caudatajosh's Identifications

While having a picnic some kids playing in the Taylor River shouted that they caught a salamander. They released it quickly. Photos didn't turn out great, but it had mottled brown and grey skin with prominent external gills like an axolotl.

Reddish brown eye, anterior chin shield shorter than posterior, 14 upper labials, 19 lower labials, dorsal scale count at midbody is 17, lateral stripe on second and third scales, brown with light tan dorsal stripe and red coloring on throat and little black speckling, big eye, common garter snake ?

Very strange color but despite the red only being on the tail, I've never seen that shade of red on Dunn's. Perhaps more definitively, the salamander is gravid and is much too small (both length and width) for gravid dunns. The habitat was rocks in soil with no water nearby and didn't seem moist enough to expect Dunn's, though they sometimes surprise.

I can't tell if it's a lined snake or a Northwestern garter snake. The marking seem to be very similar and the lighting might have changed the exact colors on it. It was released back outside after the photo, away from the cat that was attempting to catch it.