The evolution of young fire Salamanders.

Last week, as we just arrived at our vacation home here in Vercors, east-southern France, I had the surprise and the joy to find out that some babies fire salamanders were living just next to our house (we're located at the foot of the mountains, at 400 masl, just at the entrance of a forest).

A few metres from our garden, there is a small stream with small puddles at different stages of the water way. Almost each of these puddles had Salamandra larvae. The water was clear and fresh.

Can you spot the young Salamandra in the picture below? Look carefully! ;-)

Here it is. Unfortunately, it was quite hard to take a decent photograph. The stream was surrounded by a few trees and all my endeavours resulted in blurred pictures like this one.

The critter is more visible below as I used the flash of my camera but still I wasn't satisfied at all with the result.

So, as our vacation home was so close from the stream, I decided to bring in a container and placed a few larvae for closer inspection. I know I shouldn't transport these amphibians as it is not allowed but that was just a few metres and we brought them back after our photograph session. Now you should be able to admire these youngsters which are only a few months old, being born arguably last spring.

They all show the small external gills typical of this stage of development. Also, the pale spots at the base of each leg is a good hint to identify these as young salamanders and not young newts which are really similar at that stage (although they occur in different habitats with the latter favouring still waters).

This one below already shows the well known black and yellow pattern. 

One week later (today) I returned to the stream and was able to relocate the youngsters. While the majority are still swimming in their puddles, a couple like this one has started to venture into the surrounding stones. They will soon enter what is called the terrestrial stage of their development.

What an amazing creature, isn't it?

There's a thunderstorm forecast here at last (after a dry spell that lasted for more than two months). If this indeed happens, the habitat will be humid and thus I will make a nightwalk near the stream. Luckily, with these good conditions, I will able to observe some true adults. Stay tuned! ;-)