Today we have a Mabee’s salamander (Ambystoma mabeei,) likely. When I initially featured this one I was unsure if it was this species or one of the slimy salamanders that can be found in the region, because the markings are almost completely interchangeable. However, since that time I have handled a white-spotted slimy salamander, and it was incredibly sticky while also staining my skin, so I feel comfortable saying that this would have created an indelible memory had it occurred when I was photographing this specimen. So it’s a Mabee’s. Maybe.
Given that I’ve featured, to memory, four five different salamander species herein, and the other three four were distinctive, I can firmly claim that, whatever it is, it hasn’t appeared here more than once before anyway. Go ahead, prove me wrong.
This was intentionally over-exposed to bring out the skin detail, given that the flash unit that I was using at the time was too direct and contrasty, so the dark areas tended to be really dark. It was images like this that prompted me to develop macro softboxes, which helped tremendously, but then I didn’t get such good specimens to experiment with for a while. And of course, when I had the aforementioned slimy salamander on hand, I wasn’t carrying the softbox – listen, if I took along all of my various photo accoutrements to each outing I’d need two porters.
If you know anything at all about salamanders, you know the bottom photo isn’t very convincing of a ‘natural’ shot – they don’t tend to scamper across leaves in bushes, like, at all. The top shot is a bit better, but they’re both studio images – see the bit about ‘porters.’ I brought this one home to do the detailed images, and released it back where it was found later on. Getting nice profile shots of something nestled into rotting wood pulp underneath a log is pretty demanding on location. Oh, I can do it, I’m just lazy.