southern oregon and northern california

i just got back from a 5 day trip down there and have lots of pics to post. i dont have time to post them all right now, so i will post a few right now and post the rest later.
this was a very strange, but cool sight. it is the roof of a shack and it had a huge patch of calypso bulbosa on it.

here is a close up of a few plants

my partner in crime this is my good friend angela. she was having way too much fun catching newts in this stream.

here is the stream

there were some really nice T. torosa breeding while we were there



angela saw something in the water she could barely see that she described as a scaley newt and she grabbed it and freaked out. she let it go before she could pull it out of the water in fear and i got curious naturally and started looking around in the water.... turns out it was this little guy




i put the little guy back in the water hoping he would come out for pictures. he did.



ok, here are a few more pics of things from the trip. believe it or not, there are more pics that i will need to post. my friends camera has the other half of the pics anyhoo, here goes.
these pics were all staged as the lighting was really bad the day of capture.
plethodon stormi




some painted ensatina




a nice big plethodon elongatus (pushing the 6 inch mark)

and lots of dicamptodon!








i will try to get the rest of the pics from my friends camera soon.
-josh

Very beautiful pictures. Thanks for sharing. I especially like the Dicamptodon.

Hi Josh,

Great photos, thanks for sharing. Any chance you would add some of those Dicamptodon photos to the gallery here please? We don't have many. We have no Rhyacotriton at all . Seen any of those? Our Gallery is here: http://www.caudata.org/photoplog

Best wishes,

-John

Wow, you must have some very dedicated salamander hunters to find so many terrestrial Dicamptodon. Awesome

John said:

Hi Josh,

Great photos, thanks for sharing. Any chance you would add some of those Dicamptodon photos to the gallery here please? We don't have many. We have no Rhyacotriton at all . Seen any of those? Our Gallery is here: http://www.caudata.org/photoplog

Best wishes,

-John

Click to expand...

john, we can add any of my pictures to the photo gallery. i see rhyacotriton all the time. i actually saw quite a few kezeri the other day along with 2 plethodon vandykei. ya know what, shoot me a list of U.S. native species you need pics of and i will try to get some good shots. i have a good source for eastern US species as well.

-josh

Hi Josh,

Thanks for the kind offer to help! Our main gaps are Dicamptodon and Rhyacrotriton actually. There are a few International species gaps but other than those two I _think_ we have decent coverage of US/North America species. Anyone correct me if I'm wrong please?

All the best,

-John

Wow... these are some great shots...
I believe the turtle is a western pond turtle (Cali's only native turtle and increasingly rare in parts of the state) and you didn't even mention how nicely he posed with the T. tarosa larva in the one pic...


the shots of the Dicamptodon are gorgeous. I lived in Humboldt for 3 years and have been back many times for herping trips (in fact I just got back from one) but still haven't found any adults, only larva....

bewilderbeast said:

... and you didn't even mention how nicely he posed with the T. tarosa larva in the one pic...

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Looks a bit frightening, from the larva's point of view!

Great bunch of photos, Josh!

indeed, the turtle is a marmorata! i havnt seen one in YEARS so i was really happy to see another. yeah, the torosa just swam into the shot and stuck around. it turned out pretty nice. i seem to find transformed dicamptodon every time i go to california. but you know what i just can't seem to ever find??... aneides. well, this year i finally found flavipunctatus, but other than that.... nada. i can't figure out what i am doing wrong. oh well, i'll eventually find them.

-josh

Josh, fantastic pictures!! How fun to find such wonderful creatures in the wild! lucky you!! thank you so much for sharing.

well then we should team up.... All I ever seem to find is aneides.... I used to live in the redwood forest and I'd find A. vagrans around my property all the time...

And I find A Lugubris in my backyard in the bay area all the time.... I've got a Juve in my vivarium right now with some Hyla regalis larva.

we could be an unstoppable force if we combined our powers...

ferret_corner said:

Josh, fantastic pictures!! How fun to find such wonderful creatures in the wild! lucky you!! thank you so much for sharing.

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you live in arizona?? there are some nice sallies in arizona if you know where to look. you have ambystoma nebulosum up north as well as mavortium and you have the federally protected ambystoma stebbinsi down south of tucson. they are really neat to see. you also have 2 very cool isolated species in new mexico, plethodon neomexicanus and aneides hardii. now you should go do some salamander hunting! the ambystoma are a winter find, but the 2 species in new mexico from what i hear are a late summer find as they are active when the monsoons are hitting.

-josh

AWWW!! You're so sweet to tell me about them! But I know about them. I'm to far from northern AZ, I'm near Tombstone actually.

I've got some ideas on where to look - its a matter having the time in the right season! 3 kids, soccer, swim lessons, life ****, hahaha oh and the zoo..... takes me a bit to get out of the house!

... have been down here to see them?

ferret_corner said:

AWWW!! You're so sweet to tell me about them! But I know about them. I'm to far from northern AZ, I'm near Tombstone actually.

I've got some ideas on where to look - its a matter having the time in the right season! 3 kids, soccer, swim lessons, life ****, hahaha oh and the zoo..... takes me a bit to get out of the house!

... have been down here to see them?

Click to expand...

i used to live in arizona and spent most of that time herping the state. so i know where and how to find just about every herp and invertibrate in arizona. i have seen MANY very unique and rare animals in that state. if you are in tombstone, you are not far at all from the range of ambystoma stebbinsi. if ever you need any info on when, where and how to look for anything, let me know.

-josh

PLEASE be careful about giving locality data willy-nilly. While Sharon is a trustworthy, upstanding citizen, not everyone is. And giving locality data, especially about Federally protected species, can be a very dangerous thing.

Hey Josh, I talked with Kays last night about stebbinsi - after looking over the species sheet for AZ - it sounds pretty strict for looking it up even. I may make nice with my local ranger stations and see if I can get some leeway for just finding a couple for a photo op.

I'm perfectly happy owning my tigersals from the east coast and don't want to collect any. I thought I included the web page for them, but JIC its to specific I'll send via email or pm - depending on your contact info - so you can see what I'm talking about.

Kaysie said:

PLEASE be careful about giving locality data willy-nilly. While Sharon is a trustworthy, upstanding citizen, not everyone is. And giving locality data, especially about Federally protected species, can be a very dangerous thing.

Click to expand...

for one, i never gave out any locality data, and two, just from what she has said here, i can tell she has a good amount of knowlendge of her native herps, and 3rd why does it really matter??? people should have a right to know about these things. anyone can go on google and find out where stebbinsi or any other protected species is found. the information is already there.... and furthermore, if someone does enough searching on google, you can find MANY exact localities for this stuff. now, i dont give out exact localities to just anyone and i havn't done that here. i told her to get in touch with me privately if she wanted any info. i see no harm in that. i have been collecting and field herping since i was a little kid and i have done my fair share of 'foot time' so i understand the importance of protecting spots and particular species, but if i chose to give somebody a locality, that is my decision, not yours. the odds of anyone going out and finding 'true' stebbinsi are pretty unlikely anyways. most of their breeding ponds are on private fenced off property. besides, i was very general when i said i could give her info

"if ever you need any info on when, where and how to look for anything, let me know."

that statement didnt mean i was talking about stebbinsi in particular. i do understand how that would be confusing and i apologise for not being more specific.

ferret_corner said:

Hey Josh, I talked with Kays last night about stebbinsi - after looking over the species sheet for AZ - it sounds pretty strict for looking it up even. I may make nice with my local ranger stations and see if I can get some leeway for just finding a couple for a photo op.

I'm perfectly happy owning my tigersals from the east coast and don't want to collect any. I thought I included the web page for them, but JIC its to specific I'll send via email or pm - depending on your contact info - so you can see what I'm talking about.

Click to expand...

i hope you didnt get the wrong impression here. i wasnt telling you to go catch stebbinsi. i simply told you that you can go observe them in the wild and wont get in trouble as long as you are not harrassing them or have any collecting equipment. i have been to the breeding ponds before and have never had an issue. simply, i think it is nice to know your native herps and be able to see them in the wild... especially a species that potentially wont be around much longer.

Josh, it's true that some locality information can be found online. However most of it isn't that easy to find unless you know what you're looking for, and even then, many species localities aren't available. Some species are nearly impossible to find unless you know exactly where, when and what to do there.

It is our policy to minimise the naming of localities (except in extreme case where the locality is in the name of the animal, such as the Ouachita endemics for example). We don't need to help the majority of vendors in the amphibian section of kingsnake to rape the countryside of its amphibians. People like Mark Lucas and his ilk, such as that guy with the Swedish name that I can't remember, have already reserved their places in hell so there's no need to help them further.

josh said:

i hope you didnt get the wrong impression here. i wasnt telling you to go catch stebbinsi. i simply told you that you can go observe them in the wild and wont get in trouble as long as you are not harrassing them or have any collecting equipment. i have been to the breeding ponds before and have never had an issue. simply, i think it is nice to know your native herps and be able to see them in the wild... especially a species that potentially wont be around much longer.

Click to expand...

josh said:

i hope you didnt get the wrong impression here. i wasnt telling you to go catch stebbinsi. i simply told you that you can go observe them in the wild and wont get in trouble as long as you are not harrassing them or have any collecting equipment. i have been to the breeding ponds before and have never had an issue. simply, i think it is nice to know your native herps and be able to see them in the wild... especially a species that potentially wont be around much longer.

Click to expand...

Nah hun I didn't think any such thing. I was just hoping to see it for myself. Kind of like seeing the grand canyon - a natural wonder - and I was hoping to get a pic of it for caudata.

I'm to tired to go back and read what all we typed, lol, but i think I was probably unclear.

No worries!