Albino Green Salamanders

[SalamanderAlan]

'Albinism' in Aneides species is extremely rare. The literature reports only one instance, and that was 50 years ago for a Black Salamander (A. flavipunctatus) on the U.S. west coast. However, in April and June of 2011 I found two Green Salamanders (A. aeneus) in a western North Carolina state park that displayed coloration that can be described as xanthic, leucistic or hypomelanistic. The first was found in a rock crevice with two normally-colored Greens and I was able to extract it and pose it with one of the normal Greens. The second was found two months later in a boulder that was 1.9 miles straight-line distance from the first Green, and this second one was a gravid female. I was also able to extract her from her crevice to get pictures. Unfortunately, though I revisited the second site many times afterwards she was never seen again. It would have been interesting to see what her hatchlings would have looked like. The delay in reporting this on Caudata was so as to have the finding first reported in Herpetological Review as a Natural History Note. That has now occurred in the latest issue (Herpetological Review 44(1), 2013).<O></O>

 

[Neotenic_Jaymes]

Leucistic seems more like it. Safe to say because there's no red in the eyes. Still an amazing animal.

 

[Kaysie]

I saw your post on facebook the other day regarding these guys. Definitely cool!

 

[Todd Pierson]

Wow. Very cool.

 

[jaster]

That is beyond awesome. I know Russ had a true albino A. lugubris, but that's the only one I've heard of. Killer find!

 

[dane_zu]

Amazing critters. Ive always been fond of green sals, hope to see them in real life some day.