Ambystoma californiense pool(well, it used to be!)

I took these photos over a year ago. Basically a bend in the road allowed water to collect here forming a temporary pool that the tigers inhabited. I never saw the adults, but did observe the larvae. Where I live their are no introduced populations of tiger salamanders, so the only conclusion is that this was A. californiense habitat. According to maps and fellow herpers there is a good sized population in this area. But they are really losing out to development.

I was hoping to go back to see adults, but missed the migration. Just recently, the road in this area was widened, and of course they just had to make this curve a little wider, so this pool is now literally six feet under, and it probably had 100+ cal tiger larvae and also who knows how many Psuedacris regilla if it was anything like last year. Looks like those sals have lost yet another breeding pool to development.


Larvae. I took this photo as a rainstorm started so the lighting is pretty cruddy. The larvae tended to hide right up at the edges under the beaten down grass and amongst the grass growing in the water(eleocharis sp.) Poking around I observed dozens and dozens of them.


The pool in April. I think it dried up around late June. I was thinking of going back to see them morph, but again missed it. In the meantime, I'll have to find another pool to observe.

that's to bad
it was a good find until the road was widened