A few days before this I went out riding my bike at night down Bush Hwy to look for animals. This is known as herping (Herping is a term often used by professional and amateur Herpetologists to signify searching for reptiles or amphibians), Though I was in look for any kind of night animals. I really wanted to find some snakes. So I set out and unfortunately my battery in my camera shortly thereafter ran out so I don't have any pictures from that ride, but I do have stories. I saw many kangaroo rats and rabbits along the dirt trails just past the B-line on Bush Hwy. I stopped to look at a rat that just ran across the road and a rabbit hopped out of a bush and hopped directly at me while my bike was still on and light shinning right at it. So I just sat there and watched it slowly hop away. I drove down to Butcher Jones at Saguaro lake and saw a skunk so I sat and watched it eat an entire prickly pear fruit, then wander off into the trees. And last and not least I saw a deer on the side of the road. It was a nice mule deer buck with velvet still on the antlers. Probably a 3X3 or 4X4. I couldn't quite tell as it bounded back into the desert away from the road and my lights.
A few days later my brother came out with me on his scooter. Boy did we get to see a lot this trip. Before we even got to the salt river we saw a snake on the road. Unfortunately, like others that night, it was DOR (dead on the road). It was a nice sized California King snake as you can see from the picture. We took this trip to see animals of any kind, whether live or dead, and also use it to clean up the roads. We moved anything we found on the road off of it so that it wouldn't get any more desecrated by cars and make a mess. We got back on our bikes and immediately turned around after seeing something small on the road. It was a Praying Mantis up close and personal. Just past the first salt river parking area we found another snake on the road. This one was also DOR and so we moved it off and got a picture. This was a Long-nose Snake. These look similar to the king snakes but have some distinguishing characteristics. These have black bands on white but the bands do not wrap all the way around the belly. There are also white or cream patches on the sides of the black bands near the belly. This one happened to still have some of its red in it from that phase. They can become even more blotchy with more red and less of a noticeable stripe system.
Next on the list we saw a coyote on the side of the road running off into the desert and just down the road found a young coyote pup DOR unfortunately. The poor little thing. But we were able to get it off the road so it wouldn't be run over any more. And along with that we saw a dead Javelina. This is the 3rd javelina I've seen DOR along Bush Hwy. It is a heavy crossing area for them on either side of Saguaro lake there. We noticed a scorpion traveling across the road so we stopped and after a shot time were able to find it again. It was a Giant Desert Hairy Scorpion. Our plan now is to find at least one of these and keep it as a pet. We could put in a black light to turn on at night seeing as they are florescent under those lights--a neon blue. We saw several more skunks down by Butcher Jones area and headed home. Coming back out we saw something small once more crossing the road. It was what I believe to be a Camel Spider (Upon further research I found that this is called either a Sun Spider or a Windscorpion). A creepy-looking little bug. 
Then we neared the spot where I moved the Long-nosed Snake off the road and it was back on the road!! Another animal must have moved it back on. Then not 20 yards away, as we were driving away, we saw another snake. A live snake! It was another king snake similar to the first but slightly smaller. It crossed the road and went off into the trees. A great end to a great night.
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