I don't think their teeth could break the skin. Not on mine but even Tiger Salamanders get bigger. Badass must have been about 7"-8"s long. He/she was about 2"s bigger around the belly when I let them go. :-)
Really cool critters. I'd love to see some of the bigger species that live in the mid-west and southern states. AFAIK Tigers are the only species in CO. When I lived in VT I got out of my truck in the woods, walked about fifty feet down a trail and there were two red efts walking away from each other. I left them alone but it was great to see them. I had seen them in books since I was a kid and always thought they were interesting and mysterious. And so they were!
That's cool about stroking them with a sable brush. I never got poisoned by their toxin. My great aunt lived on a farm in Iowa and had a toad in the root cellar that she brought flies regularly. There was a shelf or something it would get up on to be fed by her. It's hard not to like amphibians.
Possibly because grasshoppers aren’t their usual diet.
They prefer soft-bodied prey and the chitin in the exoskeletons of “hard” bugs can amass in their intestines and kill them.
I used blood worms which were small, very nutritious and not so cute that guilt overwhelmed me for feeding them to the ‘phibs.
Tigers are actually part of the “Mole” salamander family and spend most of their time under cover.
We have Eastern Spotteds here but you hardly ever see them.
Late Feb/early march is their breeding season and they cross roads following ancestral breeding paths, usually to their detriment because drivers just disregard them and run them down.
[hence my many years of standing alone on the cold, rainy mountain top with a flashlight and a bucket, trying to save as many as possible]
Later in the summer, if I’m really lucky, I’ll see the ‘toddlers’ who emerge from the ponds after spending the last 2 years in an aquatic form.
Red backs are really common and often I see them running _across the snow_ in the middle of winter.
Crazy, huh?
These are the ones we have here:
http://www.fish.state.pa.us/salamander.htm
[I know it’s PA but they’re all in MD, too]
The Jeffersons tend to cross the road when the Spotteds do but I gave up trying to save them.
The Spotteds are slow and lumbering but the Jeffersons are little turbo-manders.
I sure can’t out-run ‘em and they had a much better time dodging cars....:)
I’d love to see one of these but they’re west coast/Pacific critters.
http://www.californiaherps.com/salamanders/images/dtenebrosusneomemr083.jpg
*Huge*!
The only thing we have really big here is Hellbenders and finding them in a stream or crick is nearly impossible.
Little Bronze Frogs and Spring Peepers hang out near the motorcycle shop door waiting for the bugs who fry themselves on the security light to hit the ground.
[work smarter, not harder]....;D
We had a “Guard toad” who challenged anybody who came to our gate.
The stupid UPS driver [who knew the toad was always there and to stay at least 5 feet from the gate] pulled in too far and ran over it one day.
