Hello! Lifelong salamander lover. Looking for greater siren.

[Jarnold]

Since I was about 5 I was catching yell and black salamanders in the basement windows of my Wisconsin home. Went on to have many salamanders and newts over the years. My daughter wants an axolotl and I told her a greater siren would be a better fit for Florida and she agreed. Now the search is on! Looking for some leads!

 

[Ratttlesnak]

I'm pretty new to this forum and still learning quite a bit about salamanders so take what I say here in the context of that. That being said I saw you posting a few times here and did some minor research of my own to see if I could help you out. First things first, I have not seen any greater sirens reputably for sale I think they have become more rare in captivity, collection/sale laws of salamanders have on a whole become more strict and it's a bit early in the season for them. Closest I could find are some two toed amphiumas recently posted on fauna classifieds ( For Sale TWO-TOED AMPHIUMAS (Amphiuma means) - FaunaClassifieds ). I believe these are a bit larger, more difficult to keep and they don't have those charismatic feathery gills sirens and axolotls have. Still a really cool species with the same impressive size and eel-ish-ness (?) of a greater siren, just make sure you do your research if that's the route you choose to go, they seem pretty advanced. Lesser sirens are another options I would explore; they are easier to keep because of their smaller size, have similar range and seem to be available more often than greater sirens, although I haven't seen a great source for these either (I have seen some with the massive reptile sellers, but use an abundance of caution if you choose to go this route). I think your best option would be to attend an expo and/or do some research and reach out to a well regarded exotic pet shop in your area, they may have connections to sellers that are not obviously available online. Finally, you may be able to collect one yourself as they are native to Florida, you'll likely only find one wild caught anyway so the morality of this is a bit less grey than it may be otherwise. I'm still hesitant to fully recommend actually collecting one but highly recommend going out to find one regardless of whether you keep it as it's just simply a ton of fun :^). I hope I didn't over explain anything here you honestly probably know more than I do, I just like to ramble a bit lol.