I just got back from Lycoming County, PA where I spent the weekend herping with Chris and several friends.  Combined, we found over 300 herps on Saturday and Sunday, including three lifers for me, Spring Salamander, Mountain Dusky Salamander, and Redbelly Snake.  I also found the only Northern Water Snake of the trip, a baby curled under a rock.  While Chris and I did not photograph as much as we usually would, for the sake of moving quickly and not holding back the others on our “speed herping” weekend, we did get a few new shots to add to our stock galleries, and I did manage to photograph the three new species we discovered.

One of my new species, the Spring Salamander, is a rather large salamander that lives in or near cool, clear streams and springs.  Larvae take a couple of years to develop into adults, and as adults, the salamanders never stray far from water, unlike some other species of salamanders that can become rather terrestrial.  Spring Salamanders eat insects, crustaceans, earthworms, and other invertibrates, like many other salamanders.  However, Spring Salamanders will also consume other salamanders as part of their diet, including salamanders of their own species.

Here is one rather comical photograph I took of an adult Spring Salamander one of my friends discovered in a mountain stream.  This photo shows the characteristic light stripe that goes from the tip of the eye to the nostril on either side of the Spring Salamander’s face.  This photo reminds me of when, in evolutionary theory, the first aquatic creatures ventured onto land millions and millions of years ago.

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