insects. And
if we're outside and insects tend to be
in our immediate space, bats may be
swooping and and being really agile to
try to catch those insects that are in
and around us. And I think that is what
people presume that the bats are doing,
is trying to you know swoop down and
attack the person or something like that,
but they're really just after the
insects that are in our immediate
vicinity though. I don't know of any
instances in the Eastern United
States or anywhere in the U.S. where bats
have actively attacked someone.
They're after the insects that are in our
space. Ok, and finally, we have to address
this because all of us have been
brainwashed clearly by vampires and
Dracula and everything like that about
bats and vampires wanting to drink our
blood. Do bats really drink our blood?
There are species. There is a vampire bat
and it does. It has really modified
incisors that are
really sharp and they're used to make a
small incision. Often time it's on
bowvine, so cattle. And so they'll land on
cattle, they're very light-footed
and so the cow doesn't even know they're
there. They'll take those incisors, make a
really small incision and a droplet of
blood will form and then the bat
will just lap that up with their tongue.
But, I'm not aware of any instances and we don't have
that vampire bats here. And I'm not aware
of any insectivorous bat 
pursuing anything other than insects.
Brian, I don't know if you have anything
to add. Nope. I think that covers it. Wendy,
you're muted.
So, we're clear on bats now. They are not
trying to drink your blood. They are not
blind. And they are not trying to get all
up in your hair. So if that happens, it's
an accident. Okay switching gears here.
Brian, I've heard that there are cougars
and black bears in Indiana? Is that
correct? So, that's a common
question. Another picture that
I get sent to me sometimes is a picture
of a house cat that people think might
be a cougar. And so there are actually
cougars in Indiana from time to time or
all the time, because sometimes people
have them as pets. So years ago, the DNR
used to have a license that people can
have exotic animals such as cougars or
whatever. They did away with that from a
court order years ago, but they have that.
So you can actually go online, I think
you can post that resource up there.
Cougar Net is this national research
Network for cougars, and they actually
have a map of confirmed sightings
up there. And so it's actually kind of
kind of neat from that standpoint. I
think I can actually get it up here
really quick if I'm fast enough. But I
thought I had it up there. Here it is.
I'm going to share my screen really
quick since I'm getting good at it.
So, this is their website. And so you can
see, Indiana there's three, but if you
zoom in there - whoopsie
sorry about that - there's only one. And so,
there's one confirmed sighting of
cougars in Indiana in the wild. So
this was one from 2010. There's a
big story about this. Pictures in the
paper, but if you look closely at that
picture it actually had a metal ear tag
in it. So, when you have these things
and you had a permit, you
actually had to have marked in
some fashion, in this case is with an ear
tag. And so this was probably someone's
escaped pet or maybe they just didn't
want anymore so they let it go.
Occasionally, you notice in the map here,
in Illinois they've got quite a few more.
And so those are probably young males
dispersing from the nearest western
population, which is in, I think, Northwest Nebraska. And so male animals tend
to disperse really long distances. That's
kind of nature's way of mixing up that
the genetic pool so to speak. And they're
just kind of going off, looking for their
own place, sometimes they'll stop and
set up camp and other times they'll turn
around and kind of head back the other
way. Some folks may recall years ago, it
was probably I want to say 10 or 15
years ago, a farmer in Indiana shot and
killed a wolf that was a young male
 dispersing from a pack in
Wisconsin. And I think right around
that same time we also had a young male
wolverine, and it was the first time a
wolverine was documented in Indiana in
something like 200 years. So, sometimes
you get those kind of weird things, but
those are typically young males
dispersing. So the answer is, we have
them, but it's not like we have this
free-ranging wild population that's
reproducing on its own and that kind of
stuff. Most of them are pets, or you
could possibly get kind of a young
dispersing male from a population from
far away.
Okay. So, if we see a cougar it's possible,
but probably not likely and we probably
should just leave him alone, he's not
gonna hurt us. Yeah most of time.
Cougars, if they're around you really
don't see them, kind of like bobcats.
So, the chances of seeing a cougar in
Indiana, this is
just an educated guess, so this isn't
a fact, but my guess is you would probably be
more likely get struck by
lightning than see a cougar in Indiana.
You're muted Wendy. So, Rod, let's throw it
back to you. So something I was told as a
child, snapping turtles stay away from
them because they can actually take off
your finger. Is that true? Am I going to lose
a finger if I stick my finger near the
mouth of a snapping turtle? As a grown
adult person, no. So, snapping turtles
don't have the bite force to remove an
adult finger or toe. Now remember,
turtles don't have teeth. Their teeth are
replaced by a horny sheath on both the
top and bottom. And snapping turtles do
have a pretty significant bite force,
meaning a 15 or 20 pound snapping turtle
will likely break the skin if it bites
you and will certainly hurt, but it is
not powerful enough to remove your
finger. And oftentimes, I get asked, "well you
always preface it by saying an
adult human, what about my baby?" Yes it
will. There's so many things wrong with that question. You shouldn't
have a baby anywhere near a snapping
turtle's mouth anyway, but snapping
turtles in general they don't have a
bite force strong enough to bite off
your finger, to bite off your toe, to snap
broomsticks, anything like that.
Those are all things that I think,
again,
parents have told their children to keep
their fingers away from the business end
of a snapping turtle because I've been
bitten two or three times by snapping
turtles and I do have all ten of my
fingers. Did it hurt? Yes. In one occasion
it did draw blood, and you have to treat
that. Think about the environments
that they live in, it causes a chance for bacterial
infections. So just put some Neosporin on
it to keep it from getting infected some
topical antibiotic, otherwise you should
be okay. Maybe a bit bruised, maybe break
the skin, but otherwise you should be
okay. Good. So, I will mind the turtles, but
they probably aren't going to make me
lose a digit. Got it.
Okay. So, Brian let's toss it to you.
Let's talk birds for a minute. So I've
heard that the reason that we
don't have ruffed grouse in Indiana, and
maybe some other species, is that we
traded them to another state for birds
that we did want. Help me out on this
whole thing of raising and releasing
wild animals or establishing populations.
What's really going on there? Yeah that's
a good question. I see that
printed on websites sometimes and I hear
that giving talks to folks and
things like that. They just hear about 
this kind of a thing. And on the surface
it makes sense, right?
Because those things kind of coincided.
About the same time that our decline in
ruffed grouse happened, we had an increase
in turkeys. And so, just because things
happen at the same time it's not
necessarily a cause and effect thing. 
So, years ago states
would do this quite a bit and
they still do to some extent, that if
they have abundance of the species and
someone, another state wants to
repopulate, they will catch
those and move them to the other state
and let them go in appropriate habitat.
An example of that is
wild turkey. Wild turkey were
caught and moved around, and not only in
Indiana but many other states.
It's kind of a wildlife
management success story where they
repopulated areas with wild turkey,
which were were native to those
areas. The decline of grouse
is really a habitat issue. So, grouse they
like woodlands but they also like young
forests, brushy land, old field kind of
habitats. Just to give you an
example here. Let me show you another
picture here. Flipping back and
forth. I show this just to prove to rod
that I actually do get out in the field
sometimes. But this was many years ago.
This was actually a grouse drumming log.
So grouse are kind of neat. The males
sometimes they'll stand elevated on a
log typically, but it could be a
rock or some other things. Just to
elevate them, and they'll beat their
wings. People liken it to the sound of a
motorboat trying to pull on an
outboard motor. But the forest around
them is a really young forest. And so that
dense stand of young trees really helps
to protect them from avian predators
because it's very difficult for them
to fly through there and catch
them. So when they're standing on this
log drumming away, they're susceptible.
That's one of
their habitat components, but the young
forest is also important for brood cover
where their young can go in and
out of here on the ground protected from
predators, that kind of a thing. And so
it's really a habitat issue.
I know there was some thought 
not too long ago from some government
officials in the state, they were looking
at the wild turkey program thinking,
"well we caught wild turkeys and released
them and they did well, so we should do
that with grouse." The problem is that
you've got to have the habitat. And so if
you don't have the habitat you're
wasting time, money and resources. It's
just not going to work. So, while we're on
the topic of turkeys,
I've heard that rattlesnakes were
released in Indiana to control the wild
turkey population, and have also heard
the really creepy fact that they dropped
them from helicopters in order to do
that. Is that true? Yeah. So that's
another thing. So, we've
always had rattlesnakes in Indiana, in
fact, they used to be much more abundant,
much more widespread. So now the primary
range is really in the south-central
part of the state where you have good
habitat and then good den sites. So they
den in rocky outcrops and those
kinds of things. So that karst topography
in south-central Indiana is really
beneficial to them in that in that way.
And so we've always kind of had turkeys.
And so those things are really not
related from that standpoint. The
other thing is that rattlesnakes
really don't eat turkey eggs. So we
talked a little bit before, they're
ambush predators. And so they're going to
hang at trees and logs and things like
that, because they're gonna catch mammals.
And so I'm not aware of turkey eggs
rolling around logs and things like that.
Now, if a snake actually came across a very young turkey or something
like that that they're able to strike
and kill, or maybe even an egg, I don't
know. I guess it's possible.
They could certainly fit in their mouth
and
there are snakes that do consume eggs.
But, rattlesnakes really don't eat that
many times a year and they really are
ambush predators for small mammals. 
So, even if all they ate was
turkey eggs, which it's not, I don't think
there's enough of them out there to really
do any kind of appreciable damage in
terms of reducing population. So, if that
was the case it would be a very poor
reason to do it because it wouldn't work.
As far as them falling out of
helicopters, I hear that a lot. If I'm
going to release animals, dropping them out
of a helicopter doesn't seem to make a
lot of sense to me. I don't know if they
give them little parachutes or whatever,
but maybe this phenomenon is what maybe
triggered that. Rattlesnakes are
actually good climbers, and when I
mentioned I was doing my research on the
Hardwood Ecosystem Experiment, there was
also other things going on. And so
there's people studying the production
of massed acorns and nuts by
trees and in years that you had poor
acorn crops, you had poor small mammal
numbers because they really depended on
those acorns. And then that's food for
rattlesnakes. And so a year following
that we actually had a lot of snakes, not
a lot but more than one, actually spend
time up in trees. And this is one of
our snakes, she was an adult female,
and she spent something like two or
three weeks straight in a tree. And so,
presumably she was hunting. When
we catch them in bags they actually
defecate. And so, one time I had a
snake in a bag that did that and there
was a small, yellow feather in there
presumably from like a songbird or
something like that just based on the
size of it. So, it makes you
wonder if these things are adjusting
their feeding behavior where they're
going to ambush a small bird that lands
close to them up in a tree. So
pretty neat. But dropping out of
helicopters? No. That's just not
the way it's done. Well let's turn it to
happier topics. Rod, I know your
specialty is hellbenders, and they're
probably a very misunderstood species
and there's a lot of myths out there
regarding hellbenders. Number one, are
they poisonous? And number two, can they
really be as big as a person? So can 
hellbenders be as big as a person? No. The
biggest hellbender, and I've probably
handled and seen tens of thousands of
hellbender some in captivity, and
thousands of them in the wild, the
largest one I've ever seen was 22 inches
and weighed about four and a half or
five pounds. So, that's still a huge
salamander, right? Now, when I was in China, the
Chinese giant salamander, one of the ones
I saw in the Chingling Mountains was
about a meter and a half long, and its
head was 10 inches across and it weighed
close to about 80 pounds. So, that was
big as a small child. But, we don't
have Chinese giant salamanders here in
Indiana. We don't have them in North
America. So, no. Myth busted,
they do not get big as a man. Now, are
they poisonous? Well that's a question I
get about a lot of amphibians. So, if you
think about amphibians and hellbenders
in particular one of their nicknames is
called snot otter. And they're called
snot otters for a very good reason, they
produce copious quantities of slime on
their skin. And that slime is really
important. That slime
helps protect the hellbender from the
environment, right? It gives it this slime
coat which helps prevent some
deleterious bacteria, some harmful
bacteria from getting in through the
skin. It helps keep them moist. It helps
make them slimy, so when bald
herpetologist try to capture them under
the water they slip out of my hands. And
so other predators trying to
attack a hellbender, that slime is slimy
and it makes it difficult to capture. And
in some species of amphibians that
slime coating can be somewhat poisonous
or have some sort of toxins in it,
so the best-case example in North
America are our newts. It's called a
tetrodotoxin which is a non
proteinaceous toxin that's produced in
the skin, and again, it's a deterrent for
predators. Some of our toads, like our
American toad, they have these paratoid
glands that are right behind their eyes,
that are also mildly toxic. And so, if you
were to rub your your finger on that
paratoid gland and then rub your eye or
rub your nose or wipe your mouth,
depending on the toad and how much
irritant you get on it, it can be
distasteful. It can make your tongue sore or hurt. It can make your nose
burn. It can make your eyes burn and water
as well. So a mild irritant to
your mucosal cavity and mucosal linings.
Many of our salamanders will have
that, and hellbender skin they're not
poisonous. If you touch them you're
not gonna die. They're not like
the golden frog or the poison dart frog
that you see in Central America, which
have really high levels of toxins in
their skin. But, those species
often times, it's called aposematic.
They're very brightly colored, so they're
bright orange, bright red, bright green.
Any of those organisms have those
really, really bright colorations. If
they're amphibians, oftentimes they're
signaling that their skin is very toxic,
very poisonous to the touch so that you
want to leave them alone. Hellbenders are
dark brown, their skin is designed to be slimy to help allude predators, but
also blend in with their environment. So,  if you are lucky enough to ever
see a hellbender, they are an endangered
species so they're protected by law. Most
people will never get a chance to see a
hellbender, but they're not toxic to the
touch. Just a reminder, if you have any
questions that we haven't addressed, any
myths you want busted, please put those
in the comments section here on Facebook
and Rod and Brian will answer those. Keeping
on that same topic of things that can
cause you not so happy results, toads. Can
I really get warts from touching a toad
or frog? So, before I go off the
hellbenders I remembered one
thing I would be remiss. My
hellbender crew would would string me up
if they knew that I didn't mentioned
the HelpTheHellbender.org. So if you
have other questions about hellbenders
or other hellbender myths, we have a lot
of information on our HelpTheHellbender.org website. And Wendy, you can
put that in the comment section for us
here in a little bit. So, back to the
warts. I think this is along the same
vein that Brian was talking about
earlier, that parents tell their children.
Toads, especially American toads and
Fowler's toads in Indiana, are very
common around human dwellings. So it's
probably one of the amphibian species
that most of us encounter the most
frequently. And I think a lot of parents
just don't want their kids touching
amphibians, and so 
somehow that's probably how that was created.
If you've ever picked up
a toad, one of the very first things they
usually do is void their bladder. 
In other words they urinate on you, they
pee on you. And the old the old adage is, if the toad pees on you, you're
gonna get warts. If that was the case, as
many toads as I handled, I wouldn't be
able to move my fingers because my
fingers will be covered it warts.
That is certainly not true. That myth is
busted. So do they cause hair loss
though?
I don't know the answer to that one.
Pretty sure that's genetics... but that's
a topic for another day. But I will say
if
you see toads and they do
urinate on you, it's not going to cause
warts. But, I will say that most
amphibians and reptiles in the wild,
there was a study done, probably 15
years ago at this point, that found that
over 90% of all amphibians and reptiles
in the wild, they have salmonella
bacteria in their GI tract. And so if
they defecate or urinate on you, it
really is important to wash your hands
really thoroughly with soap and water
before putting your hands anywhere near
any of your mucosal linings, or certainly
before you eat to make sure that you
minimize the chance of contracting
salmonella poisoning or
bacterium in your body which causes
severe abdominal cramping and diarrhea.
So if you're handling them and they're urinating,
just wash your hands before
you eat.
But you don't worry about warts. So
bottom line, good hygiene will help
protect you in a lot of those cases.
So wash your hands, especially this time
of year and in this current situation
that we're in. But you're not going to get a
wart, so congratulations on that.
Another parent myth busted. Anything else
you guys want to discuss that we haven't
mentioned? I know Brian, you're dealing
with moles and voles a lot and other
outdoor creatures that we might see
around our house a lot. I know a lot of
the ones Rod talked about are ones we
may not see in our environments,
in our backyards. Are there some of those
animals maybe there are myths about that
we haven't talked about that we
should be aware of?
Wow, I'm trying to try to think off the
top of my head. Boy,
nothing's popping to my mind. I'm
still thinking about warts and things
like that. Like the toad
things that Rod was saying, kind of
sparked a story in my head about like
one time my dog ate a toad. And of course,
about a half hour later it came back up
again. So dogs don't
like them either.
Those paratoid glands, especially
if you go to the southern United States,
along the Atlantic coastal states, places
like Florida, we have the marine toad
which is an introduced species. And they
have huge paratoid glands and 
actually they can make you sick. If dogs
or cats attack a marine toad, those
paratoid glands are so large and the
toxins are potent enough that it can
kill small pets that attack that toad.
But, here in Indiana, it's mostly going
to cause mild irritation to any mucosal
lining that you come into contact with.
And I have tested that and it does
burn. It's not pleasant. Maybe that's why
I'm bald. Please don't believe me when I say that
because I was kidding. It's been super
educational today. I know I had a lot of
myths that I grew up with busted.
Are there species that you get a lot
of questions about that you want to
mention that folks maybe need to be
aware of? Whether that be in your world
of herpetology Rod, or Brian in
wildlife, that we see around us that we
should be aware of, or things like that?
Or another species you get a lot of
questions about? You know, as I mentioned
earlier, I think maybe in the promo video,
many of the questions that I get a deal
around amphibians and reptiles because
that's my area of specialization, and Brian
and Jarred Brooke cover a lot of the other
more general wildlife questions. But,
almost all the questions that I get
revolve around identification, and that's
one of the reasons Brian and I wrote all
those herpetology
field guides. So we have Snakes of
Indiana, Turtles of Indiana, Frogs and
Toads of Indiana, and Salamanders of
Indiana, because I think, as you alluded
to earlier, Wendy, those are species that
are probably less familiar to most
people. And so one of the very first
things they have is, what do I
have? And there are periods of time,
like right now when it's starting
to warm up and people are becoming more
active, they come into contact with more
snakes, and then usually in the fall when
snakes are getting ready to find their
hibernacula, or a place to overwinter
where they could stay safe and warm, they
end up in people's basements, trying to
get in people's foundations. That's
another big time when I get a lot of
snake calls, because people are again
encountering the calls near their
dwellings. So I'll just say, and I
say this on almost every program, that I
do, all of our phones have really great
cameras now. Don't hesitate to snap a
quick picture and then send an email to
me or Brian or Jarred and say, hey can you help me identify that? And
obviously try to take as good quality
pictures you can. Take pictures of the
head, the body, give us as much
opportunity to positively identify that
animal for you as possible.
I just did two or three of those this
week with some northern water
snakes, because the person
didn't know if it was
venomous or no.  I said "I don't know send
me a picture," and they sent me a really
high quality photo and I could
immediately tell them what species it
was. It was non-venomous and what to do
after that. Yeah, the one thing on the top of my head
while Rod was talking is another question
I get is water snakes. So people see a
water snake and they automatically think
it's a cottonmouth. So there's really
only a couple places in Indiana that
there actually are cottonmouths. But,
it's really easy to tell the difference
when they're in the water. So all the pit
vipers, copperheads, cottonmouth,
all snakes are capable swimming,
you just don't see them in the water
sometimes. But they all inflate
their lungs before they get in the water.
So a lot of their body is right on
top of the water, so you can see most of
their body. Where other snakes don't do
that, so you see just the head. I'm trying
to do this on the camera. And the rest of
it you don't see it under water, unless
you're close to it. And so that's a
really good field indicator of telling
the difference between a cottonmouth
or
potentially another pit viper as opposed
to other snakes.
I hope they're not in the water that I'm
in, that's all I'm gonna say. I'll leave
them out there for you guys to study. I
think that's all the questions that we
have for today. I hope that if you have
other questions, feel free to put
those in the comments section and Brian
and Rod and even Jarred Brooke might even
answer those after the fact for you.
That's what we're here for, Purdue
Extension is here for you to help you
identify the things around you, help you
manage your land, help you manage the
wildlife on your area properties and
things like that. So feel free to reach
out to our experts, you can use the
Purdue Extension website and do that.
And, I've also put the emails for Rod and
Brian in there. They don't mind getting
random questions, I send them to
them all the time from various people
around the state. So send in those
questions, that's what we're here for,
that's why we do this ask the expert
series. And, we hope today was very
helpful for you guys in busting some of
those myths that we've all lived with
our whole lives. Next week, speaking of
Jarred Brooke, he'll be on. He's talking
about tips for fall food plots so you
can get ready to get those grouse or
those deer or whatever you're looking to
get in your yard, get them get them ready
for them.
So thanks Rod. Thanks Brian.
Super educational today, appreciate it.
No problem. You bet. All right we'll see
y'all next week, 3 p.m. Thursday,
talking with Jarred Brooke about tips
for fall food plots.
