♪♪ [Laughing] >> So, this is a little American alligator, it's not a crocodile.

Okay, here we go.

Here's a couple more.

In fact, one of them just flew.

Many of the creatures in the LowCountry are extremely secretive, and they spend the majority of their time hidden.

In fact, certain species don't even come out during daylight hours.

Animals that are active at night are adapted for nocturnal existence.

Characteristics like big eyes, so they can see well in the dark, large ears to hear the faintest noises, use of echolocation to capture prey, and the ability to vocalize to find mates, help these guys make a living in these low light conditions.

But the only way to really see these animals is to get out and explore the woods at night.

Over the next few evenings, we're going to visit a variety of habitats in the LowCountry, and we're going to look for some of these nocturnal animals.

Join us as we experience "Creatures of the Night."

We're at a LowCountry beach.

In fact, it's kind of a windy night, and it's still early.

But we came across just an absolutely incredible animal.

This is an adult female horseshoe crab.

And I'm saying it's a female by size, because generally the males are quite a bit smaller.

And this is one of the neatest animals in the LowCountry.

These things are incredibly primitive, they're very common, and they come up on the right nights.

And this is probably the night that this animal is going to come up and lay her eggs.

Actually, they're not really crabs at all, they're Chelicerates [soft 'ch'] -- or some people pronounce it Chelicerates [hard 'ch'], and they're actually closer relatives to spiders than they are crabs.

Looks like a very old female, you can tell by all the barnacles on her.

And she's just kind of beat-up.

Looks like she's been through the wars.

So, this one has probably been around for a long, long time.

Now, let's make sure it's a female.

I'm going to flip it over... very carefully, trying not to hurt it.

And if you look underneath, they've got -- [Laughing] They look prehistoric or something!

Uh, just incredible, incredible legs.

These are the walking legs right here.

And then these things are claws of sorts.

But, you know, they can't do much at all -- the pinch is very mild compared to other crabs, that's for sure.

This appendage right here is called a "telson."

And a telson is what allows a horseshoe crab to turn back over -- if it gets turned upside-down by a wave or something, it can use this telson -- this tail-looking thing -- to flip the shell back over.

And I'm going to look for -- males will have a little set of hooks in the back pair of legs, and those hooks are what they use to hold onto the female so that she can drag him right up on the beach.

And what she does is gets up above the high-tide line, lays her eggs, and that's where they're safe from a variety of marine predators.

And, so what she's doing is traveling up the beach, trying to get up above where the water is going to go.

She'll lay her eggs.

Usually there's a male nearby, and that male will fertilize those eggs.

And then, hopefully, those little eggs will hatch into miniscule little horseshoe crabs.

So, a lot of marine predators can't get 'em because they're up on the sand.

But there's an awful lot of animals that depend on these.

There's a variety of birds, like Ruddy Turnstones, and Red Knots, that feed on these horseshoe crab eggs.

These eggs are incredibly nutritious.

And some of these birds are actually tied to the life cycle of horseshoe crabs, and they arrive on these beaches at exactly the right time so that they can eat those eggs.

It's incredible timing, when you think about it.

And the reason for that is they have to get enough eggs so that they have the energy to make a long migration flight to the arctic tundra.

And then once they get there, the females have to have sufficient energy to lay their eggs -- lay eggs of their own, so to speak.

Just incredible thing.

So, if these horseshoe crabs weren't here, then we would -- the Red Knots and the Ruddy Turnstones might not have enough to eat to make their migration journey.

Here's a pair that just came up out of the surf.

And the female came up into shallow water.

There's generally some males waiting around.

Female releases pheromones, and the male sort of keys-in on that.

He grabs a hold of the female.

He has these modified hooks on his legs, and he uses those to hold onto the female, and she pulls him right up on land.

She'll burrow down in the sand, lay her eggs.

And as soon as those eggs are laid, they're fertilized by the male.

And then, hopefully, these eggs will one day turn into baby horseshoe crabs.

In fact, out of the 80,000 that are laid, maybe only 10 are going to survive.

So, the majority of them are eaten by -- or, eaten by predators.

Thousands of horseshoe crabs are collected from LowCountry beaches every year.

And these are collected by permit only.

And they're collected for the biomedical industry.

And what happens is, these crabs are collected, they're taken to local labs, a certain amount of blood is removed from the horseshoe crab, and then the cells of this blood are used to detect the presence of gram-negative bacteria.

Anything that's put in the body, like catheters or pacemakers, or anything that goes in the human body, is first tested with horseshoe crab blood -- or, actually, the cells from horseshoe crab blood.

So, these horseshoe crabs are very, very important.

In fact, it's really the only thing we have for testing for the presence of gram-negative bacteria.

After these crabs are bled, they're brought back to the ocean and released.

And the idea is, maybe those same crabs can be caught next year and used again for the biomedical industry.

Okay, so these creatures aren't going to win any beauty contests.

I mean, they're very primitive looking.

Although they look dangerous, they're completely harmless.

But it's neat to know that we have creatures like this in the LowCountry.

And it's neat to know that these guys are going to crawl back into the ocean, and they may come back to this same beach next year, and even the year after that.

It's starting to get dark outside, and it's about time to see some snakes moving.

One of the best ways to catch nocturnal snakes is to drive along a low-traveled road like this, and just look for them crossing.

So, what we're going to do is cruise along here and just see what we can find crossing the road.

Okay, here we go, I see something right here.

It's small.

Yeah, right here.

This is one that I kind of expect you to see, he's kind of crawling around.

See if I can grab him.

This, of course, is not venomous.

It's called a rat snake.

And, actually, this is a juvenile rat snake.

So, this one has a lot of growing to do.

Looks like he's maybe a little bit -- a little bit feisty.

But this is a snake that, when it's an adult, will get, oh, five or six feet long.

It'll be yellow and striped.

But as a baby, they have these really pretty blotches on 'em.

Now, these guys, when they're little, eat things like tree frogs and stuff like that, but as they get bigger they can eat squirrels and birds and much bigger prey.

So, this one, I'm sure, is just out crossing the road, looking for something to eat.

So, we'll put him back down and we'll just kind of let him go about his business.

Here's something right in front of the truck.

It's really small, but you can see how shiny it is.

Yeah, this is what I was hoping we'd see.

This is a beautiful little snake!

A real gem.

And this, actually, is an adult.

It's a scarlet kingsnake.

It is not a coral snake.

And there's a -- This is the one that looks so much like a coral snake.

One of the ways we can tell is one of the rhymes that people use is, "Red on yellow, kill a fellow; red on black, friend of Jack."

And you can see how this one has the red on black.

But what I always say is, if you have to remember the rhyme, you probably shouldn't be picking the snake up.

So, this is a scarlet kingsnake.

And this one is pretty much completely nocturnal -- you almost never see these things out during the day.

And this one's just out crossing the road.

Probably looking for a skink that's sleeping inside a -- you know, in a hole in the ground or something like that.

And as I said, this is an adult, this is as big as this snake gets.

I mean, a really big scarlet kingsnake is less than two feet long.

And they're adults by the time they reach a foot long or so.

And we put this guy down and just let him crawl.

Beautiful colors.

This has been just a great night for snakes!

In fact, every time we go around a corner there's another one.

So, let's drive along and see what else we can see.

Well, here's one right here.

It's right in front of the vehicle.

Okay, so this is a much, much bigger snake, and he's just sitting here, so I don't think we need to do anything.

This is a corn snake, and, I mean, a beautiful one.

This is a pretty good sized adult, it looks like.

And I'm going to see if I can pick him up.

Sometimes snakes will bite when you first catch 'em, but a lot of times if you handle them really gently, you can get away with it.

I would, of course, never try this with a venomous snake, because, well, venomous snakes bite, but even non-venomous snakes sometimes will bite you to protect themselves.

Gorgeous, gorgeous snake.

And if you look at his belly, it's got that beautiful checkerboard pattern.

And on his back he has bright orange blotches.

And this looks really bright here, but this snake would blend in beautifully in leaves and grasses and things like that.

You know, a lot of people don't like snakes, but, first of all, you got to admit, this is a beautiful animal.

I mean, these things are absolutely gorgeous -- when you look at the back, and look at the beautiful checkerboard belly.

But something else -- I mean, this snake has a real role to play in nature.

It feeds on rodents and things like that.

It, in turn, provides food for hawks and owls, and...

It'd just be a real shame if snakes like this corn snake didn't exist here, because they're part of life here and they're part of the balance of nature.

And so, we can just kind of put him down and let him go about his way.

These become very nocturnal during this time of the year.

No one knows why insects are attracted to light, but they are, they're phototaxic.

And so, one of the really great ways to see what insects live in the surrounding woods is to put a bug light up.

And this is just a sheet that we've nailed to the side of this building, and then we have this light, and it's designed, actually, to sample insects in the area.

And so, what we're going to do is just see what lives in the woods around here.

So, let's start -- and if we look right here, this is a katydid.

So, this is one that actually vocalizes and makes a lot of noise.

But it is a really cryptic animal.

And you can see, this one looks just like a leaf.

And this is a female -- I can tell because it has this ovipositor.

Boy, look at the antennae on these things, and the long legs.

And this thing spends a lot of its life in the trees.

And so, you won't often see it, because it's supremely camouflaged, and you only see them when they come down out of the trees and to a light like this.

Okay, so I'm going to put him back on.

And there's lots of really, really small -- looks like some caddisflies here, and some tiny moths.

One really neat beetle is this one right here.

This is called a clickbeetle.

And this particular one is called an eyed elater.

And if you look, he has these great eyespots on the top of his head.

Those aren't his eyes at all, those are just eyespots that are designed to probably fool predators and things -- birds and stuff like that.

But he's got an even neater way to protect himself.

This guy clicks -- there he's kind of clicking a little bit.

And you see, this is -- this, sometimes, if a predator or something starts to grab him, then probably that click kind of frightens 'em and causes 'em to step back a minute, and maybe the beetle escapes.

In fact, let me hold him up to my mic and see if we can get him to click.

[Clicking] I don't know if you can hear that, but he actually has a joint in his body, and, uh, it's held together with just little sort of things that press against each other.

And he can force those things apart, which causes the body to click in half, basically, and that's what causes the clicking noise.

So, this is just one of the many beetles that lives around here.

And let's look at those eyespots.

Beautiful beetle.

I mean, there are literally thousands of insects on this sheet.

A lot of them are beetles, like this one right here.

And beetles make up about two-thirds of all insect species.

So, chances are if you find an insect it's going to be a beetle.

Now, here is a real treat.

This is one of the really cool, sort of, big game beetles that you find.

This is an animal called "Dynastes," the common name for it is eastern Hercules beetle.

And this is a male.

If we get a better look at him...

I'm going to be real careful that I don't hurt the tarsi -- these little claws that he has on the tips of his feet.

And they look like they're pretty stuck in the -- in the cloth.

So, let me see if I can pull him off.

But this guy looks ferocious.

But, you know, he's not dangerous at all, he just has these, uh, these -- this appendage on the front.

This is probably used for combat with other males.

But he's really fierce looking, but, you know, adults probably don't even feed much.

They may feed a little bit on nectar and things like that.

But for the most part, they just fly and mate.

This is about as big as our beetles get.

Some of the scarabs -- Scarabaeidae is a big group of beetles, and some of them get quite big, like this.

But in the tropics, for instance, some of the beetles may get, you know, three or four inches long.

But nothing like that lives in the United States, although these are pretty impressive on their own right.

You know, these little burrow pits and wetlands really come alive at night.

I can see a whole bunch of really cool eye shine.

There's some bullfrogs in here.

There's also some really pretty, kind of bluish eyeshines, which I assume are fishing spiders, and they really, really glow.

And that's because they have very reflective eyes.

But these things sit on the top of the water -- they can actually sit on top with surface tension.

And they can grab small fish and small salamanders -- aquatic salamander larvae -- and things like that, and then grab 'em and eat 'em.

They're voracious predators, but, of course, they're very, very small.

I'll get a little bit closer to this guy and point him out to you.

So, he's just sitting on the top of the water.

You can see all this duckweed right here, and he's just sitting right on the top, waiting for a small fish or a small animal that he can grab, inject venom into, and then feed on.

Neat little animal.

One other thing that definitely comes out at night is mosquitos, and, man, we are just getting attacked by mosquitos!

These appear to be saltmarsh mosquitos, and they're particularly savage.

I swear, they bite harder and they seem to be a lot more aggressive.

Okay, here's a water snake.

And these things are really, really, really neat.

And you can see, I'm going to grab this one by the tail.

And they do bite, so I have to be a little bit careful to not get bit.

Even though he has a kind of triangular looking head, this is not a cottonmouth.

Okay, I'm going to turn my headlamp off.

And you see these beautiful bands on him.

He has pretty big teeth, so I'm trying to make sure I don't get bit -- 'cause it does hurt, even though he's not venomous.

And I would never handle a venomous snake like this.

But a non-venomous one, sometimes you can -- you can get away with it.

Let me see if I can get him behind the head.

There we go.

And so, now I can hold him a little bit more carefully.

And the first thing you notice is this guy has these really neat stitching sort of lines in the face.

And that's how I know it's not a cottonmouth.

But banded water snakes are beautiful, and this one is particularly pretty.

It has these really nice, sort of, red bands on it.

Some of them tend to be kind of muddy and brown looking; this one is much prettier.

This is an adult, a young adult, looks like it's probably a young male, but let me see for sure.

Actually, actually, it's a young female, looks like -- I can tell by the length of the tail.

Uh, these things musk terribly, so this one smells really, really bad.

And a lot of water snakes, when you catch 'em, will bite you or they'll musk you, and either one is not too terribly much fun.

They do have sharp teeth but no fangs, like a copperhead or a cottonmouth.

So, the bite hurts, but it's certainly not dangerous at all.

And this water snake, I bet you, is doing exactly the same thing that we are -- he's out looking for things that come out at night, looking for bullfrogs and tree frogs and salamanders, and just about anything that's going to be moving on a warm, wet night like this one.

All right, I'm going to let this guy go back into this little wetland, and he should disappear right back into the water.

And there he goes.

[Frogs and insects thrumming] Some of the most amazing animals in the LowCountry come out at night.

And we're in this wetland in, actually, in the middle of town, it's just a retention basin.

But this wetland is critically important for a lot of things.

And you can hear the activity here.

There's green tree frogs, barking tree frogs, there's narrow-mouthed toads.

And all these animals have come to this wetland at night to attract mates and to mate.

So, what we're going to do is get out and just see what we can find.

And this right here is a barking tree frog.

And this one was just calling away, but he's taking a little bit of a break.

Let me see if I can show you this little guy -- and I don't want to disturb him too much.

But notice he's puffed his body up with air, and that gives him the ability to float on the surface.

Let me see if I can...

I can right away tell that this is a male, and that's because right underneath his chin here he has some extra skin, and it's kind of darkened.

That's a vocal sac.

So, males are the only ones that really vocalize, the only ones that make that noise to call mates.

And so, that extra skin blows up and sort of holds air, and the air is forced out real quickly, comes out of the mouth and makes sort of a honking sound, or a little bit like a dog barking.

Now, another thing I can tell is this guy has toe pads.

Each one of his toes has little sticky toe discs on it.

And so, this is one of the tree frogs.

And tree frogs are known as good climbers, and their sticky toe pads help them go straight up the trunk of a tree, or even up glass sometimes.

So, this is a barking tree frog, and there are a couple ways I can tell.

One is he has these spots on his back, and these spots are characteristic of barking tree frogs.

A green tree frog would have a white line that went all the way down the body right here, and it wouldn't have much in terms of spots.

Now, these guys can turn just basically green, but they're never going to have that really prominent white stripe down the body.

[Frogs calling] Okay, so, here is a green tree frog, and this is really a different looking animal.

And if you look at him real close, first thing you notice is he's got this really nice line running down his body right here.

He's also a slimmer frog.

Barking tree frogs are much heavier bodied.

These are even better climbers and they're a little bit more athletic.

Also, notice there's no spots on his back.

The barking tree frog is covered with those wonderful spots, brown spots on a green background.

This guy generally has a plain green body.

It's hard to talk with all the frogs in the background.

It's just amazing how loud frogs are in a chorus like this.

'Cause, remember, each of these male frogs is trying to call louder than the frog next to him so he gets the girl, so to speak.

Now, this looks like...

It's a little bit hard to tell, but it looks like it may be a female.

So, this one was not calling and doesn't have the extra vocal sac underneath the chin.

So, this looks like a female green tree frog.

[Calling] Okay, this next one is a narrow-mouthed toad.

Let's see if I can get this little guy.

And narrow-mouthed toads are really, really small.

See if I can get it.

They're really hard to hang onto.

They're slippery little guys.

And so, this is a full-grown adult.

I mean, it's as big as they get!

And it's called a narrow-mouthed toad.

It's actually a Microhylid.

It's really not a true frog, and it's really not a true toad.

It's kind of something in between.

But this one has the most obnoxious call -- it makes kind of a, "Waah!"

You may be able to hear that in the background just a little bit.

And that call is -- so, that's males trying to attract mates, just the same way the barking tree frogs and the green tree frogs are.

Their call is somewhat drowned-out by the loud barking tree frogs and the green tree frogs.

But fabulous little beast, and it lives in these same little wetlands where you find the greens and the barking tree frogs.

Now, one of the things that's really important is this wetland that we're in, this is right in the middle of a town, and it's really more of a retention basin than anything else.

But it's really important for these amphibians.

If they didn't have this little pond, little place to live, they wouldn't survive.

So, it's critically important that we have these fishless wetlands so that these guys can make a living.

If there were a bunch of largemouth bass in here, these guys would never be able to survive.

So, what a treat to be out at night in the middle of a pond somewhere with this amount of energy around you.

For me, this is about as good as it gets.

Guys, this is one of the coolest things -- behind me are just -- I'll bet there are 25 or 30 alligators, and what we can see is the eye shines.

And so, these guys have sort of crystal-like structures in their eyes, and when you shine a light on 'em, they reflect back this real pretty orange color.

So, I mean, there are a ton of alligators sitting right in this hole right here -- and I think I know what they're up to.

I mean, they're kind of stacked up and all kind of waiting on something.

Now, when we came up, we saw a great-big alligator, about a ten-footer, cross the road right here.

And there's a rather significant alligator highway here.

And alligators are going back and forth -- I think I know why.

This is fresh water.

So, we're in fresh water.

And right over next to us is the salt marsh.

Alligators love to get into the salt marsh, feed on blue crabs and mullet and all sorts of salt marsh sorts of things to eat.

But they can't stay in the saltwater very long, just for a few days, because they can't handle the salt.

So, what they do is go into the salt marsh, feed all they can, then they slide back into the fresh water, drink a bunch, purge all that salt out of their systems.

And then they're able to go back in the salt marsh again.

So, in the LowCountry, we have American alligators.

We don't have crocodiles.

And the really great thing about American alligators is they're very reasonable.

I mean, they're not like some of the saltwater crocodiles and the Nile crocodiles that are used to eating really big animals -- you know, wildebeest and things like that.

They don't really look at people as food.

Now, that being said, you've got to be careful around alligators, because they're big, powerful predators.

And what you don't want to do is to get too close to one.

And under no circumstances should you ever feed an alligator.

Because what happens if alligators are fed, they start to associate people with food, and it creates a very dangerous situation -- not only for you, but for other people who live in the LowCountry.

When you think of nocturnal reptiles, one of the first things you think about is alligators.

I mean, alligators are really nocturnal, and they like to feed at night.

Now, you may see 'em basking on the bank, or you may see 'em swimming around during the day, especially in cooler weather.

But when the temperatures get really warm, they become really nocturnal.

They're excellent night hunters, they have excellent night vision, and that's when they seem to be most comfortable, is moving around when it's dark.

Cool stuff.

As we've seen over the past few nights, the woods really come alive after dark around here.

Night is a time when animals can come out under the cloak of darkness to feed and find mates.

Thanks for joining us on "Coastal Kingdom."

[Laughing] So, this is a little American alligator, it's not a crocodile.

Okay, here we go, here's a couple more.

In fact, one of them just flew!

[Rattling] What a beautiful animal.

So, what they rely on is hiding.

In fact, they have wonderful cryptic coloration or camouflage.

This is that ghost crab I was talking about.