Friday, May 1, 2009

lets meander, salamander

This is either a Northwestern Salamander Ambystoma gracile

or an Ensatina. What do you think?

Either way it was rather a fun find while bug hunting in an old tree stump.


Salamanders are predators, most eat insects, earthworms and spiders, but some will also eat small mammals and other amphibians.

Salamanders hide in the dark, moist recesses under logs or rocks during the day, hunt for food at night. I think this evening, we rather surprised this one, as a big chuck of log fell away revealing his hideout.

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3 comments:

J. Baxter said...

Love the title, but that isn't a salamander. We always call those little guys newts, but who knows - it's not like we ever made any actual scientific inquiry. Heck, maybe that's a salamander, and our salamanders are the newts???

Love your title, however.

Kristin said...

Actually all Newts are Salamanders, a type of salamander anyway...I'm pretty sure these are not newts, from my extensive research, newts have rough skin and this guy was silky smooth.

Maybe I should've called it, Who Newt?

Traci said...

My boys are going nuts just thinking about bugs like this, here they get excited with a little earth worm or rolly-polly~ so fun!