Where did he find so many?

[nic]

Anyone got any ideas on how this person found so many
tigers? Unbelievable and at the same time, very scary.
http://market.kingsnake.com/detail.php?cat=14&de=254133

 

[russ]

Its rather easy if you now where to look. I know of ponds up in the Rockies of UT and CO where you can find hundreds of full term larvae and newly morphed juvies this time of year. The legality of it would depend on what state they where collected in. The ethics of it depends on your point of view, but they're definitely not rare in a lot of the west. Some states even treat them differently than other caudates because of their use as fish bait.

RUSS

 

[leanne]

Yep, go to any Nebraska bait shop and you can get one for 25 cents. (Or a dozen for $1.00!)

 

[joseph]

It looks like someone robbed a breeding pond of its adults. Very different from larvae as fishbait IMHO

 

[leanne]

Although some bait shops let them morph and sell the adults as well, unfortunately.....

 

[dot]

I pointed this out in chat -- some of those tigers aren't even finished morphing yet. (Along the top, second one from the left's head still looks sort of larval, or "waterdoggy" as Jen put it.) And if you look closely, some others still have nubby gill remnants.

Just an observation.

 

[joseph]

Yeah, but the sizes are also quite varied. Look at the vertical one near the bottom right.

 

[kaysie]

All of my karelinii were hatched from the same spawning, and there's dramatic size difference in them. I think its wrong to go out to a pond and harvest TONS of animals. Whether or not tigers are rare in the west, this kind of harvesting DEFINATELY has an impact on local populations, no matter what anyone says.

 

[joseph]

Well, that one I mentioned is 2x the size of almost all the rest. Tell me that isn't a breeder?

I'm pretty sure a tiger sallies lifecycle is pretty long and the populations probably can't take much adult collecting. They alrreadsy lose so many during migrations to the pond itself. However, I don't think removing a few eggs or larvae for personal use would do too much.

 

[edward]

Hi Joseph,
from the caudata culture sheet on tigrinum http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/Ambystoma/A_tigrinum.shtml

This should help address your comment on the lifecycle length of tiger salamamnders.
snip " Depending on the reference, there are up to six morphological variations of tiger salamanders (Petranka, 1998). Depending upon the subspecies in question, there can be normal gilled adults, cannibalistic gilled adults, normal transformed adults, cannibalistic transformed adults, large transformed adults and small transformed adults. The cannibalistic morph is known to occur in four of the subspecies and is typified by a wider broader head, a larger overall skull, and an extra row of provomerine teeth. Additionally, the cannibalistic morphs tend to reach a larger adult size than noncannabalistic morphs. Some populations have both large and small morphs, depending upon whether the breeding occurs in seasonally ephemeral pools or larger bodies of water that are less seasonally affected. The small morphs occur in areas with the seasonally ephemeral pools, transform at a smaller size, and reach a smaller total adult size."

As you can see it is totally dependent upon the adaptation for the breeding site. These animals could have come from more than one breeding population.

snip "this kind of harvesting DEFINATELY has an impact on local populations, no matter what anyone says."

Kaysie, I cannot agree with this statement as it is (as far as I know) not supported by any evidence. As much as we as a group may not agree with commercial collecting of animals for sale, there needs to be more evidence to support that statement.
Wholesale collection of tiger salamanders for the bait market has continued for decades now and I have not seen any reports that link the collection of those numbers to populations declines.
I have seen reports about declines occuring due to habitat destruction but not due to collection. The range and number of localities colonized by some of the subspecies has actually increased due to transport and release of larva used as fish bait.

Some thoughts

Ed

 

[edward]

Another comment,
A lot of the guys who sell in the pet trade buy large larva from a bait dealer and let them morph (or buy morphing larva) and then sell them at an inflated price.

Ed

 

[nate]

Great points, Ed.

 

[nic]

Yes Ed, thanks for the bright light of wisdom, and
thank you all for your comments.