Awesome Herping weekend

Hey all

I had a bit of a shock after getting home Saturday afternoon. The whole family had spent the better part of Saturday out in the woods crawling around for sals and we had a great day of it despite a sudden thunderstorm that had us scrambling for cover. Species we found include:

Pl. Cinereus (loads of these guys both red and lead back phases)
D. Fuscus (again, LOADS of these)
E. Bislineata
P. Ruber

My wife just flipped when she turned over the rock with the Ruber under it. There was another, paler sal next to this one but it quickly swam away before she could get a good look at it to see any clues as to ID.

In the waning light of the afternoon, my son turned over a rock and found what we thought was a small fuscus. We caught it and took it home only to be surprised to find it to be a larvae! The gills are very small and I expect it to be fully transformed in a few weeks. I'm not 100% sure as to the species but vague striping and a lightly golden compressed tail lead me to believe its E. bislineata. If so, it's rather large for a larvae, being almost a full cm larger than some adults we found in that locale.

Unfortunately, i'm not as diligent as Mike G. so i have no pictures from the locale.

Sounds like you had an exciting weekend, John. Congratulations on your finds.

Mark, yeah it was great! I've gotten two new people hooked on caudates now! We're already planning a long weekend in W. Va. next month some time.

After getting a much better look at the new larvae last night, i'm about 95% certain it's E. Bislineata.

John,

Were you sallie hunting in Westminster? I moved to Baltimore from Boston a month ago. I found (what I think is) a Dusky larva at <font color="ff0000">location edited</font> two weeks ago. I looked at <font color="ff0000">location edited</font> last weekend but didnt find any. Where have you had luck?

<font color="ff0000">Sorry guys, I might be being a bit overprotective, but its best to be cautious when revealing locales for even common species on the net. ~Mike</font>

(Message edited by mike_g on July 13, 2005)

Hey Robin

We go mostly to areas around Westminster. We have LOTS of luck in smaller local streams. D. fuscus abound. We've found 1 D. monticola too. E. bislineata are also quite abundant though not quite so as fuscus. I wouldn't imagine you'd find much at <font color="ff0000">location edited</font>. I've never been there but the descriptions of it makes it sound like a pretty bleak place for sals. Woodland species are more problematic since the best land around here for them is parkland. Basically,any small rock filled stream with good forest cover and few predatory fish (or crayfish) will be filled with fuscus. A medium fish net works like a charm in catching them.

(Message edited by mike_g on July 13, 2005)