Spotted Salamander Facts

Spotted salamanders are abundant in deciduous forests along rivers. Discover facts about spotted salamanders with information from a published biologist in this free video on amphibians.

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Video transcription

Here, we have a spotted salamander. Its scientific name is ambystoma maculatum. The spotted salamanders are found in eastern North America, and they are abundant in deciduous bottom land forest, along rivers. And they're pretty happy, as long as their climate is sufficiently damp. Adults are rarely seen because they like to hide in leaf litter. It's often very hard to find them. You can see his instinct is to immediately burrow into the leaf litter we have put for him. They can, they're hard to find, as they're burrowess, and they tunnel below the ground. However, when they lay their eggs, they can be seen around fresh water only in ponds and pools that lack fish, such as vernal pools. The adult salamander can reach about four to nine inches in length, and the females tend to be a bit larger than males. Compared to most other salamanders, the body and legs are quite stout and robust. You can see that they have a broadly rounded snout, and the head is often swollen towards the back. They come in black, brown, and sometimes dark gray, and they have often two rows of twenty four to up to forty five spots, from the head to the length of the tail. Unspotted individuals do occur, but they are pretty rare. They have poison glands in their skins that secrete a toxic white substance when they're bothered. It takes several years for the salamander to become sexually mature, and it often depends on its climate . It can take males up to four to six years to be ready to mate, and females; generally a little bit longer. The females can lay a thick, clear, milky substance on the eggs of about a hundred and three hundred eggs per mass, and they're generally reported at an average of two hundred. The salamander has very aggressive larvae. They generally eat other other salamander larvae that are laid in vernal pools with them. They eat insects and vertebrates that they find on the forest floor. They like to eat specific insects, such as spiders, centipedes, millipedes, slugs, and snails. These salamanders are very interesting, as they like to live close to their mating pools. The males generally arrive there before the females after traveling a very long distance. When you are only about nine inches long one third of a mile is a pretty long distance to travel. That is like a human walking two and a quarter miles or forty five minutes to get to their partner's house. And that's a spotted salamander.