We spent the day driving around southern IL today looking for salamanders. A full tank of gas and around 300miles later we are happy to say we found our target species for the day!
We went down to the southern tip of IL (only 30miles from KY!) and checked out a new place that we had not been to before. The long 3 hour drive was well worth it! We got out of the car flipped one rock and found this...
Smallmouth Salamander Ambystoma texanum
Very cool little salamander. It is a real treat to see one of these guys this time of year. I usually only see them in the spring. After fighting our crappy camera (new one still isn't here
) for a while trying to get a good pic we turned him loose and continued flipping stuff.
After about 20min of seeing nothing at all we were beginning to think that the first rock was just a fluke and we were not going to see anything else.
About 5 seconds later I flipped this guy...
Spotted Salamander Ambystoma maculatum 
Another species that I usually only see in the spring time. No matter how often I see these I am still shocked at how brightly colored they are. Simply amazing! This guy was a pain in the butt to photograph. This one had no intention of sitting still and it took a bit to calm down.
After that we were starting to get low on time to we sped things up a bit and put our flipping skills into overdrive. Just about the time we were deciding to head back we found our target species!
The beautiful
Marbled Salamander Ambystoma opacum
This one was actually a lifer for me! I have lived in IL for 22 years now and never come across one. Now I can finally mark it off my list
It was really cool to finally see one of these up close in person. Photos don't do it justice really. This is one cool salamander. We took about 50 different photos in our excitement. It just feels great to decide on a target species and then actually find what you are looking for.
At this point we were really pressed for time and had to head back to the car. Me and Amanda both had to be at work at 6pm and we had a 3hour drive ahead of us. Herping is exhausting sometimes.
We hit one more place on the way home and flipped some stuff looking for kingsnakes but most things have moved towards hibernaculum this time of year so we didn't see anything. Still we had a really great trip! This might be our last major outing this year, so it is nice to end on a high note.
All in all we saw quite a bit actually:
1 Marbled Salamander
1 Spotted Salamander
1 Smallmouth Salamander
2 Zigzag Salamanders (Amanda found them... and then promptly lost them in the leaf litter
)
Lots of Cricket Frogs, Leopard Frogs, and Green Frogs.
1 Eastern Box Turtle
1 Prairie Kingsnake DOR
1 HUGE Black Rat Snake DOR
and then several other small DOR snakes that we did not stop to identify.
The Lesser Siren has still evaded me... I'll get one next time
