Photos of jeffersons

i got a break in school-test is moved to next week so i decided to post some pics i was promising. these arent too outstanding cause i was limited by light, plus these and the giants are pretty shiny sals and i have to try hard to reduce glare-i thinking one of those light umbrellas are probably in my future too. these were raised from an egg mass collected by a teacher and are about 4 years old now.by next semester i will be able for sure to id them as either true jeffersons or as jefferson complex ones-i will be taking genetics lab and the teacher already said i can modify the course so i can do sal DNA and not plants and dog testicles
i am hoping that i can get enough dna from a toe clipping and some amplification techniques.

ok here are some head shots





the pattern is hard to see but its a slate-ish gray body with light bluish snowflake marks on it. here is one of the only full body shots that came out ok.

and finally one obligatory ultra close head shot

Paris, is the snowflake markings more concentrated on the flanks and less on the back (as mine are)?

[Megan Wright]

Paris,
I am interested to know how this project went. Is it still on-going? Did you find out what these individuals were - species or hb?

paris, if you can't extract enough DNA from a toe clip, you can also take about a millimeter off the end of the tail. once you chop it up and do the extractions, you should have more than enough DNA for you project.

the project will be next semester(spring) - i was wondering if shed skin is a viable option -the teacher suggested it.

liz,
is that toe/tail tip suggestion including PCR, or with out it?

i don't know about DNA from shed skin in salamanders... i would guess you wouldn't get very much but i don't know for sure.

i have done some genetic work with newt tissues (Taricha, and taking a bit of the tail worked quite well. it didn't make them bleed and it regenerated quickly. we then chop up the tissue and use a kit to extract the DNA from it. then use those extracts for PCR. its not uncommon to have so much DNA in the extract that it has to be diluted before using it for PCR.

Couldn't you start a cell culture from a very small number of cells and then test the DNA, so nobody has to lose a toe or the tip of their tale.