URODELA NEWSLETTER 9: JULY 2004

By Henk Wallays

It has been quite a while (seems like this is always the opening sentence), but I finally got the time to compile this new Urodela Newsletter. During this time many people have contacted me with all kinds of questions on salamanders, caecilians and newts. I have added their addresses to this list. If you do not wish to receive this Newsletter, tell me and I'll take you off the list. Presumably some people will have changed their email adresses. If I get messages like 'recipient unknown' I will take you off the list. I have been quite active lately posting images on the net. You will find lots of links to them, so that this is not just text.In order not to make this Newsletter too big, however, I did not add images, just links. I hope you like what you read and see.

Sincerely yours,
Henk Wallays

1. International Amphibian Days & Appalachian trip

After 4 years, I was pleased to again receive an invitation to give a lecture at International Amphibian Days (IAD) in Baltimore, US.  I gave an overview of my own keeping and breeding experiences with the beautiful newts of the genus Neurergus (specifically Neurergus strauchii strauchii & Neurergus crocatus), along with some related field experiences by the Dutch Salamander Studygroup (S. Bogearts, T. Woeltjes, F. Pasmans). In particular, I tried to explain the differences in breeding habits between the species, with N. strauchii strauchii behaving more like a streambreeder, and N. crocatus definitely being more of a pondbreeder (including the shapes of the larvae). I explained about the studbooks and the sudden, dramatic decline of N. crocatus in captive circles… The flagship for the Urodela studbook process seems to sink… Images of  those species can be seen at:

Link: N. crocatus photos on AmphibiaWeb

IAD was also an opportunity to meet with other salamander people who I had met over the internet, but hadn't yet seen in person (Jennifer Macke, Ed Kowalski, Patti & Dick Bartlett, Pin Pin Wei, … to name just a few) and to shake hands again with some of the organizers, who are trying to do the most with just a few guys. (Keep up the good work there!) On Sunday I again wandered through a rich and colorful palet of various poison dart frogs and saw a few I had never seen…

I quite enjoyed the talks about the tropical rainforests of Peru, Costa Rica, and the overview of the Appalachian herpetofauna given by Brian Kubicky, Justin Yeager and D. Bartlett, respectively. While I already want to visit Costa Rica (or another mid-American rainforest region) this wish has now become even stronger … to the point that I definitely plan to accomplish this in the next 5 years. I think these lectures have done me no good there. I would definitely adore going there to make close-up shots of the local herpetofauna and most importantly, the insect-fauna. Lately I have started documenting a lot of Belgian insect fauna, and you can read more about this below.

I prolonged my stay by 3 days in order to go to the Appalachians with Roger Rosscoe. In fact, it was at IAD 2000 that I met Roger. Due to the short nature of this trip, I hadn't brought any pH or temperature measuring equipment with me. It was meant more as a short trip to observe and photograph and take some time off from an overly busy professional schedule.

After the meeting, we first went down to visit Jean Raffaelli, who has temporarily migrated from France and is living for 3 years near Washington D.C. Anybody who knows Jean can imagine he probably did not hesitate long in deciding to move to this salamander-rich area.

His wife prepared us a very nice meal. After dinner, Jean took us out where - in warmer periods -  he knew a good spot for finding a species I had never seen alive: Eurycea guttolineata. Unfortunately, it was still too cold and we didn't find any. But, in addition to some shots of beetles, I was able to find and shoot some red and lead-backed salamanders, Plethodon cinereus.

Link 1: Plethodon cinereus
Link 2: Plethodon cinereus

We also found Eurycea bislineata, which looked quite different from he ones I found at Harrisonburg (see below). After a short peek at Jean’s animals, including a giant and impressive Amphiuma, Roger and I headed towards the Appalachians for a 3-day trip into salamander-land.

Link 1: Eurycea bislineata
Link 2: Eurycea bislineata

Our first aim was to see Plethodon shenandoah, which unfortunately didn't turn out to be so interesting. We stumbled upon 15 cm of snow in the mountains. At the entrance, a park ranger proudly announced that they had received an unusual amount of snow for that time of the year. A short look on the map (altitude and orientation) should have warned us,  but we wanted to hold onto our hopes and try it anyway. At first the snow was still quite low and melting due to the nice bright weather, but the higher we got and the closer we went to our destination the more snow we saw. And although the environment looked great, I still felt that the gods were not with us.  Since we were there anyway, we had a short tourist walk instead and enjoyed the nice scenery. Due to the cold weather, we also had to skip another species, Plethodon yonahlossee. This was the second Appalachian trip where I failed to see those intriguingly beautiful salamanders. Because of the weather, we continued to go farther south, hoping for warmer and wetter environments. My wishlist still held another local species I wanted to try and get on slides: the Peak's of Otter salamander, Plethodon hubrichti.

Link 1: Plethodon hubrichti
Link 2: Plethodon hubrichti

We had first gathered precise locality data for this species, and while doing so had heard they were not that difficult to find even in colder periods. Arriving at the spot and with some hope I started turning over little logs… underneath the first log I stumbled upon a juvenile Plethodon hubrichti! After another hour, Roger and I had turned over quite a few logs and stones and found about 30 adults, most of them hidden under the stones. The color on their backs ranged from dull black to copper dusted. The animals with this latter coloration were really shining beautifully in the fading sun. Some of them have been imortalized on AmphibiaWeb:

Link: Plethodon hubrichti photos on AmphibiaWeb

On a previous Appalchian trip with Roger and Russel, we had stumbled upon a locality with a cream-yellow colored population of Plethodon wehrlei in North Carolina. D. Wake from Berkeley informed me that this was in fact an interesting find, seen from the geographical repartition side, so we thought this was a good opportunity to try to find them again and make some better notes on the habitat and the animals. Arriving to the area however, we had great difficulty finding the habitat again. As mentioned in the former report, there had been logging activity, and we failed to find the place again. Everything had changed so much. None of the three of us ever thought we would get back there, so unfortunately we hadn’t taken exact notes on the habitat. I fear that the habitat might eventually cease to exist. Although we did get to see some other interesting areas where they could occur, all of the land was marked "Posted". Not knowing the area and people, we didn't really feel like taking the risk. So we had to return from this unsuccesful spot. If only we would have had a good walking GPS on our first trip. People wanting to see the animals from the first trip can give it a go at:

Link: Plethodon wehrlei photos on AmphibiaWeb

Please note that these images were taken with flashlights, so the coloration on their back is in fact too clear (which was one of the reasons why I wanted to go back: to shoot well-calibrated digital color photos without flash).

On our trip back, we noticed that everywhere the ground was very dry. We were not successful in finding salamanders in other areas along the trip down to N.C. either. All we stumbled upon was one Plethodon richmondi. So we decided to head back north and try our luck around Virginia, where we finally stopped at Harrisonburg and visited the Jefferson National Forest. Since it was still quite dry, we directed our search around little streams and started turning over logs and stones. Along the sides, we encountered mainly Desmognathus fuscus and D. monticola. The calmer side-pockets of the stream were filled with fallen leaves and turned out to be equally full of micro-organisms. It was in those leaf-gatherings that we discovered many larval Gyrinophilus porphyriticus of various lengths.

Link: larval Gyrinophilus porphyriticus

Later we even found quite a large adult hidden under a stone, feet in the water.

Link: adult Gyrinophilus porphyriticus

Since the larger species were there, I hoped we would again be able to find the beautiful Pseudotriton ruber as well, but we didn't. Instead I was able to dig up some Eurycea bislineata. They were mainly further from the streamside, hiding in the wet leaf litter on the land.

Link: Eurycea bislineata

Like on all the trips, the animals were left unharmed… but immortalized on disk.

2. Groupe Herpetologique & Arachnide de Lausanne, Suisse

Shortly after my trip to the US, I was honored with a request from the Groupe Herpetologique de Lausanne, Suisse to come over and give a talk on salamanders. I chose to talk about my main interest: an overview of my experiences with breeding and keeping Hynobius. I prolonged my stay for one more day (in fact a request from the hosts, and I was very happy to accept), so that I stayed there for 2 days. During this period, they first took me around a little nature reserve that they maintained at a shooting practice field. It held 3 little ponds that were filled with tadpoles. But we didn't find any newts or larvae there. I did get to see some lizards, and just to tease me, there were some orange-tipped butterflies flying around my ears. I have been dreaming of putting this species on slides for a while now, as they are rare around my area. Unfortunately, their vivid flight patterns surpassed my physical condition on this non-flat region… I didn't even try.

After enjoying the stay outside, we visited the Lausanne vivarium (http://www.vivarium-lausanne.ch/). It proved to be a well hidden cave of Ali Baba where I got to see an impressive amount of reptiles including snakes, alligators, lizards… all set up in very clean and well maintained terrariums. I can only recommend this to visitors in Lausanne. Here are 2 shots of snakes I took out there: Dendroaspis viridis and Dispholidus typus

Later in the evening I was invited to participate in a (very nice) typical Swiss cheese fondue with white wine. I had never before had the pleasure of this, and I must admit I quite enjoyed it.  Later in the evening I gave the lecture, which finished around 11:00 PM. Daniel Hofer, the Swiss caecilian expert, had taken the effort to come over from Bern, and we continued talking about this shared field of interest, the legless amphibians. Just when I thought I felt tired, Emmanuel Jelsh and Alain Rey confronted me with their idea of letting me visit some salamander habitats. First we went to the shooting range at Lavigny where, in the middle of the night, with very cold winds and a slight bit of rain, we wanted to have a look at some breeding frogs, especially Hyla arborea and Bufo calamita. Although we did hear one or two, apparently we weren't the only ones coping with the bad weather. Anyway, we could see them hiding in the long grasses in the marshy areas. We were able to catch a magnificent Triturus cristatus, the crest of the animal being extremely high. Then the journey took us to the gravel pits at Mossettes close to Bière. After a 5-minute walk, we found some cold pits/ponds that, upon closer inspection, were densely populated with T. alpestris and T. helveticus. In some areas we found a male almost every meter, hiding between the grasses and weeds. Some of them had a very flashy neon blue coloration, which I have so far never noticed on any of the T. alpestris that live in my garden. You can admire a shot of one of those males (with flash through the water) at the following link: http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?enlarge=1111+1111+1111+2237. After this inspiring time, time to hit the sheets… where at the house of Alain I took some more minutes first to look at the pond with semi-natural stream. Crystal clear water, lots of tadpoles, and some scarce T. helveticus hiding along the sides. Now I knew how I wanted to reorganize my garden!

A long rest, and a calm morning later, Alain's wife spoiled me with a good meal. After this, Emmanuel and Alain accompanied me for further discoveries. First we went to visit another amphibian and reptile enthusiast, Sylvain Dubey. It was a very cold day with lots of even colder wind. The garden around the house had a very interesting collection of wildlife ponds, marvellously scattered all over the area and partly hidden by a good and almost-natural collection of various plants… in fact it looked much like a salamander heaven. However, due to the cold weather, our discoveries were limited to a green frog, a young Bombina variegata (http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?enlarge=1111+1111+1111+2421 ) and one T. vulgaris. The smooth newt had quite a red belly and was very small compared to Belgian specimens. When I inquired about this, I was told that this is the normal adult size. Some days later - with warmer weather - Emmanuel went to visit Sylvain again, and they got to see 7 tree frogs, R. lessonae, R. temporaria, T. helveticus, T. alpestris, T. cristatus, T. vulgaris, Bufo calamita, and Alytes obsteticrans. Apparently they had been hiding from the Belgian ecotourist… or I just picked a day that was too cold.

After that, we visited the Arboretum at Aubonne, where I took some photos of newly metamorphosed R. temporaria. A little walk around the area passed some small puddles/seepages that were fed by dripping water from the rocks and half covered under long grass. These held a lot of tadpoles and quite an interesting amount of Salamandra terrestris larvae. Despite our effort, we couldn't find any Bombina variegata… it was probably still a bit too cold. Then I went off to the airport where I bought some quite enjoyable Swiss chocolate.

I wish to thank the Swiss people for the enjoyable stay and nice support. In a short time I got to see quite a lot … and although everything was well hidden, it was a nice trip in all. You can check out the website of the Groupe Herpetologique de Lausanne, Suisse at: http://www.herpeto.ch/

3. Breeding & observations

Despite a busy calender, I have had some breeding successes again.  In the Hynobius group, I had of eggs from H. dunni, H. leechi quelpartensis, H. retardatus, H. nebulosus, and H. yiwuensis(!). Unfortunately, the eggs from H.retardatus and H. yiwuensis didn't develop.

H. retardatus: Things didn't start well. In order to get the animals activated, I placed a pump into the tank. Shortly thereafter, I found a female dead: her tail got stuck in the pump. She was in fact one of the 2 oldest females I had (7 years of age) and, judging by body size, well loaded with eggs. Later than usual, I started replacing the water. This normally activates the animals, and depositions follow shortly thereafter. I did get a laying of 2 egg sacs. However, despite the presence of active males, they didn't develop and all the eggs turned bad. The adult group is down to 7 animals, with another genetic group of  7 probably ready to reproduce next year for the first time. I still keep about 7 juvenile animals of CB2003. H. retardatus doesn't seem to be a 'hardy' species like H. dunni. I have tried breeding the second genetic group of H. retardatus and set them temporarily together in a large enclosure with fully grown H. lichenatus. At a certain moment, I have seen with much astonishment a young male H. retardatus eating a freshly-layed egg sac of H. lichenatus. The first idea that came into my mind was: now I start to understand why this species is so solitary in Hokkaido.  So I will retry breeding both species in seperate tanks next year.

H. dunni: I think of this species as a success story (for the animals I would say). As already mentioned, this is a truly hardy animal. I have had breedings occuring every year over the last 7 years and still hold an adult group of 27 animals, with about 70 juveniles from former years. Also this year, a lot of eggs were laid (8 egg sacs). Because of this nice stock and a lack of time, I wished to focus more on some of the other species and didn't actually raise all of them. Nevertheless, I think I will still keep 60 juveniles again this year. The offpsring I have distributed over the years to other people have also started to breed in some cases. For a species with such a limited distribution and on decline in Japan, this can only be good news. For me this is the hardiest of the Hynobidae, capable of coping with quite high temperatures (as long as they are wet) and not picky at all about food. The animals come from Beppu Shi. Here are some shots of my setups and animals:

Link: H. dunni photos on AmphibiaWeb

H. leechii quelpartensis: Now that the Dutch studbook keeper has stopped keeping this species, it may get less attention in the future. These animals (coming from Cheju Islands) are doing very well in their setup. They have bred quite nicely, and I am currently rearing the offspring, which are close to metamorphosis. As always, the eggs were attached to the stones in the softflowing waterpockets of a large tank (180 by 60 cm ground surface). This setup houses about 20 adults. I have made photos of the egg sacs and larvae, which can be seen at Amphibiaweb:

Link: H. leechi qualpartensis photos on AmphibiaWeb

Currently this species has been split up, and a new species is recognized. An article (PDF) describing this can be downloaded at: http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/zsj/20/9/1163/_pdf/-char/ja/

Pachyhynobius: Regarding breeding, this species is still a mystery. People working in the field have not yet seen any eggs or larvae, so we do not know how they lay their eggs. The current thinking is that this species could eventually breed in captivity under big rocks in deep water, or small caves. If it is true, the environment of a typical tank might not be big enough, and we should make other arrangements for the species. I have lost the oldest male, reducing my breeding group to 8 females and 1 male. I hope I do not loose the other, and I would definitely be interested in obtaining another male. The group still holds 3 semi-adults, of which the sex is difficult to see. The females are always very fat in the early spring. They are housed in a tank of 120 by 50 cm with a water depth of 20 cm. I am thinking about installing them outdoors for the winter in a (frost-free) deep pool filled with stones, and then keeping my fingers crossed.

Some of the animals from my groups (especially the little ones) have some minor iridescent spots on the lateral side of head and body or feet. They are possibly remnants of a different juvenile coloration, which, like with Hynobius, might show some neon light blue…. I sincerely hope I may breed these animals one day, and I am currently looking to acquire an extra male.

H. tsuensis: I recently acquired a pair of adult H. tsuensis so we may try to breed them from next year on. For a time they didn't do too well, but isolating them in a separate setup and a good menu with lots of worms did very well for them. Due to the presence of just this pair, I would seriously think about breeding this species next year.

H. tokyoensis:  Strangely enough, I got no reproduction this year. There were no eggs deposited and, even stranger, none of the males became active or even entered the water! Besides this parental group, I still have a second genetic group of 7 juveniles that do very well currently, but they will still need 2 or 3 more years before breeding.

H. nebulosus: Last year I mentioned that these animals bred at an incredibly small size. So we expected them to breed this year, and they did. Currently, about 9 large larvae are still swimming around. They will remain in place in order to enhance the breeding group. The H. nebulosus group is a very variable group in terms of forms and colorations. My animals are divided into 3 different genetic groups: one of them retains their yellow tail all year (2 animals). Another one comes from the genetic stock that was first bred by R. Thorn (one of his captive bred offspring), and a third group are these tiny ones for which I have no exact locality data. This species seems to be quite hardy and quite active in the water too. I regularly see them foraging for food in the water. But this could be due to their age. In H. dunni, I have already observed that as the animals age, they enter the water much less frequently.

Ambystoma: I will keep these for the next newsletter, since I will install outdoor enclosures in order to try and breed (and focus more) on Ambystoma. But more on this later…

4. Trip to France

The holidays in July were partly spent at Salles, France close to Bordeaux. Aside from tasting some good wines and travelling in the area, a lot of my time was spent photographing insects encountered during my daily forest walks.

Link 1: French insects
Link 2: French insects
Link 3: French insects

You can see an overview of other insect photos at: Link: Insect photos on CalPhotos

During this trip, I went to visit a Fench salamander keeper who only keeps and breeds albino S. terrestris. He gave me a short overview of his very functional setups, which were well thought out. He gave me permission to make some shots of a 'normal' and an almost complete albino. These images can be viewed at :

Link 1: albino S. terrestris
Link 2: albino S. terrestris
Link 3: albino S. terrestris

All the tanks have a gravel substrate with some water underneath and are equipped with lots of moss and a thermometer and hydrometer. The animals are sorted by genetics and generation.

Later we went out to the Lacanau lake environment, where he guided me to a place where there were still some wild Emys orbicularis (European swamp turtles). Crawling through the kings fern (Osmunda regalis) and fallen trees, we had to be cautious not to scare these vivid animals: one noise and they would flee. Finally we stood at the border of the water hidden under the canopy of an overhanging tree. We were able to spot turtles on the other side of the pond. We couldn't get much closer than approximately 15 meters. After cropping and manipulation, some of the digital images taken with the 200 mm lens at the highest aperture are presentable and will soon be posted.

5.  Recent status of  some Appalachian salamanders

Recently, one of my photos on Amphibiaweb was corrected. Along Grandfather Mountain I had photographed various salamanders and posted them with the locality data. Based on the locality data, David Andrew Beamer was kind enough to inform me that this species was not in fact Plethodon jordani, but Plethodon montanus.

Link 1: Plethodon montanus
Link 2: Plethodon montanus

I asked him about the current status of the Plethodon jordani complex, and since his answer was so complete I will quote him:

"The jordani complex has been split into several species. The one you photographed on Grandfather is the northern gray cheeked salamander - Plethodon montanus and is the most northern occurring species, ranging long the higher parts on the mountains from Virginia down through the Blue Ridge until the vicinity of the Asheville Basin.

There is another jordani complex just a little south of Grandfather Mountain in an area of the Piedmont that is uneroded and is therefore very mountain like. This area is called the South Mountains, and the jordani complex member there is South Mountain gray cheeked salamander - Plethodon meridianus. It is much larger than P. montanus and much darker, being a jet black color. It is the largest member of the complex and seems a giant next to the other species.

The next member of the complex has a very small range in the vicinity of Asheville (and in the area the no-longer-recognized P. longicrus occurs). It is called the Blue Ridge gray cheeked salamander - Plethodon amplus.

 The next member occurs generally west of Asheville and is the southern gray cheeked salamander - Plethodon metcalfi. It ranges west to the eastern edge of the Great Smoky Mountains and south into South Carolina even making it down into the Piedmont along the deeper river gorges that approximate the cooler conditions of the mountains.

The next members of the complex that occur in the southwest part of North Carolina (and parts of Tennessee in the case of P. jordani) all have some red pigment that often results in striking looking salamanders. The first of these is the red-legged salamander, Plethodon shermani. It occurs as four isolates in the Nantahala Mts, Tusquitee Mts, vicinity of Standing Indian, and finally at the two highest peaks in the Unicoi Mts, where it doesn't have red legs.

There is a second red legged form, the Cheoah Bald salamander - Plethodon cheoah -that occupies the Cheoah Mountain mass just south of the Great Smoky Mountains. It is often a very striking animal having red legs and often white flecks on the lateral surface. It gives the impression of hybridization with Plethodon teyahalee, however there is no genetic evidence for hybridization, and the two occur side by side to the very peak of the mountain (in most areas the two species replace one another, with jordani complex at higher elevations and glutinosus  complex at lower elevations and very little overlap).

The last member is the first described, the red-cheeked salamander Plethodon jordani. It occurs in the Great Smoky Mountains exclusively. These descriptions and redescriptions were published in 2000 in the book The Biology of Plethodontid Salamanders. The full citation for the chapter is Highton, R. and R.B. Peabody, 2000. Geographic protein variation and speciation in salamanders of the Plethodon jordani and Plethodon glutinosus complexes in the southern Appalachian Mountains with the description of four new species. Pp. 31-93. In Bruce, R.C., R.G. Jaeger and L. Houck (Eds.), The Biology of Plethodontid Salamanders. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.

You can also find taxonomic accounts for them at http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.html."

I had doubts about one of the other Plethodontids I had photographed. In addition to Plethodon petraeus, we had met with a very georgeous animal from the P. glutinosus group in Georgia at Pigeon Mountain. This animal had abundant white, especially on the lateral sides, and the chin was white-pinkish. With help from J. Raffaelli, I was able to get some feedback from Mr. Highton: this salamander apparently was Plethodon chattahoochee.

6. Photos

Just before I took off for IAD, I bought a new digital camera: the Minolta A2. This 8-megapixel camera has a 28 - 200 mm lens with image stabilization. I have been using it heavily since then both to shoot the usual salamaders and now also to focus on insect fauna. You can see lots of images of butterflies, damselflies, heteroptera, and other tiny animals at the following gallery: http://www.bytephoto.com/photopost/showgallery.php?ppuser=470. Please bear in mind that the images were resized at 72 dpi, down to 512x768 pixels.  I hope to extend this much further and maybe set up new portfolios elsewhere. 

I may open a specific insect page later. While continuing to photograph salamanders (the core business?), I have slowly been gliding into photography and it currently has developed into a separate hobby. I am definitely interested in photographing portraits and, in particular, close-ups of animals. Anyway, it's up to you to judge whether I succeeded or not. Specifically with this in mind, I would like to travel to an insect-rich and still natural and challenging environment... e.g., like Costa Rica.

Lately, I have received many inquiries for nonprofit use of my amphibian images, and I'm always happy to help out. We have even received some commercial inquiries too. As a result, my images will be used in some parks that teach about salamander life, as a panel/poster in a Canadian park, and also in a schoolbook.

During one of my walks, I encountered a Bufo bufo infected with larvae of Luciola bufonivora. It was not a pretty sight, and the children wanted me to help the toad. Seeing the depth the maggots had already entered the head (between the eyes, with one eye possibly affected already) it was a lost cause. The fact that this toad was walking outside during a warm sunny day was already a pretty abnormal behavior.

7. Articles & Future trips

"Rhyacotriton": Jennifer Macke had the courage to polish the English version of my 'Rhyacotriton' into proper English (Thank you Jennifer!). It has meanwhile been published at caudata.org and can be seen at: http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/Rhyacotriton.shtml. It contains a small literature study and many shots of all but one of the species. While touring around in Oregon and California, we were happy to find all the species. The images still date from the pre-digital era. I hope you enjoy reading it, and if you have questions or remarks, let me know. Also, she has made a nice central homepage with links to my other pages… There, you can also access the former Urodela Newsletters: http://www.caudata.org/people/Henk/index.html

Hynobius dunni & Hynobius retardatus: Articles regarding captive care and husbandry of both species have recently been brought online through my Russian Urodela friends at the following URL: www.caudata.ru/henk/hynobius.htm. They may eventually be posted (in another form) on the caudata.org pages.

"Temperature": I have written a Dutch article on the importance of correct temperatures in the salamander hobby. When I have the time, I may try to translate it. It is based on my own and other people’s experiences/observations, both from captive perspectives and trips. Part of this study has also been used for the Dutch Studygroup's article on temperature problems with salamanders, which you can see at Podarcis: http://www.podarcis.nl/

Ensatina e. oregonensis: I have been busy writing a Dutch article on this species, done some (minor) literature study, and added a lot of images from the total range of (the coastal) distribution of this species. In both my Oregon trips, we found this species quite abundant both in Oregon and California. Some of the images have meanwhile been put up at the Amphibiaweb site.

"California trip": I intend to visit California again within the next 2 years. The target of this visit is ongoing observations of Oregon and Californian salamanders, as seen on 2 prior visits. I especially aim at taking snapshots and observations of the habitat of Batrachoseps, Ensatina, and Hydromantes, if we encounter them. Most likely, this trip will take place in the spring of either 2005 or 2006.

"Costa Rica" or other mid-American trip: this trip is planned for the next 5 years. The main target here lies in photography, rather than salamander observing. Nevertheless, if there is a chance to combine both (for instance, Mexico) then we wouldn't hesitate to do so. The reason why we are thinking about Costa Rica has much to do with the large variety of invertebrates and the fact I would like to make interesting photos of lots of insects and other lower life forms there.  You can see more shots like this at, e.g., http://www.bytephoto.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=24525&password=&sort=1&cat=500&page=1 . Since this would be a totally new experience to me, any tips and traps are welcomed.

So this is it for now. I hope you find this to be both informative and enjoyable to read. If you have any topics or corrections that you feel could be mentioned in this Newsletter, feel free to inform me.

Hoping to hear from you again,
Henk Wallays