Salamanders, Salamanders Everywhere!

Well I am officially behind on updating this Blog. That didn't take long... SO, this massively long post will cover field surveys through the end of July, August, and September. Bear with me, there are some pretty interesting and adorable photos throughout! The diversity in the Southern Appalachain Mountains is astounding. I am constantly amazed by the number of different invertebrates, fungi, and plants I get to see when out looking for salamanders. 

July: 

During July surveys, we spotted this longhorn beetle:  

This snail just looked too funny, stretched all the way out from one rock to the next. Rather than crawling down and back up, it seems this snail decided to be daring and cross the open space. 

Though fewer flowers were blooming by the end of July, this flower was fairly abundant along the road and is in the genus Monarda. This genus is in the mint family and includes flowers like bee balm and basil. The stem is square and the flowers have the very distinctive arrangement and shape as pictured below. I believe this one below is commonly called Basil Bee Balm or White Bergamont (Monarda clinopodia). 

As per usual there was an abundance of fun and colorful fungi:

  

And (of course) we saw lots of salamanders. In one 10m X 10m plot we caught 66 salamanders! Most of them were quite small, but that is still an incredibly high density. Salamanders are impressively abundant in Southern Appalachia.

    
The Ocoee salamander below (on the left) had a very nice yellow cheek. The color patters of this species is highly variable. The Ocoee on the right was impressively clinging to a vertical leaf!

Perhaps the most fascinating (and slightly creepy) observation from July surveys was seeing this harvestman (AKA Daddy long-legs) eating a juvenile salamander. We think this salamander was about a year old, and was likely on the leaf before it was eaten. I guess it is not any safer for small salamanders to be up on the vegetation.

This pair of Ocoee salamanders was observed twice in one night, several hours apart. They seemed to hardly move!

August:

During August surveys we continued to see salamanders abundantly climbing on vegetation. This behavior is certainly common for salamanders at the Coweeta LTER. 

 

 

 

 

Clearly they will climb on anything, as the juvenile Blue Ridge Two-lined salamander (Eurycea wilderae) demonstrates above. 

Sometimes the Ocoee salamanders are very well hidden, even on the trees:

  Couple of neat fungi:

 We found 2 Cranefly Orchids (Tipularia discolor) while conducting surveys. They were fairly tall (about 1 foot) skinny stalks with no visible leaves and multiple flowers. This flower is found throughout the eastern United States. Although it is abundant in North Carolina (according to the Native Plant Society), it is considered rare, threatened, or endangered in other states.

A few especially handsome salamanders seen in August:

Male Eurycea wilderae with cirri

Female Plethodon teyahalee

Male Eurycea wilderae with cirri

 We also briefly caught an adult Ringneck Snake (Diadophis punctuatus). Full grown, these are not large snakes, but they are known to eat salamanders.

 We found this male Plethodon almost 5 feet up in a tree!!

Of Mice and Mushrooms

The Appalachian mountains are a hotspot for salamander diversity, but the fungal diversity is quite impressive as well. The habitats for both types of organisms have quite a bit of overlap, mostly in moisture preferences. As a consequence of that, I get to see a wide variety of mushrooms when conducting my own fieldwork. Although I did not take pictures of everything, within the past two weeks the diversity seemed especially pronounced.

      

Late summer is wildflower season in the mountains. Coming from Texas where this time of year you are lucky if everything is not completely brown, wildflowers in bloom is a refreshing change. I was surprised by the overlap of wildflowers between the mountains and central Texas (though not all are the same). Just the timing is different.

Yarrow

Queen Anne's Lace

Butterflyweed

Carolina Phlox

Crimson Bee Balm

Black-eyed Susan

Black-eyed Susan with unusual coloration

Not sure about this one, but mint family

Turk's Cap Lily

Sundrops (love this name!)

Blackberries!

One flower I have never seen in Texas, however, is called Pinesap (Monotropa hypopitys). It looks a lot like the Indian pipe flowers I posted before, however it has multiple flowers per stem and was more yellow. Pinesap is currently in the same genus as the Indian Pipe, but this classification is contested by genetic evidence.

A blog post written by me would not be complete without some pictures of cute salamanders!

In a tree :)

Huge salamander (with others for comparison)

Big salamander :)

Black-bellied salamander

Teeny-tiny Ocoee salamander

Another teeny-tiny Ocoee salamander

Couple of stream-side salamanders

 

Other fun things I have encountered over the past two weeks include: 

These really cute mice hoping all over the place. They had ridiculously long tails. 

This GORGEOUS moth:

Polyphemus Moth

A brook trout:
I have never seen one and had no idea they were so pretty. We were doing some stream sampling, and I put my net down, picked up a couple rocks and noticed something huge (relatively speaking) go into the net. I was a bit surprised to find a fish!

One day we found a toad:

Another day we saw 2 small garter snakes (I only got a picture of one):

The sites where we do stream sampling have incredible dense rhododendron. At one point I was trying to get from the stream back up to the path. I started to follow an opening in the canopy, which turned out to be a fallen Hemlock tree. after a while I just ended up slightly stranded on top of the rhododendron.... I had to back track and walk a little ways before I could fight my way up the hill.

Looking down, behind me on the fallen tree

I also found a couple of neat looking twigs and branches:

Looks like a tiny sword!

Looks like an arm bone with some flesh near the top to me... 

On Friday morning, I walked out of the field station and saw a bear wander into the woods not 100 yards from where I was standing. I was not quick enough to snap a picture, but it was a pretty neat experience!