What do i have here does anyone know?

[niki]

Hi there, my name is Niki, and i live in Pennsylvania, and while removing some rocks from my stream i encountered this about 5 inches - tail (must have lost it from a crayfish attack i'm guessing it looks to be growing back though).
Anyway, i was wondering if anyone could identify this newt for me. <--it is a newt right? lol

 

[niki]

i forgot to metion, i won't be keeping him/her but i'd just like it identified for my own personal knowledge. I'm always finding colorful/intresting species of newts and salamanders and i'm not always able to identify them as i'm not able to with this new one. OH and also, i found him/her in the water, underneath a rock complety sumberged which i find quite odd as it doesn't have gills and i've wittnessed it breathing air by putting its head up to the surface to breath, its nostrils then close and it goes back under the water. Also, a few years ago as my brother and i were in the process of buildign a dam in this same creek we encountered another completly different newt, almost pearl white in color with brilliant pink gills it looks actually, exactlylike the one i keep seeing pictured above on this site. What's it called and is it possible for that exact species to be in South western PA? In a pretty small stream. The only things that live in this stream are newts, insect larva, and crayfish. No minnows (as the racoons see to that) and larger fish would have a hard time surviving in there as once mid summer hits here, the stream pretty much dries up.

 

[nate]

Gyrinophilus porphyriticus, spring salamander. The pearl-white salamander you saw was probably a larval G. porphyriticus, not the axolotl shown in the head animations on this site.

 

[greg]

Good call Nate. the dark eye line, though there, is hard to see in these shots. Too big to be Desmognathus and it lacks the relatively larger hind limbs (relative to front) of Desmog... and lacks the white eye-jaw line.

Most gyros I've found were less brown than this (reds or orange or even purple). But all had the dark line from eye to nose.

hmm... what's the range of Pseudotriton in PA? This ain't that... but it would be another big cool salamander that Niki might find under similar rocks along similar streams.

cool. I am jealous. Gyros are rare in CT, only entering the state in a narrow swatch in the NW.

greg

 

[edward]

Off the top of my head, Pseudotriton ruber is fairly wide spread in the eastern half of the state (I'm not familar with the western half of the state off the top of my head, I would need to look it up at the moment) but it is usually very scarce near developed areas (although I knew a really good site in New Brunswick NJ that was an isolated little island). I've had the most consistant luck finding them in the Poconos.
Ed