Tiger Territory- Black Forest Colorado

[paris]

ok i'll try all over again to post this-my connection here at work cuts out on me alot.....

so i went tiger hunting today at my sister's boss's pond in Black Forest Colorado-its east of Colorado Springs. here is a pic of the pond...

i walked around the property a bit and found this by almost stepping on it

i then walked around the pond and saw a few tigers, alot of it looked like this-now you know why such bold coloured animals survive-there is one in this photograph!! i couldnt even see it in the view finder...

i had no luck trying to catch them from the shore with my telescoping pole-they were just too fast! so i had to get in-and MAN ITS COLD!! i went in up to my thighs-all i saw in there were males -and no eggs, so i feel the girls will be on their way soon. once in the water all i had to do was slowly lower my net in front of a sal and it would walk in!
i found something unusual-here is a picture

here is a close up of him

and here is a normal one

both were in breeding condition with caudal fins, but the odd one's was more pronounced

i am planning on going back this weekend when there is more light and perhaps some females to find! one thing to note was that the normal tiger had keritinised toe tips-you can see in his pic, but the odd one didnt....

 

[juraj]

Is there a one in the right nether corner ?

 

[alan]

Anyone remember "Cross the Ball" competitions? Let's play "Cross the Sal" !

 

[paris]

ok more to post! i have the field pics here-the closeups will come later after i filter through the eggs and take pics of the tigers. once i got to one side of the pond-i started to notice eggs and even caught 3 females in the past week. eggs varied between newly laid ones and ones near hatching, i also have accidentally caught 2 larval ones while trying to catch daphnia-the pond is also full of dragonfly nymphs so i have to sort through all the eggs and larva water to make sure this time (unlike a few years back) i wont loose all most all to those invaders.sunday i went there with my friend maria and her husband and her daughter. her daughter has 2 tigers-one of which i gave her and was very interested in looking for them in the wild(but she was a little distracted since the landowners have a month old paint foal on the property). here are some pictures of us in the water...
here is my first catch of the day!

hunting for tigers

and a pic of us looking for eggs and daphnia

not only did we come across tiger eggs (field pics didnt come out) but we also came across these...

they are frog eggs,the size and limited local species variety leave me to ID these as western chorus frog eggs. the water level had dropped about 18 inches in the past week and the eggs laid near the edge were overheated and dead along with the others that were laid on plants that were no longer submerged.
i will post more after i can get pics from back here at the biology lab.

 

[paris]

here are the pictures of the tigers themselves, i was only able to find 3 females-one of which was actually in the grass-crawled out from under maria's feet-its a big female-the barred one in the picture

this is her upclose-you can see she is swollen..

it was easy to see she was sick-she had some of her poison hardened on the outside and grass stuck to her, her vent is very swollen along with her back legs, one of which she cannot move, i have started her on batryl

here is a normal vent from another female

here is a sampling of the males

in the water in clouds around the plants were just swarms of what i thought to be daphnia-but closer inspection showed them to be cyclops!-still yummy critters that i collected by the bucket load! but there were also some bad guys like this mixed in

here are some pics of the eggs i found and also in the far corner one of the larval tigers i caught

despite the swelling of the female her neck and head are fine-so i hope she will get better soon.

 

[TJ]

Wow, very nice! I would have loved to have been there. Well, I almost was

Last week I drove down from Denver to Estes park to Glenwood Springs and via the Black Canyon, Gunnison, Salida and Colorado Springs back to Denver, but I had the mother-in-law and father-in-law in tow besides my wife, and we were waaaay behind schedule the whole time.

I saw lots of potential tiger habitats but regretfully had no time to stop and search. The only water bodies I examined for more than a few minutes were a pond near Boulder (found a snapping turtle there!) and Beaver Pond in Rocky Mountain National Park, which had a sign saying tigers occur there but was pretty much still frozen over. Anyway, I'll be sure to make time to see you and the largest private sal collection in western North America sometime next year!

 

[ralf]

Very nice pics, Paris. Looks like you had a great time.

 

[paris]

dunno about that tim-supposibly i graduate next may, so i may be all packed up and on my way back to the east where ill just be one of many keepers....with the sals in tow.
mike-yes i kept some, according to our DOW you are allowed 6 adults and 50 larvae. i am looking to have representatives of both the barred, the blotched and the mix of the two-since we live in an area where they mix. i am not sure what pattern to call the real pretty female i have (from the other post). since i buy alot of what i have(havent got much to trade) i'd like to trade some for some of my missing stuff-esp as im strapped for cash right now. im rasing up the eggs in the biology lab at school-the students seem to like to watch them. plus im taking a course this summer on biological photography and they will be good subjects.

 

[TJ]

Paris, good luck with your move! That'll sure be a real challenge. I suppose it'd be best to send them by "cool mail" to somebody you know where you're going to move (if you have that postal service available in the U.S. like we have here in Japan). In fact, I'm due to receive an interesting colored C.e.e by cool mail tomorrow and will be sending out some Hynobius nebulosus larvae the following day by the same means.

Mike, I couldn't help but notice that your dog there looks a lot like mine

:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/7618/10953.jpg

 

[mike]

Isn't your pooch a Sheltie Tim?

The "bonsai" version of the Rough Collie.

 

[TJ]

Hehe

Yep, she's a Sheltie as far as I can tell. Might have some other blood in her as she's not quite like some of the thick-furred, show-class Shelties I've seen. I picked her up off the street so can't say for sure. She's very, very sweet-natured...though she transforms into a wild animal when cats are present. I also have a cocker spaniel.

The Sheltie suffers from Dermatomyositis (otherwise known as Sheltie Skin Syndrome), a genetic disease for which there is no cure. But thankfully it's not spreading. Seems from Mike G.'s pic that his dog suffers the same. Mike G.?

(I'm struggling to find a connection to tiger salamanders...but there is none

)

 

[mike]

Very commendable Tim, but I hope you don't make a habit of picking up females off the street.

As she has a natural herding instinct, perhaps she could help you round-up a few Caudates.

 

[TJ]

Nah, those days are behind me now

"Shelly" (the Sheltie) has in fact had a chance to exercise her herding instinct in our apartment, rounding up salamander morphs and adults that had strayed from their tanks

I'm not aware they she's ever eaten any. She does have a nasty habit of drinking out of tanks though.

 

[TJ]

Now, back to the subject of tiger salamanders

 

[paris]

ok i went out again -this time to a friends bridal shower -she also is in black forest colorado-about 10 miles max from my other location-she lured me in by telling me of her nieghbors pond that she was sure had tigers in it. she had also said she knew for sure it had catfish-so then i thought there was no chance of the tigers...but what it turned out to be was a cattle pond (no cows there at the time but it was complete with cow 'doots') relatively shallow but i couldnt get to far into it because the mud was so fine it would suck my foot down to the ankle at just a few feet from the shore. i saw no evidence of adults -or catfish! (and it was a sunny day) i did some basic dips and got alot of water boatmen (and they bite btw!) and what looked to be helgramites or whatever -they had big jaws and breathed through their butts-nasty looking! eventually i stood still and just looked -finding larva is sort of like seeing the matrix-once you see them and break the pattern (this is really how it works for me-but i have to do it anew every time) you can see them wherever they are. there werent very many - i saw 7 , caught 5. i spent a whole lot of the time being screamed at by an eagle/hawk who had a nest in a tree near by - it would take flight and circle and screetch. anyways one of the larvae is an odd one so here are some photos

first a group shot showing size differences-the big one looks to be a cannibal

here is a basic larval tiger photo of what i believe to be a cannibal

here are some pics of the cannibal-it is odd though considering its handicap that it is one of the better survivors. here is a pic of its good side-but you can sort of see what is wrong with it too.

here is the bad side

and here is a pic head on

you can see there is an eye in there and even see the shine of the lamelle (sp?)its sort of there sort of not-its odd for sure, and its blind on that side (dont know if its light sensitive-or even how to judge that)

 

[sharon]

Hi Paris, I love the pictures! I keep comparing my tiger to these pics and she just doesn't look quite the same about the head.

But I've been following your collection trips and I'm curious if the sick female from your 5/11 post made it?

Sharon

 

[paris]

hi sharon,
no i made a post called 'bad day' in which i told of finding her dead and then that same day stepping on one of my fire morphs (and absolutely killing it)

dont forget i have cannibal tiger posts under general discussion....'hannibal' is now as long as my index finger! totally dwarfs the hatchlings he was eating.

 

[sharon]

Aw Paris, I'm so sorry! You have my sympathies. My baby geckos are maturing much more quickly than I had anticipated and one of them killed another. I'm still sorta frustrated and upset.

I'll need to go look up the cannibal tiger post, I know I've read it, or at least parts of it! But its a subject that just fascinates me!

I tell you what! Coming here is so much better than another costly trip to the bookstore!

Sharon