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I found the critter on the floor of the restaurant I work at, not long before openening time. At first I thought it was dead, but then it started slowly crawling forward. I put on a glove (to protect it and myself) and caught it to put somewhere safe until I could figure out what to do with it, which ended up being a small plastic cup with a lid, nestled inside a carboard cup to reduce overwhelming stimuli, and a wet paper towel to provide moisture without the same risk of drowning an actual pool of water would have (I didn't know if it could breathe water, but I didn'twant to riskit. It looks like it's about 2 inches long, but I didn't actually measure it. It has mostly black (or perhaps very, *very* dark brown) skin, with a thin, irregular yellow stripe along its back and tiny white speckles on its head and limbs. My coworker and I have tentatively identified it as female, but I'm not confident in our conclusion.

I fell in love, and I came across this website while looking up the logistics of keeping a pet salamander that came from the wild. I hope I can, but my research isn't over yet. Georgie is in a bigger cup now and will go into a proper terrarium if I can have her (or him), and will be released back into the wild (with a fun story to tell their friends) if I can't.

Either way, I'm glad Georgie isn't part of an endangered species - it makes both options much less daunting. :)