Naturalist?s Notes by Rick Koval

Have you seen this creature? This amphibian is called the Spotted Salamander, Ambystoma maculatum. It is the largest land salamander occurring in Pennsylvania and can grow to a length up to 9 inches. Biologically speaking, this is one of three salamander species in Pennsylvania that have lungs. The remaining group of Pennsylvania salamander species breathes through their skin and special glands near their chin.

The Spotted Salamander lives primarily underground thus the reference of 'mole salamander.' Upon arrival of the first early spring rain or sudden thawing of the winter's snow cover, the Spotted Salamander surfaces from its underground retreat and begins a journey to its ancient breeding pool. These temporary wetlands or (vernal pools) are special habitats that are critical to this specie?s existence. After mating, the female deposits several egg-sized jelly-like masses and attaches them to underwater vegetation and branches. Each egg mass contains hundreds of small individual eggs. In a few days the egg masses begin to swell in size and in about two weeks the small larva break free from the eggs and begin their short temporary underwater life in the vernal pool.

The young spotted salamanders look nothing like the adults. They are dark brown and have external feathery lungs or gills. With their voracious carnivorous appetite they consume large amounts of small aquatic invertebrates and sometimes even each other. They grow as they feed and feed as they grow. The rate of larvae development depends on water temperature and the rate of declining water levels of the temporary vernal pool. Many larvae will change, called metamorphosis, into miniature adults with 'spots and all'. And sadly, many will perish due to rapid water evaporation, predators, low pH levels from acid rain precipitation, and more often than I wish to mention, from habitat destruction caused by the inappropriate actions of ATV riders who repetitively plunge into these special wetlands. Thank GOD the adults can live up to twenty-five years and have multiple breeding attempts in future years to make up for losses from unsuccessful breeding seasons. However, if the breeding habitat is destroyed, eventually the entire population of Spotted Salamanders dependant of this specific breeding vernal pool will grow old, will likely not repopulate to sustainable levels and they?ll be extirpated from that site.

Thanks to the many landowners who placed their properties into land conservation easements with North Branch Land Trust, these special creatures can return to these vernal pools and continue their breeding cycle every spring as they have been for the past ten thousand years.