CA salamanders

CALIFORNIA SALAMANDERS
a portal to photo-intensive web pages

by Don Roberson

These thumbnails show various salamanders or salamander groups I've photographed over the years in California. Click on any active links (underlined in blue) to bring up a web page discussing the species or genus and (usually) a selection of photos. All photographs were taken in the wild at the site of discovery; no salamanders were harmed in the making of this web site. Fundamental resources for identification and distribution of California salamanders are the Stebbins' field guide (Stebbins 1966, 1985) and Petranka's (1998) book on North American salamanders.

Slender salamanders genus *Batrachoseps* how this California specialty changed from 1 species to nearly 20	Santa Cruz Long-toed Salamander Ambystoma macrodactylum croceum an endangered species with a remarkable life history	Northwestern Salamander Ambystoma gracile the poisonous big boy of the northcoast thickets
Arboreal Salamander Aneides lugubris a climbing salamander that made it to the Farallones	Ensatina Ensatina eschscholtzii the "ring species" with amazing variation	Clouded Salamander Aneides ferreus always remembered for an Arcata vacant lot
Dunn's Salamander Plethodon dunni personality plus barely makes it across the border	Del Norte Salamander Plethodon elongatus a northwestern specialty with two faces	Siskiyou Mountains Salamander Plethodon stormi the rarest of the Plethodons straddles the border

More to come...

On-line resources
There are some very useful web sites on salamanders. My favorites are:

A USGS identification guide, in progress. The pages that are completed have great close-up photos and colorful range maps.
AmphibiaWeb: a U.C. Berkeley site with photos, lots of text (esp. life history), and references. Or you can go directly to photo galleries at the preceding link.
John Sullivan's 'Wild Herps': a personal checklist with great photos and stories of finding many of our western herps, centered in Pacific Grove, California.
The Salamander Wrangler: another personal web site with photos and stories of finding salamanders, centered in Oregon

Literature cited:

Petranka, J. W. 1998. Salamanders of the United States and Canada. Smithsonian Instit. Press, Washington, D.C.
Stebbins, R. C. 1966. A Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians. Houghton Mifflin, Boston.
Stebbins, R. C. 1985. A Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians. 2d ed. Houghton Mifflin, Boston.

TOP

TO HERPS PORTAL PAGE

TO MAMMALS PORTAL PAGE

TO LIST OF FAMILIES OF THE WORLD

TO BIRDING THE WORLD PAGE

TO HOME PAGE

Page created 3 Mar 2002