A Tennessee Cave Salamander in Alabama

I looked apprehensively at the cave entrance. It was not particularly large, but with the help of gravity would be easily negotiated. But beyond the entrance I would have to enter an unknown. OK. Despite misgivings, I’d try.

Beyond the entrance a jumble of boulders was the next obstacle. They were a bit more difficult for me. Jake had no trouble whatever. Then it was clear walking for about 15 feet before hitting a mud bank that was so slick that even on the level I could barely stand. But the level didn’t count because to access the stream in which we were interested it would be necessary to descend 35 to 40 feet down a mud face that was smoothly rounded and if I had thought the level area was slippery the next day I was to learn that the decline was about 10 times moreso, and that once started there was no returning!

While I pondered my sanity, Jake had done the descent, and, even more importantly (and from my vantage point seemingly improbably), had managed the ascent as well.

So I knew it could be done. I just didn’t know if I could do it. But with Jake’s help, gravity (which I could have done well without), artificial hand and footholds, and sliding on my butt and belly like a stranded elephant seal I accessed the crystal clear stream. It was beautiful. The first creatures seen were Cave Spring Crayfish, Cambarus tenebrosus, and Prickly Cave Crayfish, Cambarus hamulatus, the former pigmented, the latter ghostly white. Both were abundant.

As we waded slowly into the bowels of Mother Earth I wondered whether we would be lucky enough to see the salamander that had drawn us there, the Pale Salamander, Gyrinophilus p. palleucus. In we went, around a couple of curves, and suddenly the stream became a deep pool. There, Jake, still in the lead, saw the first Pale Salamander and then a second one. In the deep water, neither was photographable. But a few hundred feet beyond the pool, nearly at the end of the cave, I found a Pale Salamander beneath a flat submerged rock. This one, about 5 inches long, was in shallow water and easily photographed. Success!

Author, photographer, and columnist Richard Bartlett is one of the most prolific writers on herpetological subjects in the 20th century. With hundreds of books and articles to their credit, Richard and his wife Pat have spent over four decades documenting reptiles both in the field and in captivity. For a list of their current titles, please visit their page in our bookstore.