Random Salamander excitement!

P

patrick

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I was tromping through my favorite stream ravine by my apartment in the middle of the city of Pittsburgh this afternoon looking for worms to feed my newts. There is an eroding shale cliffside with really fine clay soil that I often find really nice medium and small sized worms in. I was carefully making my way down the slippery slope when what should scurry across the ground in front of me but a red salamander! At first I thought it was a P. ruber and my heart jumped. I captured it quicker than I ever thought I could, I still can't remember how I ended up on the ground with the salamander in my hand but the next thing I knew it was in the little plastic box in which I keep my worms and I was rushing home to try and positively identify it. I got it here and put it in my salamander refrigerator to cool it down.

Unfortunately, it is not a P. ruber, but is a really nice specimen of Eurycea longicauda, a salamander I have never seen before, and right in the middle of the city! Amazing.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to a good camera, but if I can borrow my friends crappy digital camera before I return the salamander tonight I will post some pictures of it.
 
I wish we had rivers and things with salamanders here in LA. lol.
 
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  • Katia Del Rio-Tsonis:
    Dear All, I would appreciate some help identifying P. waltl disease and treatment. We received newts from Europe early November and a few maybe 3/70 had what it looked like lesions under the legs- at that time we thought maybe it was the stress of travel- now we think they probably had "red leg syndrome" (see picture). However a few weeks later other newts started to develop skin lesions (picture enclosed). The sender recommended to use sulfamerazine and we have treated them 2x and we are not sure they are all recovering. Does anyone have any experience with P. waltl diseases and could give some input on this? Any input would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.
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  • Katia Del Rio-Tsonis:
    sorry I am having a hard time trying to upload the pictures- I have them saved on my hard drive... any suggestions-the prompts here are not allowing for downloads that way as far as I can tell. Thanks
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    Katia Del Rio-Tsonis: sorry I am having a hard time trying to upload the pictures- I have them saved on my hard... +1
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