Taricha and figuring out what sex they are.. phew..
I have a bundle of em (12).. and I am sure of only 2 of them!
And to be honest, I am not entirely sure that they are sure of themselves!
If I were to go by visibly rubbed noses.. I'd have a lot of females, however..
I'm still waiting for proof of that
.
If I were to hazzard a guess on these three, I'd say all of them are sexually immature.
One - uncertain but possibly male
Two - male
Three - female. A side shot of the cloaca would be more helpful here.
I am not sure, but I suspect that all immature taricha appear to have "male" looking cloacas.
Pin Pin - interesting observation about the change of skin texture. My certified male (he IS a male but seems to have fired only blanks) was slippery slimy smooth all winter. He's now returned to a somewhat more normal skin texture. At one point he looked more like newt pudding. However, the judge is still out on subspecies. He does have an exceptionally long tail. I wonder if more of them will develop such a long tail (19 cm long animal - 11 cm of that is tail).