"The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: ‘What good is it?’”--Aldo Leopold



“No matter how intently one studies the hundred little dramas of the woods and meadows, one can never learn all the salient facts about any one of them”--Aldo Leopold

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Manders by the handful

Things are still quiet in the field since the big movement in almost a week ago.  A few stragglers show up every day, but no big events.  Today there were more Anolis than anything else since it was an absolutely gorgeous sunny in the high 70's.  Good day for trick or treating!  Think my last trick or treaters just left.  For those of you that live closer to the edge of the range for marbled salamanders it can be hard to imagine just how many a single wetland can have here.  Hopefully today's photos helps put it in perspective---these are just some of the salamanders from a single bin so from no more than 3 buckets.  Pretty crazy.  I spent years trying to get tissue samples from fox squirrels and gray foxes--after a couple years I had about 300 fox samples.  I can get my hands on more marbled salamanders than that in about a minute!!!  I started studying amphibians in college, glad to be back to them---just can't beat that sample size, plus they are just wicked cool.
Happy Halloween!
Photo comes from Robert Horan.
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1 comment:

  1. Brett DeGregorioNovember 1, 2010 at 1:51 PM

    Great photos. Hope we get one more surge of adults coming in. I am already counting down the days until we're bombarded with metamorphs leaving the wetland!

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