Hydromantes brunus

Description:

This was actually one of the species why I flew in from Europe to photograph Californian salamanders. When arriving at the scene in the evening it started to snow and everything was covered in a carpet of 10 cm of snow...in the morning however the sun broke through and in the valley the snow melted quickly and temperatures rose. We were however not confident if we would find any salamanders at all in those conditions... and actually it took us quite a while to find any. At the last stop , we finally found some nice green juveniles and subadult animal ... not too bad for a whole day of looking out for them.