Salamanders from Kentucky's Caves (DU warning)

I've taken tons of pictures over the last few months while doing my field work and thought I'd share a few on here. These were all taken in the karst area of eastern KY which seems to be a fantastic locale for finding salamanders.

I'll start off with the Pseudotriton ruber. I've found several larvae and newly metamorphosed juveniles lately, and I turned up several adults about a month ago.
Juvenile:


Adult:


Old Adult:


Quick topic switch while I'm on Pseudotriton-I found this P. montanus diastictus here in WV a little while back. They're an S1 species and very rarely encountered here.



Gyrinophilus porphyriticus duryi are much brighter than the intergrades we have in my neck of the woods. I've found a few larvae of these that are a strange white color-I'm wondering if they might be leucistic. Unfortunately I have not yet taken any pictures of the white ones. Here are some colorful adults though.



This one was found 6 feet off the ground in a rock crevice nowhere near any permanent water source that I know of. I definitely wasn't expecting any in that spot.


Heavily speckled Eurycea cirrigera:




A not-so speckled E. cirrigera from the same location:


Get ready for a Plethodon kentucki overload. I see a lot more of these than P. glutinosus, especially inside the caves.







Finally the reason I go caving so much-Eurycea l. longicauda. I'm amazed at the diversity of patterns they display within a small area. I've also noticed several interesting behaviors in the species which I hope to expound on when my thesis is completed, but for now here are a few pictures.

This one looked quite unique. So far it's the only one out of about 50 to display this type of pattern.


This is always a good sign. Earlier in the year I wasn't finding any, but now I regularly turn up 5 or so in one spot.


This is my favorite individual so far. I've found it twice now outside the same cave entrance.


This one is another personal favorite. I really love the clean mid-dorsal stripe.



I think I'll stop there for now, but I'll probably be posting another update later on after I take another several hundred pictures. Thanks for looking.

Wonderful Kevin, Thank you for posting your pictures and descriptions.

Superb, Kevin. A joy to read. I agree on your choice of Eurycea favourites. What kind of temperatures did you find the salamanders in? Also, in the second Plethodon photo there are what look like pieces of insect around it. Are they? What insect are they or what are they?

Wonderful shots, Kevin! I envy your trip.

Thanks for the comments everyone.

John said:

Superb, Kevin. A joy to read. I agree on your choice of Eurycea favourites. What kind of temperatures did you find the salamanders in? Also, in the second Plethodon photo there are what look like pieces of insect around it. Are they? What insect are they or what are they?

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John, the temperatures are an interesting point in my experience so far this year. The E. longicauda were the last species to emerge this spring-so late that I was concerned when I didn't find any for so long after everything else was out and about. I've only been on one really hot, dry day so far but I still found a couple of longicauda on the surface when no other terrestrial salamanders could be turned up. The surface temperature under a rock where I found one was approaching 80 degrees Fahrenheit. I also found one under a slab of wood in a hot gravel parking lot a considerable distance from any cover where I'd expect to locate any salamanders.

The Plethodon seem much more restricted on the surface, only appearing in decent numbers when it's cooler and/or wetter. I found P. richmondi under just about every rock earlier in the year, but I guess they're aestivating now because I haven't found any since the longicauda came out. Conditions in the caves are obviously more constant, and I've found kentucki in them in all but the coldest winter months.

That brings me to your next question-those are millipede remains you see in some of the cave pictures. Some portions of these caves have huge numbers of cave crickets, spiders, and millipedes. The dead millipedes seem to remain a lot longer for some reason, or maybe there are just a lot more of them dying in there. For whatever reason, a lot of areas around the cave entrances have a noticeable scattering of millipede remnants. I've also noticed the area in general seems to harbor an unusually large number of the very big millipedes (the ones that get several inches long and a little thicker than a pencil).

KevinS said:

John, the temperatures are an interesting point in my experience so far this year. The E. longicauda were the last species to emerge this spring-so late that I was concerned when I didn't find any for so long after everything else was out and about. I've only been on one really hot, dry day so far but I still found a couple of longicauda on the surface when no other terrestrial salamanders could be turned up. The surface temperature under a rock where I found one was approaching 80 degrees Fahrenheit. I also found one under a slab of wood in a hot gravel parking lot a considerable distance from any cover where I'd expect to locate any salamanders.

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That's really very interesting to me actually. Have you found that with other Eurycea species too, i.e. they tolerate hotter and dryer conditions? I saw my first wild Plethodontid this last April so I'm really just getting to grips with how to find them in the wild. I very much welcome all the information on their habits and tolerances that I can find.

KevinS said:

The Plethodon seem much more restricted on the surface, only appearing in decent numbers when it's cooler and/or wetter. I found P. richmondi under just about every rock earlier in the year, but I guess they're aestivating now because I haven't found any since the longicauda came out. Conditions in the caves are obviously more constant, and I've found kentucki in them in all but the coldest winter months.

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That lines up with what I've seen in my very limited (but burgeoning) experience with Plethodon. Does this genus truly "estivate" though?

KevinS said:

That brings me to your next question-those are millipede remains you see in some of the cave pictures. Some portions of these caves have huge numbers of cave crickets, spiders, and millipedes. The dead millipedes seem to remain a lot longer for some reason, or maybe there are just a lot more of them dying in there. For whatever reason, a lot of areas around the cave entrances have a noticeable scattering of millipede remnants. I've also noticed the area in general seems to harbor an unusually large number of the very big millipedes (the ones that get several inches long and a little thicker than a pencil).

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I've met the large millipedes but I'm not familiar with the small ones. You don't mention it, but how do the millipedes die? Are they food for the salamanders?

John said:

That's really very interesting to me actually. Have you found that with other Eurycea species too, i.e. they tolerate hotter and dryer conditions? I saw my first wild Plethodontid this last April so I'm really just getting to grips with how to find them in the wild. I very much welcome all the information on their habits and tolerances that I can find.


That lines up with what I've seen in my very limited (but burgeoning) experience with Plethodon. Does this genus truly "estivate" though?


I've met the large millipedes but I'm not familiar with the small ones. You don't mention it, but how do the millipedes die? Are they food for the salamanders?

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The only other Eurycea I've encountered are cirrigera and I have not noticed the same tolerance in that species. I still haven't come up with a very consistent method for finding longicauda on the surface since they don't seem nearly so tied to water as the cirrigera here. However, I've heard from others in neighboring states that they regularly find them in and around creeks so it could be a regional thing.

I'm pretty sure in my area the P. richmondi go underground in the warmest summer months, but I'm just outside the range of redbacks and a lot of our other small woodland species so I can't comment on any other Plethodon except for the larger species like glutinosus (which don't seem to aestivate although they are harder to find in hot, dry weather).

I'm kind of surprised about the millipedes-we have tons of the little ones around here and I guess I assumed that was the case all over. I don't know how/why they die, but it's not just in the caves. It's pretty easy to find "millipede graveyards" in a lot of places in this area. I haven't researched the dietary preferences of many of the species I'm finding, but Anderson and Martino published an article in 1967 comparing the diets of longicauda from the surface with those in abandoned mines in New Jersey. They concluded that millipedes were among some of the prey items more abundant on the surface, but rarely eaten (the salamanders preferred spiders and beetles). However in the mines where food was scarce, they were observed to prey more heavily on millipedes and a few other prey items that seemed less preferable on the surface.

Here's the reference if you'd like to look it up:
Anderson, J. D. and P. J. Martino. 1967. Food habits of Eurycea longicauda longicauda. Herpetologica, 23(2):105-108. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>

Hi Kevin,

What is the goal of your study with longicauda?

One thing I have noticed with the species in Kentucky is its seasonality. In April I've had no luck finding them at all in the exact spot where they are among the most common salamander in October. It is quite strange as the temps were almost identical during those two periods. In October I've found lots of young animals under logs and stones in floodplain habitat, often quite a distance from the actual stream. I've also seen some strange pattern variants in KY, possibly due to introgression of guttolineata genes?

Great photographs too.
-Tim

taherman said:

Hi Kevin,

What is the goal of your study with longicauda?

One thing I have noticed with the species in Kentucky is its seasonality. In April I've had no luck finding them at all in the exact spot where they are among the most common salamander in October. It is quite strange as the temps were almost identical during those two periods. In October I've found lots of young animals under logs and stones in floodplain habitat, often quite a distance from the actual stream. I've also seen some strange pattern variants in KY, possibly due to introgression of guttolineata genes?

Great photographs too.
-Tim

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As far as the goals of my research, I'm very limited by funding...as in I have none. So while there are many things I would like to do, they aren't all feasible and I'm left with the most affordable options. The main thing I expect to get out of this is an idea of their movement patterns. I'm documenting each individual with numerous photographs and so far I've been able to distinguish every individual I've found (which is somewhere around 50 at this point). This should allow me to perform mark-recapture type analysis to estimate population sizes without actually marking any salamanders. If I get enough recaptures, it should also give me some idea about home range size and that type of thing although I'd probably have to continue this work for a few years to really get an accurate depiction of their movements.

Since little is known about their reproduction, I intended to focus heavily on that but I couldn't find any eggs over the winter and I'm still not turning up their larvae (thought I did at first, but I'm pretty sure I misidentified them now). That's still one of my goals, but maybe one that I won't accomplish.

My limited experience with their seasonality in Kentucky matches up well with yours. I have terrible luck finding them here in WV-I've only seen four here in my life so I can't say much about them from my area. A friend took me to eastern Kentucky last October and I found six within a couple of hours, which is why I'm doing my work over there. I ended up finding several last fall, but must have caught them just before they went underground because it wasn't long at all before they disappeared. It was late April of this year before I started finding them again although all the other salamander species were already out in force before then.

One thing I noticed is that I first started finding adults considerable distances into caves this year. Now I'm finding them more around cave entrances and on the surface, which I'd say is evidence of their migration back to the surface areas. Oddly enough, except for one individual all of the juveniles I've found have been in spots where I haven't turned up any adults, so they may segregate themselves to some degree...or maybe I just haven't found enough yet. I actually found two juveniles well before any adults this year, so maybe there's some difference in their overwintering habitat?

I'd love to see some pictures of the ones you've been finding. Since you mentioned floodplains and guttolineata, I'm assuming you're talking about western Kentucky? I'm really surprised at the pattern variation I've seen in such a limited geographic area within this species. I didn't expect individuals like the "striped" one pictured above to turn up in areas without guttolineata influence, but I've actually found 3 or 4 with that type of pattern so far this year. Thanks for the input, I'm always glad to hear about others' experiences and especially in this case since my own experience is pretty limited.

I don't think I have any photos of the individuals right now, but I can get them, they are in our plethodontid exhibit at the Toledo Zoo. They are also very large, I'd guess in excess of 6-7". The site they are from is in Adair Co....by no means far western, where guttolineata is documented from, but if I remember correctly someone claimed to have found a guttolineata at this site too. A friend of mine is doing phylogeography of all the lucifuga/longicauda types, so maybe I can get some samples to her to see if they are actual integrades.

I know all about research without funding...I've done the rangewide phylogeography of Hemidactylium on no funding...luckily I got most of the samples collected (76 sites!) before gas was over $3/gal...

I'm assuming this is for graduate research, what university are you at?

Best of luck, there are plenty of plethodontids out there with virtually unknown reproductive biology.
-Tim

taherman said:

I don't think I have any photos of the individuals right now, but I can get them, they are in our plethodontid exhibit at the Toledo Zoo. They are also very large, I'd guess in excess of 6-7". The site they are from is in Adair Co....by no means far western, where guttolineata is documented from, but if I remember correctly someone claimed to have found a guttolineata at this site too. A friend of mine is doing phylogeography of all the lucifuga/longicauda types, so maybe I can get some samples to her to see if they are actual integrades.

I know all about research without funding...I've done the rangewide phylogeography of Hemidactylium on no funding...luckily I got most of the samples collected (76 sites!) before gas was over $3/gal...

I'm assuming this is for graduate research, what university are you at?

Best of luck, there are plenty of plethodontids out there with virtually unknown reproductive biology.
-Tim

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Wow, I had no idea guttolineata had been found so far east in Kentucky. I'd really like a chance to find them at some point-they're one of my top 3 target species I haven't found yet. I'd also be very interested in the phylogeography of longicauda and lucifuga, so I'll make sure to keep an eye out for that. This research is for my graduate thesis at Marshall University. Our website was horribly outdated and we just recently started renovating it. So there are some dead links and omissions, but if you want to check it out it's at www.marshall.edu/herp I'll be done with my course work this fall, but I plan to wait until spring to defend just in case I can get some good data on courtship and/or egg deposition later in the year.

Hi Kevin,

I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to post all of the photos and information! It has been awhile since I have been able to get out myself and it was a real pleasure to see all of the beautiful critters you found! Thanks again!

Christina