Taricha granulosa (Rough skinned newt) in Washington state

[SirKristoff]

Second time in a week or so ive found one on the trail i like to wander around on....
They seem to be coming up from the valley for some reason, as ive only ever found them down there....
I had the opportunity to use my fiancee's Nikon D40 from her digital photo class, and as we were not aloud to use the macro function for her assignment, im quite surprised we got such clear photos on some of them...so here are a few. this one in particular is a female, the previous one i found near this location was a male...and had a much more intense orange belly.

She decided to start crawling too soon and put her face out of focus lol..she was on my fiancees arm for this one.

Again started to move too fast when my fiance was holding her...lol.

It is actually much darker than this in this area, if you recall my Washington state waking up photos, we had to use the flash function, again another reason im surprised any of the photos decided to turn out pretty clear....anyway, setting her free.

 

[Devon]

awsome!! They're so cute! lol, and their skin does look rough! Very nce photos too, thanks for sharing!

 

[SirKristoff]

another crappy shot i forgot...just shows the color of the belly.

 

[Capensis]

Cute. :3

 

[seedjar]

Great find - I came across a few of those guys in my freshman ecology class several years ago. We were looking for the little striped aquatic ones in my study so the others were always a surprise. Isn't it still kind of early for them to be showing up in numbers? I thought most newts were dormant by now, or at least less active. I guess it has been a little warmer than usual, at least here at the south end of the Sound.
~Joe

PS - That last pic isn't so bad - they're squirmy when they warm up in your hand. It's a great shot. I bet you could sharpen it up in Photoshop.

 

[James H]

I had those growing up. There was a lake outside of Randle washington that you could find them and a couple other smaller salamanders at in the summer. I really miss having a newt tank. Maybe I will have to turn my daughters fish tank into a newt tank when she is a little older.

 

[Chomp]

Nice pics! That's a lot of orange!

 

[SirKristoff]

i thought i had taken some pics of the last couple i caught too, but i guess not...they woke up a bit early this year while it was still near freezing at night, found a male a few months ago slowly walking along the same muddy trail as the one photographed here, he was a more pale orange than this one though. they are so cute, haha. i just love their little stubby fingers

 

[Pyro]

Just do not go licking your hands after holding them LOL