Herpedex: All the Herps I Have Seen In The Wild

Saturday, 4 April 2015

Herping in Will County, Illinois

Blue-spotted Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer

Date:
April 4th 2015

Species Found:

Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum)
Blue-spotted Salamander (Ambystoma laterale)
Western Chorus Frog (Pseudacris triseriata)
Eastern Newt (Notophthalamus viridescens)
Northern Green Frog (Lithobates clamitans melanota)

The Trip:

Tristan had herped in Will County before and found a lot of cool species that Noah and I had never seen. We decided to make a stop there after we were done helping with the mudpuppy research. We got there and started making our way toward the ponds. Deer were everywhere and what was weird was that these deer seemed to be more brave than the other deer I had seen. You could get as close as 10 meters to them before they ran away. We finally got to a pond and flipped a log by the water's edge. Surprisingly, 2 of the species we had come to find were sitting right there. A Spotted Salamander, which I had seen before, and a Blue-spotted Salamander, a new species for me. I was really excited to see my first Blue-spotted but I was just as excited about the Spotted because it had orange spots on its head, a trait that I had never seen before.

Salamander and Frog Habitat: PC Tristan Schramer

Under the first log we flipped: PC Tristan Schramer

We knew we would find more of these salamanders so we carried on without taking too many photos of these. The second log we flipped had a large gravid Spotted Salamander. It was the fattest salamander I had ever seen.

Gravid Female Spotted Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer

As we continued to look under logs, we found whole clumps of these salamanders, just crawling all over each other. We also found some salamanders living in the logs, under the bark.

Salamanders under log: PC Tristan Schramer

Salamander living in log: PC Tristan Schramer

We then settled down by a pond to photograph the salamanders. As pretty as they were, they were frustrating specimens to photograph. They just refused to sit still for longer than a second.

Spotted Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer

Blue-spotted Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer

Some of the salamanders we found had some weird lumps on their throats and bellies. We weren't sure what this was but we knew it wasn't good news. We took pictures of the affected areas to forward to herpetologists so that they would be able to find out what was wrong.

Diseased Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer

The background music to all of this was the deafening sound of Chorus Frogs calling. A small log that I flipped had a small Chorus Frog under it.

Western Chorus Frog: PC Yatin Kalki

Western Chorus Frog: PC Yatin Kalki

Western Chorus Frog: PC Yatin Kalki

Western Chorus Frog: PC Yatin Kalki

Western Chorus Frog: PC Tristan Schramer

We moved away from the small ponds and went to a large pond with lots of vegetation and algae in it. Tristan said that this would be a good place to find newts, an amphibian that I had never seen before. It took about 5 minutes for Tristan to catch a male Eastern Newt in his net. This was a new species for me so I took my time examining it. Its skin was much rougher than the skin of any salamander I had seen before. Newts are also known to be poisonous, but only when ingested. I had no plans of eating the newt so I was pretty safe. Tristan later caught a female with a large, fin-like tail.

Eastern Newt: PC Yatin Kalki

Eastern Newts: PC Yatin Kalki

Male Eastern Newt: PC Tristan Schramer

Female Eastern Newt: PC Tristan Schramer

Somehow Tristan managed to get pictures of the newt yawning. This was hilarious.

Yawning Newt: PC Tristan Schramer

At some point we caught a tadpole of a Northern Green Frog. It looked a lot like the Bullfrog tadpoles I had seen before but the spots were different.

Green Frog Tadpole: PC Yatin Kalki

Green Frog Tadpole: PC Yatin Kalki

This trip was pretty successful. I got 2 new species to add to my American Herp List, which now stood at 48 species.

UPDATE:
We sent the photos of the diseased salamanders to herpetologists Chris Phillips and Andrew Kuhns and wildlife veterinarian Matt Allender. According to them, the lumps were formed by "yellow grub", a parasitic fluke that needs salamanders (or fish) to complete its life cycle. Here is the wikipedia excerpt:

Yellow grub require two intermediate hosts, usually a snail and a fish, but in vernal ponds salamanders are often infected, and one definitive host - birds. If an infected salamander is ingested by a heron or other wading bird, the fluke matures in the throat of the bird, eggs are released through the birds feces, hopefully back into the water, and picked up on the foot of a snail, they then reproduce asexually and exit the snail foot as free swimming larvae in search of another fish or salamander to repeat the cycle.

It is unclear what effect this parasite has on the salamander's survival, but the disease is apparently quite widespread.

Mudpuppies of Cook County, Illinois

Common Mudpuppy: PC Tristan Schramer

Date:
April 4th 2015

Species Found:

Common Mudpuppy (Necturus maculosus)

The Trip:

Tristan had heard about Alicia who was doing research on mudpuppies in a lake in Cook County and reached out to her. A mudpuppy is an aquatic salamander that can grow up to 13 inches long. We were all invited to help out with the research, so one weekend we made the 3 hour journey to Cook County. We got to the research site and found a single medium sized mudpuppy in a bucket at the bank of the lake. It was brown and had bright red external gills that were constantly moving.

Common Mudpuppy: PC Tristan Schramer

We met Alicia and she hooked us up with waders and nets to help her check the traps for mudpuppies. The traps were basic minnow traps, tied about 7 feet from the shore, baited with dead fish in small bags. We managed to get 2 more large mudpuppies in the traps and started looking for them under rocks in the water. Sadly, we didn't find any when we searched by hand. It was then time to process the captured mudpuppies. We took the 3 mudpuppies to Alicia's work station and helped her take measurements. We first measured the length of the mudpuppy by putting it into a tube with a ruler on it. Getting the animal to fully extend its body and tail was a real challenge. Alicia also took a blood sample from the tail with a syringe. She then took a skin sample by clipping off a small section of the tail.

Getting Ready to Process the Mudpuppies: PC Tristan Schramer

Measuring Length: PC Tristan Schramer

Taking a Blood Sample: PC Tristan Schramer

Clipping Tail: PC Tristan Schramer

The next measurement we took was weight. Alicia put the mudpuppy into a plastic bag and used a spring balance to weigh it. After that, we pumped water into the mudpuppy's mouth to make it regurgitate its stomach contents. This was done to see exactly what these mudpuppies were eating. 2 of the mudpuppies had just little copepods and arthropods in their stomachs but the last one had 3 fish as well: a minnow, a bluegill and a sunfish.

Pumping Water into Mudpuppy: PC Tristan Schramer

Stomach Contents: PC Tristan Schramer

Then, Alicia swabbed the mudpuppy with a cotton swab to check for chytrid fungus or other diseases. She also marked the mudpuppy by clipping a few of its toes. This is done so that in case she catches it again, she knows which individual it is.

Swabbing for Chytrid: PC Tristan Schramer

After processing all 3 mudpuppies we released them back at the sites at which they were caught. Tristan took this opportunity to photograph the mudpuppies underwater with his waterproof camera case.

Common Mudpuppy Underwater: PC Tristan Schramer

External Gills: PC Tristan Schramer

The common mudpuppy was a new species for me and my American Herp List now stood at 46 species. Being a part of this research was an extraordinary experience and I definitely learned a lot too.

Friday, 3 April 2015

Herping in Boneyard Creek, UIUC

Midland Painted Turtle: PC Yatin Kalki

Date:
April 2nd 2015

Species Found:

Plains Garter Snake (Thamnophis radix)
Midland Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta marginata)

The Trip:

I had been to Boneyard Creek, behind Engineering Hall many times to catch Plains Garter Snakes. I usually found them under stone slabs or sunning themselves in the grass. I was doing a Mark-Recapture study where I caught the snakes, measured them, marked them with a permanent marker and released them. The previous day I had caught 7 Garter Snakes and that day I caught 11 of them. The smallest one I caught was 26 cm long.

Baby Plains Garter Snakes: PC Yatin Kalki

Baby Plains Garter Snakes: PC Yatin Kalki

The longest ones I caught were 62 cm long. One was a male and the other was a gravid female.

Plains Garter Snakes: PC Yatin Kalki

Plains Garter Snakes: PC Yatin Kalki

Plains Garter Snakes: PC Yatin Kalki

I was about to head home for the day when I remembered that a professor had found a Painted Turtle in the creek a few days earlier. I went down to the water and looked around for a turtle. Soon I saw a medium sized Painted Turtle in the water by the bank. I went closet to it and it went under. I sat by the bank and waited for it to surface again for air. After 5 minutes it did as expected and I scooped it up in my net. This was my first turtle in America so I was pretty happy. It was very colorful, with red streaks on its body and on the edges of its shell. It also had yellow streaks on its head.