There’s always that one subject that is particularly challenging to photograph, and for me it’s the Slimy Salamander. They live in dense forests where the light is quite low and they quickly retreat from bright light, so without a high shutter speed your chances of capturing these secretive salamanders is next to none. What’s more, their jet black body and eyes makes it difficult to get the focus just right. And if you try to move them into a better position, your fingers get coated in their gooey secretions and then you stick to anything else you touch!
These elusive creatures are one of my favorite salamanders. They live under leaf litter, logs or in rocky crevices in densely forested areas (often near hemlocks growing on steep slopes). If Slimy Salamanders happen to be caught in the open by a hungry predator, they deploy that slimy secretion for which they are named which makes them very hard to swallow.
