13 November 2013
A congress of salamanders
Posted by Callan Bentley
No, that blog post title is not a dig at the goons on Capitol Hill. It’s apparently the proper term for a group of salamanders. We’ve been seeing a lot of them lately ’round these parts. Take a look…
Red-backed salamander:
Unidentified black salamander:
Red eft:
Another one of the unidentified black salamanders, with little white spots all over…
…and missing the distal-most portion of his tail!
Lovely creatures. We share a common ancestor with them about 371 million years ago. They’re practically kin!
Callan Bentley is Associate Professor of Geology at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. For his work on this blog, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers recognized him with the James Shea Award. He has also won the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia, and the Biggs Award for Excellence in Geoscience Teaching from the Geoscience Education Division of the Geological Society of America. In previous years, Callan served as a contributing editor at EARTH magazine, President of the Geological Society of Washington and President the Geo2YC division of NAGT.
I believe that the small black ones are the other color of eastern red backed salamanders.