I’m back in Paramus again after a fun week of my Wilderness First Responder course in West Milford.  I learned a lot of useful skills that I’m glad to have in the backcountry, met a dozen awesome people, and overall had a great time.  Unfortunately, the busy class days left me with little free time and I didn’t take a single photograph all of last week, so I’m going to share another salamander shot from my Pine Barrens trip with Chris. 

Chris flipped this bright salamander in one of the most unusual places - under a giant concrete slab in a dry, sandy area covered with pine needles.  At first look, we weren’t quite sure what kind of salamander it was, and when Chris flipped another similarly colored salamander with gold eyes, we were even more confused.  Two salamanders in the area are orange-red with black spots, the Northern Red Salamander and the rare Mud Salamander.  Red Salamanders have more erratic, less symmetrical spots and gold eyes; Mud Salamanders have very distinct red spots and brown eyes.  Our find seemed to be a mix of the two!  However, after browsing some resources and consulting with friends, we determined that this individual, despite its dark eyes, was a red and not a mud.  Either way it was a first for me, although I really wanted to find Mud Salamanders and want to even more now!

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