My two new tigers

I just cleaned there tank this morning! Already one is darker than the other - they used to be the same bright yellow.

Those look really nice, what type of tigers are they?

madeve said:

Those look really nice, what type of tigers are they?

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Hungry?

LOL Jk. You can see that when I opened the lid they rushed for a feeding. And they'd eaten 20 crickets in two feedings earlier. Honestly I have no idea. The petshop had no idea where they had been collected from. Looking at the caudata page - they MOSTLY look like mavortium to me.

ANNNNDD!!! Heehee I get to add my own tiny bit of expertise and advise John that the Sonoran Salamander mountain range is wrong. Actually I think its just a typo - it says on the page "Huchara" and should be Huachuca mountains. Here is the site where I do most of ID'ing - actually found it thanks to another caudata member years ago!! http://www.reptilesofaz.com/Turtle-Amphibs-Subpages/h-a-mavortium.html The proper mountain names are WAY down below where they are discussing sonoran tigers.

I've always wanted to see a native caudate and have spent years hunting them. I've talked to a LOT of natives and oldtimers - they'll happily take you to where they USED to see them. They aren't there any more. There used to be a year round river here. Now its mostly underground, seasonally above grounds during the monsoon season. Several of the people I talked to said they used to see water lizards there - then point at my tiger and say "like that". One lady told me that when she used to walk home from school - she had to cross the streams/pools and would stop and put her feet in the water and occasionally would pick up her backpack to find a water lizard in it. Sounded hinky to me but she was pretty adamant about it. The old ranchers will take you out to stock ponds and show you where they used to find tigers. The last sonoran/az tiger spotting was in a ditch. Sad and scary. He was "collected" and popped into a tank in a local petshop. The guy there was nice enough but something of a fruitcake. I did my dangedest to get him to give me the tiger so I maybe put it back where it was collected (kid who did the collecting was in the shop). But nope he was happily feeding it pinky mice, wax worms and goldfish (gawd) determined to make the fattest salamander ever to go with the fattest guineapig he already owned.

Now I know of several permanent pools in the Huachuca Mountains - but every time I go up there I don't have any time to do any hunting!! Or its snowing, lol. But maybe when the kids go back to school - I'll drag hubby up there. I'm still kicking myself for our last trip out and I completely missed getting pics of a Gila Monster (not in the Huachuca mtns) in the wild. Well on the road. I TRIED with my cell phone but between me blocking him with a piece of decaying cactus and trying to stay away from its poisonous bite AND hold the stupid cell phone steady - it didn't work.

Sadly I believe the latest hunting guide my hubby has says that our native salamanders can still be collected by those who have the right type of hunting license. I'd have to double check that though.

oohhh I got a little off topic, Sorry!

Sharon