LIFE HISTORY: Ambystoma Opacum (Marbled Salamander)

    On Thursday March 22, we found the most beautiful salamander yet, Ambystoma opacum, or the Marbled Salamander.
    It was a hot, humid, and biting bug filled day at the Dixie Plantation. I was waist deep in mucky water collecting traps. I rarely find anything that, in my mind, is worth noting. Trap after trap I came up empty handed, and then I hear someone call in the distance, "Salamander!" Of course, it could not have been me to find it, but I was just as excited to witness someone else's finding of this beautiful creature. Salamanders are by far my most favorite herp, but the marbled salamander takes takes the cake. Though I'm sure he put up a fight when being caught, this adult salamander was actually pretty calm when being handled, which only made me fall for it even more! This stocky, boldly banded salamander appears to be a male. Males have more white bands, while a female's bands are more gray.
                                                

   RANGE AND HABITAT-  Marbled salamanders are found in the eastern United States, from New England to Florida, and west all the way to IL. I am from southern IL, and I have never seen one of these magnificent creatures, nor did I know they existed there. Had I known I would have been a herp hunter LONG before now!!

   Their habitat includes damp woodlands, forests, and places where the soil is soft and wet. Ambystoma opacum, like most mole salamanders, spends most of its time under logs, in burrows, or deep within leaf litter.

LIFE CYCLE-   Adults, usually growing to about 4in which is considered small compared to the rest of the genus, tend to come out for breeding in the fall-December rainy seasons and eggs hatch in the spring. Females dig a small depression in the dirt and lay their eggs (up to 150) in a low area likely to flood during winter rainy seasons. Marbled salamander larvae have a size advantage over neighboring salamander species that don't begin breeding until the spring season.  
    In the spring, growth accelerates for all larvae as temperatures increase and food items become more abundant. . The schedule of larval metamorphosis is largely dependent on vernal pool water levels or hydroperiod during summer. In years of high water, larvae will remain in the pool longer, sometimes until fall, before transforming; the recently-metamorphosed juveniles will be leaving the pond, as the adults begin arriving to breed. Juveniles take 15-18 months to reach breeding size.

DIET- Adults eat small invertebrates such as snails, spiders, insects, and millipedes. Larvae are voracious eaters, preying on copepods, aquatic insects and their larvae, other amphibian larvae, and even each other.