Hello,

Last night at about 02:00 am I went outside, and disocvered these strange "lizards". We live in La Tour de Peilz (outside Vevey, towards Blonay) in a modern home, slightly isolated amongst wine vineyards and surrounded by some pasture land.
It was cold and there was slight rain. There is no river or lake nearby.

These two looked more like salamanders, they moved quite slow and with effort, not in a rapid fashion as a normal lizard. They were hiding under the car, even though they actually approached me - it seems they were not afraid of us at all. The rain didn't seem to bother them either. They were quite big, 20cm with distinct yellow and black markings. I have never seen them before, this morning they were gone.
What are they?? Are they rare? The closest I came with Google are "newts", a salamander-type lizard.

Pictures attached.

They look cool! I don't think they are naturally occurring species in Switzerland. Maybe they had escaped from a collection?

I was gonna say newts but they dont grow that big do they and they live in ponds and such. very very curious.

Fire Salamander

Fire salamenders, they are cute , but i am glad you didnt touch them)))

Gooner, I think you've got it. Next time I see them I will feed them some nice, fat earthworms I am breeding for fishing.

Thanks for the link Gooner. Do you know if there are also green and black versions? I'm almost sure that I spotted one of each of these outside our laundry room last winter.

Actually they are, although the Wikipedia link gooner gave doesn't list them as present in Switzerland (I'll have to modifiy that!): see http://www.karch.ch (in German, French and Italian). The people at Karch would actually be happy to hear where/when you saw them! (see article on the fire salamander on the Karch website) I remember that when I was a kid I used to see them once in a while, during or after a rainy period.

[Edit: in fact the list of countries in the Wikipedia entries doesn't refer to the distribution of the salamander, but to its common name in the respective country.]

I've seen one twice in the last five years. I think you were very lucky to see two of them. They're getting quite rare as everything else. They're beautiful. Great pics!

We have found these a couple of times in Mont Pelerin, about 850m. Dead unfortunately in both instances, asume the neighbours cats had been busy.

I found a Red-backed salamander in our garden a couple of weeks ago.

Apparently these ones are the only ones that don't necessarily need live next to a water source such as a pond.