Siberian salamander. Face-to-face.

In the previous publication, I talked about the intention to dive into the tritons and shoot them face-to-face. One night, I wore a wetsuit and went off to take portraits. To my amazement, some drainage ditch in the field was densely populated.

On the field, I came right in the wetsuit, good, I did not need to haul the cargo belt there. To take enough it was to lie down on the water. To shoot portraits of newts, I went on the advice of my friend @photofreediver. He said that he had not seen such pictures and that it was necessary to correct it.

Photo by Vladimir Zolotarsky.

If you see in the field of a diver, then this is a photographer :)

Male Triton and fresh caviar on a blade of grass. The protective shell of eggs is still poured over with mother-of-pearl.

Some newts, hiding from the light of a flashlight, dived to the bottom and hid, some individuals even tried to dig into the muddy ground.

On the legs of some newts, he noticed some white balls. It became interesting that this and I tried to photograph them, then to find out what it is. When he examined the strange white outgrowths, he realized that these were bivalve molluscs. This was an unexpected discovery! I do not know how they ended up there, how long they lived here and whether there are larger individuals. I believe that these are very young mollusks. I read that the larvae of some bivalve mollusks parasitize on fish. To see something like that on the legs of newts, I did not expect at all.

Especially I photographed the foot of a fleeing newt. Certainly, his finger is pinched between the valves, and around him there are a lot of such small mollusks. They are clearly distinguishable in the picture.

They are literally everywhere. Apart from the various insects, their larvae and amphibians, clams also live in the puddle, which, on occasion, not without pleasure, are fed with newts.

Seagrasses grow quite luxuriantly.

Having reached the end of the ditch, I took a panorama of a newt on a blade of grass. It was necessary to pan out because it did not fit into the frame, and increasing the distance due to suspended matter in brown water affected the quality of the picture. A fresh masonry is visible in the corner of the picture. I hope that eggs will not be eaten by caddis flies and dragonflies, and next year there will be more small dragons here.

The period of reproduction of the Siberian salamanders has ended, the eggs have been postponed and the amphibians have left the reservoir.

Alexey Voron.