My Taricha, but still unsure of exact species

[jeff]

Finally I got the camera and some better lighting, and was posing quite nicely.

By the way, the funny looking clear thin above his head is a water stream. Notice the ridge on tail which started appearing alot bigger the last month or so. Looks like the oregeon subspecies or not?

(Message edited by newtsrfun on January 04, 2005)

 

[garrison]

That looks like a healthy T. granulosa to me by general coloration but I'm sure there are some dark T. tarosa out there too. It says in cc that T. granulosa has uniformly dark eyelids while T. tarosa has lighter lower eyelids. I'd check that, I'm not sure I'm expert enough in the other characteristics mentioned:eye protrusion/size and vomerine teeth to really make a judgement.

The thing I notice in tarosa vs. granulosa pics is that the dark dorsal coloration seems to extend lower and has a more defined boundry/cutoff point to the lighter ventral coloration. T. tarosa seems generally lighter and has more a gradient between colors. Can anyone confirm this? If anything I'm sure Pin can give us a good answer

 

[nate]

I'd guess with 99% confidence that it's granulosa as well.

 

[mark]

He/She is beautiful.

 

[josh]

t. granulosa and torosa are very variable depending on the locality. do you know where your individuals came from?? that could help alot. granulosa has a more broad head than torosa. that is another clue. its lookin pretty granulosa to me.

 

[jeff]

If you havn't heard by now, my newt is a rescue, and nobody knows where he is from, check out the taricha forum for the whole story!

You guys/girls think he is too fat?? He loves his bloodworms, but I feed him crickets every so often. I love watching him eat, its like watching JAWS...