Salamander Chronicles

I had a good week in Georgia.  I did not get as much data as I would have liked, but that should have been expected given I had never visited any of these sites before.  I will come down again either later this year or several times next spring.  Despite my stay in Georgia being low on data, it was high on fun finds.  I tried to put together a little video of the trip.  One of the videos of Desmognatus ocoee has a little conversion error, but the rest should  look alright.  I will hopefully work out the kinks with video editing as the summer goes on and eventually add some narration to the videos to provide some more information.  For now, enjoy this video, I am off to Tennessee!

First off, another big thanks to the Explorers Club who awarded me the Exploration Fund grant for the third year in a row. This grant will help me examining the role of the Bogert effect in Plethodon jordani.

The first couple days in Georgia have been pretty uneventful as I have been visiting low elevation sites. Also, since this is my first time visiting all of these sites I have needed to explorer a bit. I have yet to find any salamanders; however, after learning my lesson last year, I have set up protocol for collecting species diversity and general microhabitat data. So no salamanders, but I still have data. I have also found a couple fun herps, including a worm snake (Carphophis amoenus) and an eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina).

I am more optimistic for the next two sites I am visiting because one of them is a known site for the recently described patch nosed salamander (Urspelerpes brucei) and the other site seems to be in a more remote area. I am hoping the next couple days will produce some nice Georgia salamanders!