February 17th, 2007
a magnificent Mudpuppy Night
Last night, Don and I packed up the aquarium, flashlights, and my camera gear and headed off to the weekly Mudpuppy Night down by the dam at Oxford Mills. To save some space, here’s a link to my report from the last Mudpuppy Night attended, which gives some background info for those who aren’t familiar with the event, or with Mudpuppy salamanders (Necturus maculosus). Our trip was one of those last minute decision kind of things. At 5:15 p.m., we received an email from Fred Schueler (via the Eastern Ontario Natural History list-serve) proclaiming that:
the low water and extensive glamourous ice, along with the -7C temperatures they’tre talking about on the Radio right now, suggests a magnificent Mudpuppy Night
And, indeed, it was a magnificent Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills. About a dozen of us descended to the snow and ice-covered ledges along Kemptville Creek. Don lugged our aquarium down and set it up for the benefit of the photographers and spectators in attendance. I’ve included some photographer’s notes down below, for those who would like to know more about shooting photos under somewhat hostile conditions.
Several individuals clad in hip waders and/or tall boots descended into the approximately knee-deep water to count salamanders. Jennifer Schueler, being of good, hardy stock, and much more intrepid than most of us, peeled off her shoes and socks and went wading barefoot. Chilly as that may sound, once you’re into the water, it’s often considerably warmer than the air. However, from my own experience with such things, it’s the coming back out that’s a bit of a drag.
In any case, yes, indeed, we did see Mudpuppies last night — many of them. On one of my movie clips, a certain individual (I believe I know which one) exclaimed:
They’re just super-caulking out here. I’ve never seen numbers — I mean, it’s just magical!
We camera buffs continued to shoot photos of three salamanders netted and placed in the aquarium. This time, we added extra water, which allowed the salamanders to do more swimming than on the last occasion. I’ve uploaded a couple of movie clips from last night. The first is of the three salamanders moving about quite actively (the clip is about 1.5MB). A couple of things to watch for — the largest of the salamanders has a deformed left hind leg (more about that below). Also, note how the salamanders move when they are walking, and then swimming. When swimming, they put their legs back and propel themselves with their strong tails. When swimming, they seem rather like eels. The second movie clip is of the largest salamander doing more swimming than walking (clip is about 670kb).
As mentioned above, the largest of the Mudpuppies had a deformed left hind leg. This can be seen in the above photo (click on all photos for a larger view). I mentioned this to Fred and he said it could have been from an injury, or be a congenital defect, or that the leg is only partially regenerated following a past injury. Several of us had some questions about limb regeneration in Mudpuppies, and perhaps Fred will comment on this if he posts some notes to this piece. I did look around for something online about regeneration of limbs in Necturus maculosus, and found this short but interesting reference, by Andree D. Gendron, of the Dept des Sciences Biologiques, Universite du Quebec a Montreal. It concerns the effects of environmental contaminants on reproduction and development of populations of mudpuppies, and the possibility of pollutants interfering with limb development in larvae, or regeneration of injured limbs. Again, perhaps Fred will be able to comment (see Update added just below).
At the end of the session, I asked Fred what the count was for the night and he said approximately 110 (corrected up to 128). That’s an excellent number of Mudpuppies for one session, so I believe magnificent is a good description for last evening. For those who might be interested, I’ve posted a few other photos from this session in my online gallery.
Update to the above: Fred Schueler has just added his field notes for Feb. 16 (see comments down below). I’m moving his comment about the deformities up here. He writes:
* Bev asked about deformities. High levels of deformities have been recorded in the [polluted] St Lawrence, and we see few in Kemptville Creek, but, as anyone can imagine, with 120 Mudpuppies in the stream and 20 Human People on the banks, there’s not time to count the toes on each Mudpuppy. We’ve been trolling for two decades now for some student to undertake a proper study of this population, which would include documenting levels of deformities, as well as movements and phenology, but nobody has come forward…
Photographer’s Notes: After several attempts at photographing these aquatic salamanders, we’ve learned a few useful things. First, it’s good to put some kind of vinyl or other sheet down on the snow before setting the aquarium in place. That keeps the aquarium free of snow right down to the bottom of the glass. Also important, is to bring along a jug or two of warm water to add sparingly to the icy river water. That will prevent a jello-like film of ice from immediately forming over the surface of the water. It also slows down the surface fogging on the aquarium glass. Bring along a towel to wipe the outer side of the aquarium glass from tme to time. A soup ladle works well for skimming away debris in the water. The best lighting without causing too much glare appears to be provided by the hand-gun shaped Noma rechargeable flashlight turned to the Xenon lamp setting. With a camera or DVcamcorder set in movie mode, that seems to provide plenty of light. In fact, most times, I find it adequate for still photos when shooting through the sides of the aquarium. If you use a flash while shooting at an aquarium…well… not too surprisingly… you get a nice photo of a flash. The quality of the movie clips and still photos seems to be improving with each attempt, so we’ll continue with our experimentation.
Tags: Necturus maculosus, Mudpuppy salamander, Oxford Mills, Bishops Mills Natural History Centre