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This beautiful creature greeted me inside my garage at the kitchen door as I was coming back inside from some gardening. There's no telling how long it had been in the garage--maybe 5 minutes, or overnight, or for days or weeks.

I captured the snake in a butterfly net, transfered it to this bin for photographs, then released it unharmed well away from the house (last image). As Coralsnakes go, this was a biggy, maybe 30"+ long.

Remarkably, this is the first record of any venemous snake at Salton Drive in our 22 years here.

Very unusual swallowtail, that I might have passed off as Black Swallowtail had I not seen large flashes of yellow on both the topside and bottomside as it flew by, eventually landing briefly while I raced for my camera, which unfortunately had my macro mothing lens on it. Nevertheless, I got some photos that show the extensive yellow on the wings. Also, the abdomen is yellow, with a black stripe down the middle, unlike any Black Swallowtail I've ever photographed. It still doesn't fit well, with field marks and ranges, with other "black" swallowtails. ???

This historical set of images needs a bit of context; the 3rd and 4th images show pages of my field journal which describe this "observation." A longer version of the story will be uploaded to a journal post.
Short version: This is the first ever photograph of Texabama Croton (Croton alabamensis var. texensis) on the day I showed the population to graduate student Steve Ginzbarg (U. Texas Botany Dept.; L in photo). I had discovered the shrubs during field work on May 31, 1989. I invited Steve Ginzbarg and John Gee (R in photo) to examine the plants on my next visit to the tract. Steve went on to name the plants as a new variety of Alabama Croton (Sida 15(1):41-52, 1992):
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41967533
At the time, this was a private ranch. The croton became one of the focal plant Species of Concern for the Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Plan. The tract was later acquired for the Refuge of the same name, primarily for its population of Black-capped Vireos and Golden-cheeked Warblers, but also because this spot (where this photo was taken) is the "Type Locality" for Texabama Croton.