# Salamander Research



## KevinS (Sep 23, 2008)

I just thought I'd post a quick overview and some pictures here in case anyone is interested. I've been conducting my thesis research on cave-associated populations of _Eurycea l. longicauda_, the Long-tailed Salamander. I had actually only found a few individuals of this species when I began this project and had never been caving before at all. In the span of about a year I've gone through all sorts of places underground I never thought I would (or could) and found a few hundred salamanders in the process. Unfortunately I never received any funding for this work and most of it was done while gas was over $4 a gallon, so I couldn't justify doing everything I wanted to since all the expenses came out of my own pocket. I'm hoping to continue with related research in the future though, so hopefully I'll eventually finish everything I wanted to accomplish. 

As far as the specifics of my work, I kept track of every long-tailed salamander I found with photographs. By amassing a very large library of photographs, I was able to distinguish individuals by their unique pattern aberrancies. This was incredibly time consuming since I had to personally check each new salamander photographed against every other set of photographs I had in order to determine if it was a new individual or a recapture. The payoff is that it allows me to estimate population sizes and determine movement patterns for individuals that were recaptured. At this point, that portion of my work is done and all I have left to do is quantify the distances moved by my recaptures and start organizing all of my results.

For the most part I didn't try to take very nice-looking pictures of them since my goal was pattern recognition rather than showing them off on a forum. Here are a few of my favorite individuals (and just a few pictures that somehow turned out decent) for your enjoyment though.









































Here's a larva:









I also found a lot of other species along the way, but I probably shouldn't jam too many pictures in here for those on slower connections


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

nice salamanders!! best of luck on your reserach


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## melissa68 (Feb 16, 2004)

Thanks for sharing!! Amazing what you find when you are looking.


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## bellerophon (Sep 18, 2006)

very cool! kudos for pattern matching all those little guys. commence with the rest of the pics


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## flyangler18 (Oct 26, 2007)

Very cool, Kevin- I remember seeing your excellent threads on Caudata.org!


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## KevinS (Sep 23, 2008)

bellerophon said:


> commence with the rest of the pics


I'll just stick with _Eurycea lucifuga_ and _Plethodon kentucki_ since they're my 2nd favorites to find when I'm caving, depending on the location. Each species is sympatric with the longtails in different areas where I've been, but I have yet to visit any sites where each of these species occurs together.


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## bellerophon (Sep 18, 2006)

ok that does it, if any of your caves are even remotely close to the dc metro count me in! Those are some great looking cuadates


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## aquascott (Oct 18, 2006)

i want in also. nice pics. cool stuff for sure


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## OneTwentySix (Nov 11, 2004)

Wow Kevin, very cool. You've got some great photos and I love to see research like this. Lucifuga are my favorite terrestrial salamander, and longicauda are pretty similar.

If you don't mind me asking, what is your research on?


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## JoshH (Feb 13, 2008)

Very cool! I've always wanted to try to find some of the rarer endangered ones like Jefferson's and the red legged Appalachian species. Do you find them in the bigger, more visited caves or are you checking out relatively unexplored holes?


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## KevinS (Sep 23, 2008)

> If you don't mind me asking, what is your research on?


The second paragraph in my original post pretty much sums it up. I'm mainly tracking movements and estimating population sizes of _E. longicauda_, but also taking some natural history notes along the way (on longtails and other species). Depending on how well my final few trips of the winter go, I may have some reproductive data to contribute as well since I think I know of a good site for finding their eggs. 




> Very cool! I've always wanted to try to find some of the rarer endangered ones like Jefferson's and the red legged Appalachian species. Do you find them in the bigger, more visited caves or are you checking out relatively unexplored holes?


Interesting that you mention Jefferson's, I actually just visited a cave for the first time about 2 weeks ago that has them. They've been finding them in that cave since the 50's and I was aware of that before my visit, but it was still interesting to see them there (and my first encounter with the species). 









As far as where I find more salamanders, I've actually found more longtails and _P. kentucki _in large caves that are toured daily than anywhere else. However, I don't have similarly sized caves that aren't open to the public to compare them with so I suspect any cave of similar dimensions with suitable habitat would be comparable. Smaller caves have been mostly disappointing for me. I've found salamanders in some, but bigger caves with more available habitat seem to have a lot more salamanders on average.

On the same trip where we saw a few Jefferson's, we also visited another cave that I'd never been to before. It took some crawling to get into and then we had to wade through waist deep water the whole way (pretty cold water I might add), but there were over a dozen _E. lucifuga _on the walls just near the entrance. There were also quite a few _Gyrinophilus porphyriticus _in the water and I found a few _E. longicauda _much deeper in. The passages never really opened up, but they went on for long distances and I'm not sure how much more there was beyond the point where we turned back. Aside from the great salamander finds, the cave itself was worth the effort to get in and probably the coolest one I've been to yet. The downside was stripping down and changing into dry clothes on a November night in the mountains when we came back out.


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## Azureus84 (Nov 26, 2008)

Some beautiful creatures, indeed! One thing I can boast about my state is that NC has the greatest diversity of salamanders of anywhere in the entire world. Two summers ago, my nephew and I spent all the warm months searching for salamanders to view. 


We found all sorts of salamanders: dusky, two-lined, slimy, and red efts. My favorite find of all was the Northern red salamander (pseudotriton ruber). Unfortunately, the wooded area we used to find all these in was cut down for lumber last year and all we found upon the last visit was a dusky here and there.


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

wow that neat ill have to ask my mom if she has ever seen anything. Shes been into caving for years now and goes a couple times a month.


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