My favorite flavi ... punctatus !!!PIC HVY!!!

[bewilderbeast]

With the recent moisture that Northern CA has been receiving, I set my sights a bit further north.

My target species were Aneides flavipunctatus, and A. vagrans...

I had also hoped to see some torrent salamanders and possibly some Dicamptodon and I have been hunting for pacific ringneck snakes since last spring.

Unfortunately I busted my camera lense about a week ago and had to borrow a camera from a friend. This gave me some problems as I wasn't familiar with the layout of everything so I didn't get the photos I would have liked but thought I'd post some of them anyway.


Firstly, two A. flavipunctatus. They display very different color and patterning from one another. I believe that the darker, spotted individual is from the southern-central disjunct while the lighter, non spotted one is from further north and belongs to the Northern-central disjunct. I may be wrong in this assumption as I don't have any genetic evidence to back this up, but a the second largest river on the Nor Cal coast divides the areas between the sites where these two animals were discovered. I think this could be enough to sufficiently divide the populations into genetically distinct subspecies.

The first was found under redwood debris in mixed secondary forest close to an Old growth redwood grove. He was sharing his log with an Oregon ensatina.

several more ensatinas from this location about 9 in all.

North from here I stopped at a rocky, north facing road cut that looked perfect.

I found an adult A flavipuntatus sharing a rock with a large California Forest scorpion.
they were staring each other down when I flipped the rock and were both nice enough to pose.

.


Further north and east I traveled. It was much dryer inland than I had expected and
my Caudate finds dropped to 0. I was in one spot that seemed perfect and I must have flipped a hundred objects without so much as a centipede under them.
As I was walking away from the area I flipped one last small rock and unearthed A Pacific ringneck snake.

I have been looking for these for a while, they are absolute gems when you see one in person. This at least explained the absence of Salamanders in an otherwise perfect habitat as the ringneck's main prey items are plethodontids...


I didn't find any A vagrans, though I wasn't really far north enough to be in ideal habitat. Overall I was happy with my finds (especially the ringneck) even though my find to flip ratio was very low with about 1 find per 100 objects searched.
Also, I took a lot of photos but do to my lack of familiarity with borrowed equipment I didn't end up getting as nice of photos as I would normally shoot.


Hope y'all enjoy.

 

[eljorgo]

WOW! Truly awesome!! I would love to have such animals like those here! what a nice herphing place! I´m stunned !! Those ferns and trees, what a place!! Do you have more like those! No words... Just amazing!!:wacko: Hope those forests maintain like that for century´s !
Nice pictures!! Post some more please.:tongue:

 

[Otterwoman]

Wow, those are some GREAT pictures. I love the picture of the CA habitat. Is a lot of CA like that? It makes me want to go there and go hiking.

 

[Coastal Groovin]

That is the best ringneck that I have ever seen. We have plain old yellow ones here.
1 out of a 100 flips isn't bad. That's a normal day of herping. I just hope you place all the objects back after flipping. Animals do live under there even if they were not home when you are looking.

 

[pete]

Nice finds, you're making me itchy to get out there.

 

[bewilderbeast]

Wow, those are some GREAT pictures. I love the picture of the CA habitat. Is a lot of CA like that? It makes me want to go there and go hiking.

The coastal mountains north of Big sur all the way to southern oregon used to be like this. Logging has destroyed a lot of the Old growth. There is still a lot of redwood forest up here but almost all of the big stuff (2000 years old) has been cut and replanted within the last 200 years which forms secondary forest. There is nothing quite like and old growth grove. Very specific plants and animal communities that don't exist elsewhere.
Secondary forest is more mixed with several types of trees growing alongside "small" redwoods.

I have been told that the Inland SF bay area used to have some of the largest trees in the world but now it is all secondary growth now the largest stands of trees are in Northern Humboldt County (also excellent salamander territory and arguably the best in the west) The northern coast is practically a rainforest from November until June.

there is a great article on the redwoods in the september 09 issue of national geographic magazine. even some mention of salamanders.

I love to guide hikes so if you need a NorCal guide and ever think of coming to Cali then I'd love help to out.

 

[bewilderbeast]

That is the best ringneck that I have ever seen. We have plain old yellow ones here.
1 out of a 100 flips isn't bad. That's a normal day of herping. I just hope you place all the objects back after flipping. Animals do live under there even if they were not home when you are looking.

but of course.... I even refrain from flipping logs or rocks if it seems it might be too destructive to the moss or lichen. (of course the mossier the rock, it seems, the more likely something is under it. I also tend not to bushwhack my way into the woods because it compacts the soils and keeps plants from growing. My success rate might be higher if I was a less ethical herper.

 

[rust]

Nice finds. Flavs have a wide variation in color in the northern populations. I even found one along the road from Redding to the coast that I took a picture of and released because I couldn't tell what it was in the field (ID'd it later from the pic).

Most (all) vagrans I have found have been under the bark of dead horizontal trees on the top side.

 

[NecturusLindsay]

Great photos!

I really like the little ringneck. I say "little", but it's huge compared to the eastern guys I find in Fl. I found one the last time I was home (a few weeks ago) no more than six inches long and .5 cm at its widest! It also had a much redder and brighter belly pattern, turning a blood red toward the tail.

 

[bewilderbeast]

Nice finds. Flavs have a wide variation in color in the northern populations. I even found one along the road from Redding to the coast that I took a picture of and released because I couldn't tell what it was in the field (ID'd it later from the pic).

Most (all) vagrans I have found have been under the bark of dead horizontal trees on the top side.

thanks Russ, I'll keep that in mind... I have always found them under loose bark on the ground (all three that I've ever seen) and two of those were under my house.
And always under redwood, not Douglas fir, which is the tree they are supposedly associated with.

About flavs... I read that they are looking into splitting flavs into several species based on genetic research. I can't say with certainty that the two i found were genetically different, but the geographical obstacles (large rivers like the Eel and Navarro) would seem to be a good place to search for a genetic break in the populations. I think this is exciting (I tend to be a splitter not a lumper when it comes to taxonomy) though this would mean you will have to hunt some more to finish your collection, Russ .

I have been along the 299 hwy several times when I lived up in Humboldt but never really stopped to flip logs. I know a guy who owns an organic farm up in Hoopa right along the Klamath where I have always wanted to do some herping.

 

[bewilderbeast]

thought I'd post some more pics of habitat and such...

ringneck habitat

Flav habitat

an interesting cross section of forest diplaying distinct bands of tree growth and 4 different microhabitats banded together very closely.

On another side note, I didn't flip a singe Batrachoseps. I found a couple in my parent's garden last week when I was over there but nothing in the field. I find this a little worrisome because they are usually the only thing I find... in large numbers, usually several under one log... they are usually the first one out after the first rains because they breed in the fall...


anyone have any theories?

 

[rust]

The funny thing about flavs is how small the rock can be. I drove by a road cut this year on the Sonoma/Medocino county line and there was almost no rubble. I stopped anyway and flipped a couple of stones the size of my fist. Bingo, and the large spotted form to boot. I stopped at a couple more spots down the road and it was the same thing, small rubble but that's all they needed. This is also the trifecta road I've found lugubris, vagrans and flavs along.

Have you actually read the paper proposing the split? Pretty interesting, I can e-mail it to you. And yes it would put me in the hole again!

 

[bewilderbeast]

I have not read the paper, but have read the abstract from calforniaherps.com.


vagrans that far south huh? interesting.

 

[rust]

Yes, one on the more southerly locales, though they are found hugging the coast a little further south. There's a lot of ravines along the coast that probably harber them down that way, but it's all private property, so voucher specimens or documentation is tough.

 

[lutafisk]

Wow! Super cool pictures dude. You're a rock star!:smile:

 

[Bill]

Those are nice pictures of some utterly beautiful creatures...thank you, Bewilderbeast.

 

[Jim King]

It is a wonderful day when such creatures can still be found living without help from us.