Some american species

[Kamil]

Hi all,

i wanted to share some pictures with you :-)

Ambystoma jeffersonianum



Ambystoma maculatum



Desmognathus fuscus


Desmognatus ochrophaeus


Eurycea bislineata


Gyrinophilus porphryticus



Notophtalmus viridescens


Plethodon cinereus


I hope you like the pictures! If you want to see some videos with some of this species you are invited to my homepage too!

Best Greetings,

Kamil

[alibombali]

Hi Kamil,
I got Ambystoma jeffersonianum myself, and i think what you got is Ambystoma Laterale.
Nice pictures bye the way.

[Kamil]

Hi,

Ambystoma laterale is not possible - I know the exact location where they are from and there is no A. laterale at all.
What are the criteria, you use to identificate them?

Best Greetings,

Kamil

[Coen Deurloo]

Welcome Kamil, amazing pictures!

It could be a A. jeffersonianum x laterale hybrid. The toes look too short for a jeffersonianum

A. jeffersonianum Pictures
A. laterale Pictures

[alibombali]

jeffersonianum is in my opinion not as blue and got less spots.
See here:
http://images.google.nl/images?hl=nl&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2006-06,GGLG:nl&q=ambystoma+jefferson&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi


http://images.google.nl/images?sourceid=navclient&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2006-06,GGLG:nl&q=ambystoma+laterale&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi


But their's one thing i'm sure off, and that's that i always could be wrong.

[alibombali]

I think hybrids is impossible because of the Jefferson complex.

[Coen Deurloo]

The "Jefferson Complex" is in fact the hybrid between the two:

Males and females of this species are diploid (they have 2 copies of 14 chromosomes each, totaling 28 chromosomes 2n = 28) but they may mate with other species to produce hybrid offspring that have extra sets of chromosomes (ie. 3n, 4n, 5n). There are four species in the genus Ambystoma that occasionally hybridize. This group of species is called the Jefferson's complex or Ambystoma laterale-jeffersonianum complex.

Source: http://www.aquatic.uoguelph.ca/amphibians/amphib/accounts/ambystomidae/jefferson/account.htm

[Erwin Bakker]

I think the shape of the head and the hind legs look like jeffersonianum. But the coloring is confusing.

[Kamil]

Hi all,

thanks for the comments, I still believe they are jeffersonianum. According to amphibiaweb there is no laterale in pennsylvenia. And don't you think that the pattern is irrelevant (look at the A. t. diavoli pictures at cautata.org) as it is too variable?
Perhaps I should have written that this are juveniles - the largest has grown now at 11cm.

Best Greetings,

Kamil

[Wouter]

Welcome to the forum Kamil, I really like the Desmognatus ochrophaeus shot.

These species can be very variable; making definate identifications just with some pics from the internet is very difficult. I still think that the locality info is the most important. Just think of the Triturus cristatus superspecies on the Balkans, the morphology can be extremely variable.

[Kamil]

Hello Wouter,

I completely agree with you! And the locality says 100% jeffersonianum because there are not laterale around. A friend of mine told me that you can distinguish old jeffersons from laterale very good because jeffersons get brownish and latera stay blue. You can read this also in: Amphibians and reptiles of Pennsylvania (A.c hulse/c.j mcCoy E.j Censky ) : "As a individual ages the spots disappear and the background color gradually darkens until it is brownish/black."
Ah, and could you please send me all t.org newsletters that are written so far? To my account kamil at triturus.de

Best Greetings,

Kamil

[Kamil]

This is a picture of old A. jeffersonianum - you see that you can't see any blue spots  ::)

Best Greetings,

Kamil

[Erwin Bakker]

Btw: nice pictures, thank you. Are they yours?

[Kamil]

Hi,

no - they are from a friend across the pond  ;)
I have only some juveniles and hope that they will grow soon and much :-)

Best Greetings,

Kamil

[Kamil]

Hi all,

here some new pictures:

triturus.de

triturus.de

triturus.de

Best Greetings,

Kamil