Autumn glory.

[Azhael]

I love autumn...and more than anything, i love temperate forests in autumn, so i'm really happy that i got to visit a particularly gorgeous one this weekend, but as much as i enjoyed walking through such a beautiful setting, the best part was that this time i actually found some adult S.s.fastuosa! Yeeeeees! I've seen hundreds upon hundreds of larvae, and a fair amount of metamorphs, but very, very few adults, so finding these three was brilliant. The next challenge is to find one of the red variants that occur at that location.
The one bad thing about this is that seeing these beauties has fed into my desperation to keep S.salamandra....i need them, i can't be without them anymore, i want theeeeeeem!!

Ahem, ok, so here they are in all their glorious gorgeousness.

Habitat shot:

And a bonus daddy longlegs and a fungus, because they are beautiful too

 

[Chinadog]

Beautiful, especially the shot of the brook! it takes me right back to being 10 years old catching Bullheads and Stone Loaches in the stream near my Grandmother's house and being up to my thighs in the freezing cold water...pure heaven!
It's interesting that you call the spidery looking thing Daddy Longlegs. Where I live it's the crane fly that gets called that and the ones like in your picture get called Harvestman spiders for some reason.

 

[innerdialogue]

Harvestmen/Daddy Long legs are often confused with spiders, but they are actually distinct animals within Arachnida. Their body segments are fused, and they have only one pair of eyes. Some of them look pretty gnarly. Google tropical harvestmen if you ever get a chance.

 

[Azhael]

Actually i call them "opiliones" but i had to look up the english name xDD I had heard the name harvestman before but couldn't remember it was used for these animals, so i just googled it and daddy longlegs is what came up as the more common term in the UK.

I think we had very similar childhoods in that respect, hehe. I spent so much time in brooks like that, it's a wonder i don't have webbed feet!

 

[Chinadog]

Yes, it was being allowed to explore streams and ponds as a young kid that sparked an obsession with aquatic creatures and it was keeping the sticklebacks or minnows I'd bring home alive that taught me how an aquarium works.
I don't think today's ten year olds would even know what a Bullhead was, I can't remember the last time I saw any children poking about in the brooks and ponds where my friends and I would spend all day with a net and a bucket. Its quite sad really.

 

[innerdialogue]

Streams aren't very common where I grew up, but toads are so common its not even funny. I remember pushing around a wheelbarrow with cousins trying to collect as many as we could.

 

[Stupot1610]

Yes, it was being allowed to explore streams and ponds as a young kid that sparked an obsession with aquatic creatures and it was keeping the sticklebacks or minnows I'd bring home alive that taught me how an aquarium works.
I don't think today's ten year olds would even know what a Bullhead was, I can't remember the last time I saw any children poking about in the brooks and ponds where my friends and I would spend all day with a net and a bucket. Its quite sad really.

That's what it was like for me too. Most of my friends were much more interested in playing video games. I used to spend my whole summer down in the river catching sticklebacks, I also always take some frogspawn in the spring to raise into frogs which Is probably what got me into amphibians.

Stuart

 

[jAfFa CaKe]

I'm only twelve, and I can say that not many kids around are interested in amphibians. But then again, I don't go around saying 'I'm a newt nerd, what do you like?" But I have a few friends who keep reptiles.

 

[juraj]

I"m like keeping silent cause I"m jealous of.

PS: Pleuro habitat is very much appreciated as a next.

 

[Azhael]

I'm not in pleuro territory so chances are not good i'll be getting a chance to visit pleuro habitats any time soon

 

[TroySoldier]

I remember going on a spring retreat with my church youth group 2 years ago and finding newts in a couple of vernal pools there and last year I went back and collected Ambystoma maculatum eggs I was so happy but then again none of my friends even cared
next year will be my last chance to go there during breeding season so I'm hoping of getting some Notophthalmus viridescens eggs

 

[matamander]

Beautiful pictures!! Great finds.

 

[xxianxx]

I remember catching bullheads and stoneloach by hand in my local brooks when I was a kid, even caught the odd crayfish but they were pretty rare If we wanted to go " newting" there were a few local ponds rammed with them

 

[Chinadog]

Have you ever looked for Bullheads lately? They've vanished from all the streams where I used to catch them along with the UK native crayfish. Makes me wonder if there was some kind of relationship between the crayfish and the Bullheads? It just seems strange the Crayfish vanished first followed by the fish a few years later.

 

[xxianxx]

Haven't caught a bullhead by hand in thirty years , I used to do that in the midlands where I lived at the time, I'm now in south Wales, not sure if they are here. The native crays seemed to be very fussy about their environment, we only found them in a feeder stream above our village, not sure if pesticide run off or pollution stopped them colonising the lowers stretches. Place used to be crawling with water voles as well, couldn't go for a walk down any water way without seeing them, though the numbers dropped after the mink turned up.