During our field trip to the Francis Marion National Forest,
our class came across a small, chubby marbled salamander, also referred to as Ambystoma opacum. The marbled salamander belongs to the family
Ambystomatidae. Some distinguishing
characteristics of this family include a blunt head, small eyes, stout body and
a thick tail that is laterally flattened.
These salamanders have smooth, shiny skin, with costal grooves along the
body. Ambystoma may be metamorphic or paedomorphic. One can distinguish between the two because a
metamorphic adult is usually terrestrial, found in moist areas, and
paedomorphic adults are strictly aquatic.
Ambystoma reside underground
and in moist areas, but migrate to ponds to mate and lay eggs. They are usually hiding during the daytime,
but may become more active when raining.
Fitting the “Ambystoma
mold”, our little guy was found under a wet, rotting log. He was residing in wet dirt/mud and probably
chose under a log as protection from predators.
His body appeared very shiny and was slimy to the touch. He was not very active, giving us a better
chance to observe all of his features.
His black and white banded body made it easy to identify him as a
marbled salamander. Because his bands
were more white than grey, we were able to conclude that our little man was, in
fact, a male.
2 comments:
A very handsome salamander, indeed!
I personally thought that this salamander was the coolest thing we have found so far as well. Looking at pictures of these salamanders is totally different than seeing them in person, and it was awesome to see their distinct black and white pattern in the field. One thing I wasn't expecting, though, was how big the salamander was. Up until this point, we had been finding pretty small salamanders, and this one was fairly large compared to the others which was pretty exciting.
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