Earlier this week I had to email Scott. I had felt a sharp pang, a mix of frustration and despair at the thought of finding no more reptiles (and few amphibians) until April. Maybe it's similar to what children feel going back to school, or the football fan the Sunday after the Superbowl.

Scouting and flipping for amphibians can help ease the distress, but only so much. Maybe I need to treat this kind of herping as a weak medicine, best taken often.

On Sunday Mike and I headed to a large park to the west of Philadelphia for some basic rock flipping. I was hoping to find a red salamander (Pseudotriton ruber), and so I focused on rocks and debris around this kind of seep:


We found none, but we did see some more common salamanders. Here's one of the omnipresent redbacks (Plethodon cinereus):

Here are the two most common streamside/streambed salamanders. First a two-lined (Eurycea bislineata) that wouldn't sit still:

...and here's a dusky (Desmognathus fuscus):