SNAPSHOT

Photographer JOHN ASHLEY had seen a few long-toed salamanders outside his house on Rogers Lake, west of Kalispell. Then last June he came across one indoors. “I found him downstairs on a cement floor covered in dog hair and sawdust,” Ashley says. “I can’t imagine how he got there, but I suspect he had come up from the lake and climbed onto one of the dogs sleeping in the yard, thinking it was another obstacle to go over. The dog must have stood up and come in the house and the salamander fell off. I rinsed him off with water to warm him up and hydrate his skin. Then my wife and I took him across the road to some Forest Service land. There’s a big old punky log there, and we put him on it. As he was crawling off to someplace underground and moist, where these guys generally live, I took this shot.” ■