Ocoee Salamander: Red cheeks, red legs!

The little car bumped and thumped as we raced along a nearly dark forest road in North Carolina. Our destination was one of those many that appeared only a mile or so away on the map, but when you factored in the twists, turns, ups, and downs, bumps and thumps, it proved to be a good 30 minutes from our starting point.

Salamander was the name, and finding them was the game. The little salamanders that we sought were the red-legged and the red-cheeked variants of the Ocoee salamander, Desmognathus ocoee. These are harmless mimics, if you will, of the distasteful Jordan’s salamander complex phases.

We finally sped into a parking area overlooking a deserted campground. And in the middle of the campground was a ring of sizable rocks and a dozen or more well charred log sections all topsy turvy atop a bed of ashes. I spent some time flipping logs and rocks in the surrounding woodlands. Kenny headed straight for the campsite. By the time I got to that area he had already found Red-legged Salamanders, Plethodon shermani, Blue Ridge Two-lined Salamanders, Eurycea wilderae, and several of the desired color variants of the Ocoee Salamander, Desmognathus ocoee.

But for us the best was yet to come. Beneath one log we found an Ocoee Salamander that rather than either/or was gaudily clad in red not only on the cheeks but on the legs as well. This was a variant that neither of us had been aware of.

Success, and now the long drive back to hustle and bustle of the peopled world.

More photos under the jump...

Ocoee salamanders mimicking Plethodon jordani have red cheeks. But we were exicted to find Ocoee salamanders having both red cheeks and legs. This color pattern does not seem to be well known or is at least only seldom mentioned.

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.