Pa.'s Tiniest Mole Salamander

With an average total length of 4 inches, the marbled salamander (Ambystoma opacum) is Pennsylvania's smallest mole salamander. Aptly named, mole salamanders spend much of their lives underground. Mole salamanders breed in vernal pools, depressions that fill up with rainfall and snowmelt in the spring and winter and usually dry up by the end of summer.

Unlike the other Pennsylvania mole salamanders that breed in the spring, the marbled salamander breeds in the fall, mainly in September and early October. Females lay an average of 100 to 150 eggs in a dried pool. The female will guard her nest until rains fill the pool and submerge the eggs. During dry winters eggs will remain dormant until spring, but most eggs hatch in autumn or early winter. Larvae remain active through the winter and metamorphosis into juvenile adults takes place in the June or July.

Marbled salamanders are found in scattered populations in the southern and eastern portions of the Pennsylvania, seemingly absent from the Allegheny Mountains.

WPC scientists, in cooperation with scientists from the Pennsylvania Science Office of the Nature Conservancy, are currently conducting research on vernal pools in Pennsylvania. The focus is on another important group of organisms -- aquatic invertibrates.

Today's photo and information by WPC's Outreach Assistant at the Sideling Hill Creek Center Mandy Smith.

Sources: Wildlife of Pennsylvania and the Northeast by Charles Fergus and the Pennsylvania Herpetological Atlas Project Website.

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