Spent a few hours this afternoon checking out new collecting sites and chasing stream fishes. A couple stops turned out to be duds, running water-wise. At one stop the map had promised a small stream but I got one monster-sized beaver pond/swamp. I was disappointed, but access was easy and it would have been just wrong not to check it out. Evidence of working man lunches, and the semi-scattered, mostly-mummified remains of a pitbull on the approach to the water didn't bode well. But what the heck, let's net some gambusia and maybe pick up a surprise or two.
The upland chorus frogs and American toads were calling- two sounds I love, so that was going for it. Got to the edge of one part of the pond, and the water looked like this...
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According to my thermometer the water was 71F. Considering there was 0 turnover, the sun had been shining on it all day, and temps that afternoon were into the 70s I didn't doubt it, though it surprised me some.
Spent 20 minutes sweeping from the shore - no way I was getting in there when I was by myself! - and I didn't net so much as one single fish. But the absence of fish meant plenty of these guys...
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![Attached File](http://forum.nanfa.org/public/style_extra/mime_types/gif.gif)
I have never seen larval salamanders with such chubby bodies, tiny legs and massive gills.
Then this bad-boy turned up...
![Attached File](http://forum.nanfa.org/public/style_extra/mime_types/gif.gif)
Is this a dragonfly naiad of some kind? Two or three times it opened its jaws and put them around the sallie's body, but never did pierce it that I could tell.