gray coloration in nectururs maculosus

[Neotenic_Jaymes]

I remember the 1st time I saw a necturus in Lake Michigan it was gray all over excpet for its red feathery gills. Most Necturus Maculosus in the Detroit River have different coloration. Mainly most juveniles are bright orange and peach with dark stripes across its body. The other kind of juvenile that I rarely come across are very discolored and almost all brown with alittle bit of burgandy, purple and lacking in dark blotches. Some I've seen have almost no black blotches on its body.

As far as adults and subadults its the same usually, most of them are bright yellow to orange with many bltck blotches. Then theres the other kind thats almost all brown lacking in black spots the black stripes across the body are very hard to see and point out. Then theres the all gray Necturus that I've only seen once. Does anyone any info about the gray adults?

 

[i_love_necturus]

All I can say is that N. maculosus is not a uniform species. There once was one color type of N. maculosus from Lake Winnebago that was all one color like you said, this form was once thought as a subspecies of N. maculosus., N. m. bishopi. This has since been considered invalid and just another of th man color forms.

 

[Neotenic_Jaymes]

I;m going to try to provide pics if I ever come across the different coloration

 

[i_love_necturus]

That would be great! I've only seen a couple pics of the so called Lake Winnebago Mudpuppy, and they were in black & white from th forties. It's a neat color form, but there are also dark ones that are common in some locations.

 

[Neotenic_Jaymes]

i've only seen the regular common types and the rare all grey and the mostly brown with slight peachy color. Like i 1st said the all grey ones I've only seen the all grey ones only one time. The Brown with the peachy color, had no black spots no spots at all. I come across these guys every now and then. But all of these sightings are from one little pond inside an island surrounded buy water. The pond is connected to the river by little streams. And necturus can still be found during the summer seasons but they are not as common as the cold season and we all know why. Next time I'll try to get pics. I'm almost certain that I;ve seen 3 different color variations. I'll try to back myself up as soon as the ice breaks here in MI.

Could it be that they go through color phases????

 

[i_love_necturus]

The only color phases they go through are from when they are very young to adult. When they are very young they are dark colored with yellow stripes. As they get older the stripes darken and get spots. So I don't know of them going through any other color phase except for the one that all mudpuppies go through to adulthood.

 

[Neotenic_Jaymes]

thats what I was thinking... I know they are very very bright as young juveniles. I've seen very brightly colored necturus that were about 9-10 inches still having bright colors. It was probably a very big sub adult. I just remembered when I 1st started collecting necturus I was doing alot of research also. I came across some books that had grey color necturus. The caption labeled the animal as Necturus Maculosus. These where some pretty old books and they wasnt very informative at all. Most books lack detail when it comes to necturus.

the books were just Amphibian species or reptile and amphibians. Just a slight overall view on amphibians but they all had necturus in them. check em out u might come across the grey type or even pther types.

 

[i_love_necturus]

A book called Handbook of Salamanders by Sherman Bishop is from the forties and has some very good info on Necturus, including that darker individual from Lake Winnebago. It is mostly not uyp to date but I agree with a lot of Bishop's ideas on Necturus and I think it makes more sense than all the taxonomic stress there is right now with the genus. You should check it out sometime.

 

[Jake]

Do the grey ones look something like this?

http://inky.50megs.com/pictures/mudpuppy.gif

or this...

http://www.terrarium.com.pl/foty/plazy2/odmieniecamerykanski.jpg

 

[Neotenic_Jaymes]

yo jake! the 1st pic was exactly what I saw!! Have seen!! But I've been thinking that maybe they just grey out as they get a certain age... but on the other hand I kinda think it doesnt have anything to do with age

 

[i_love_necturus]

Well if that was what you saw, then it was just another of the many Necturus maculosus color forms.