Pyrenean brook salamander

The Pyrenean brook salamander or Pyrenean newt (Calotriton asper), (Aragonese: guardafuents pirenenco; Catalan: tritó pirinenc; Basque: uhandre piriniarra; Spanish: tritón pirenaico), is a largely aquatic species of salamander in the family Salamandridae.

The colour is very variable, the upper side usually being some shade of olive, grey, charcoal, or muddy brown, sometimes mottled with ochre, with an intermittent yellowish stripe down the spine.

[3] The Pyrenean brook salamander is endemic to the Pyrenees and surrounding mountains and is found at altitudes ranging from 700 to 2,500 metres (2,300 to 8,200 ft).

[3] Some Pyrenean brook salamanders live entirely inside caves where they breed over a long period of the year due to lack of day length stimulus.

During courtship, the male displays his brightly coloured underparts before grasping the female around the loins with his tail and transferring one to four spermatophores directly into her cloaca in a process that lasts several hours.

Pyrenean brook salamander in On the Pyrenean newt, Molge aspera , Duges by Jacques von Bedriaga (1895)
Calotriton asper - MHNT