Here is our sweet guy, Sandy Salamander.
We have had him for about 5 years now, but we have no idea how old he is. We found him in a full grown state, although he has certainly gotten larger since we got him!The story is, John's friend Dean found Sandy in his swimming pool. Dean scooped him out with the net, but Sandy kept going back in. SO, Dean finally called John and asked him if he wanted this Salamander. Of course he did!
Now we have even more. Here's why:
Earlier this July, we travelled to Crested Butte, and the mountains above it. We found this sweet pond up on a pass, at least 11,000 ft high.
See, there was even still snow around in July!
John, with his naturalist's eye, spotted some eggs, so of course he scooped a few up (John does have a fishing license, which apparently covers amphibian collecting :-p)
We put them into an Odwalla juice bottle:
Here is a close-up of one of the eggs, and the small creature inside:
John felt fairly certain that they were salamanders, and sure enough, upon researching after we got home, the only amphibians found at such a high altitude are either tiger slalmanders, or boreal toads.
After hatching we were certain they were not tadpoles:
3 of the 4 eggs hatched out!
We went out to Ketring Lake and filtered some small creatures out of the water to feed them.
Here they are developing their gill-like structures:
(The stuff floating in there with them is pond scum :-)
They have since grown to be more than 1 inch long, and we have to feed them so often, that we had to get a bigger tank! I think they have a 5 gallon tank now.
They have since grown to be more than 1 inch long, and we have to feed them so often, that we had to get a bigger tank! I think they have a 5 gallon tank now.
They eat daphnia from the pond, and brine shrimp, some of which we grow ourselves and some we get from the pet store.
It's hard to imagine these creatures will turn in to this guy!
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