Went to northern spain on a trip with the faculty, and as soon as we could we went to check the place where we found a few salamanders some months ago. This time though, it wasn´t a few salamanders what we found.....it was LOTS of them.
In less than an hour we caught 55 animals, some of them really big. I had expected this subespecies to be smaller, actually the first time i saw them i was shocked to see they were a nice size....but this time i just couldn´t believe it, some individuals were just huge compared to what i was expecting.
The variability in color patterns both dorsal and ventral was amazing, though the dominant form was the "fastuosa" like. It amazed me how similar they look like...if it wasn´t for the location i would have bet an arm they were fastuosas.
The population clearly gives birth to fully formed youngsters, as there´s no water mass in the surroundings and the whole population inhabits a street with stone walls and just a few plants on the floor. It was shoking to find so many animals in such an empty habitat.
We collected them in orther to meassure, sex and photograph them. We had to, to avoid catching the same animal again. There were a total of 12 juveniles, 19 females and 24 males.
During the trip we also saw Rana patilarga, Chalcides striatus, Anguis fragilis, Natrix maura and Bufo bufo.
Well enough with the talking...here are some of the animals.
In less than an hour we caught 55 animals, some of them really big. I had expected this subespecies to be smaller, actually the first time i saw them i was shocked to see they were a nice size....but this time i just couldn´t believe it, some individuals were just huge compared to what i was expecting.
The variability in color patterns both dorsal and ventral was amazing, though the dominant form was the "fastuosa" like. It amazed me how similar they look like...if it wasn´t for the location i would have bet an arm they were fastuosas.
The population clearly gives birth to fully formed youngsters, as there´s no water mass in the surroundings and the whole population inhabits a street with stone walls and just a few plants on the floor. It was shoking to find so many animals in such an empty habitat.
We collected them in orther to meassure, sex and photograph them. We had to, to avoid catching the same animal again. There were a total of 12 juveniles, 19 females and 24 males.
During the trip we also saw Rana patilarga, Chalcides striatus, Anguis fragilis, Natrix maura and Bufo bufo.
Well enough with the talking...here are some of the animals.
