wes_von_papineäu
Our Roving Correspondent
NEW HAVEN REGISTER (Connecticut) 06 July 08 Gentle Giants (Jean Cherni)
You can't miss frogs in the spring. They shout out for attention, filling the air with ringing, chirping, twanging, chimes. Toads and tree frogs trill and call incessantly. Bull frogs bellow. But salamanders are silent.
Even the biggest of our sallies is secretive. The spotted salamander is enormous — almost 10 inches long and chubby, but seldom seen. Some of us know to look for them during the first warm rains of spring when they congregate by dozens and hundreds in woodland pools. But they only do this at night and to mate silently underwater.
Even that is without ardor. The male leaves a little packet of sperm on an underground stem. The female squats on top of it and voila! She is ready to lay her eggs, now fertilized. They form a round underwater ball, sometimes cloudy, sometimes clear, sometimes dyed greenish with an algae. A hundred of so eggs develop inside this tennis ball-sized clump. The babies hatch as tadpoles, grow four legs and seemingly vanish.
Spotted salamanders are members of the mole salamander family. They live most of their entire long lives underground. These sturdy fellows live 10 years under your feet, if you are walking near broad-leafed trees. Unless you happen to dig right where they are, you may never know who you are standing on.
A reader from Clinton, called last week because he'd been digging in his garden and struck gold. Or rather, bright yellow polka dots. On a whopping big, moist body. The muscular black creature was as long as the blade of a garden trowel.
The salamander did not try to bite. They never do. The reader set him on the driveway long enough to snap a photo. Then the sally simply wriggled away to get back to the safety of the cool, dark soil.
What would he eat down there? Like much about mole salamanders, the spotty's diet is a bit in question. Worms, soil insects, grubs, burrowing crickets and emerging cicadas make up some of their diet. Because they live and feed down in the dirt, scientists haven't been able to study how they locate prey or manage to dig so well without claws or even fingernails on their toes.
Salamanders never have nails. It is not in their body plan. They have no fur or feathers, but only moist glossy skin. Some salamanders have sacrificed lungs for a svelte body shape, breathing only through their damp skin. Spotted salamanders have a robust and complete set of innards. They have to survive for so long making only yearly journeys to the nearest pond or even flooded depression in the forest floor.
I was out when the reader called, but my son Henry was able to identify the mystery animal. He is a naturalist by osmosis. A life spent with his parents, both enthusiastic animal people, has rubbed off. A love of nature, shared, always inspires others. Besides, once you have seen a spotted salamander, you never forget it. Henry saw one first when he was in kindergarten.
We held the young spotty in the "overnight" tank we kept for nature finds. For this visitor, we made the old aquarium damp and dirt-filled with plenty of places to hide. He did, of course. Henry had plenty of chances to see the salamander before we released him the next day, exactly where we had found the colorful critter. The animal wriggled under some leaves and was "gone."
Only, of course, he lived on — for many years. For a moment, imagine the last 10 years of your life; all you have done and seen, learned and changed. The world has changed, too. Ten years ago, our economy was healthy, China was "undeveloped," and we were not even considering war. Ten years: so much trauma, both personal and political! For that entire time, millions of chubby spotted salamanders have been living calmly and silently in the soil, untouched by events we had thought were earth-shattering
http://www.nhregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19832515&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=635055&rfi=6
You can't miss frogs in the spring. They shout out for attention, filling the air with ringing, chirping, twanging, chimes. Toads and tree frogs trill and call incessantly. Bull frogs bellow. But salamanders are silent.
Even the biggest of our sallies is secretive. The spotted salamander is enormous — almost 10 inches long and chubby, but seldom seen. Some of us know to look for them during the first warm rains of spring when they congregate by dozens and hundreds in woodland pools. But they only do this at night and to mate silently underwater.
Even that is without ardor. The male leaves a little packet of sperm on an underground stem. The female squats on top of it and voila! She is ready to lay her eggs, now fertilized. They form a round underwater ball, sometimes cloudy, sometimes clear, sometimes dyed greenish with an algae. A hundred of so eggs develop inside this tennis ball-sized clump. The babies hatch as tadpoles, grow four legs and seemingly vanish.
Spotted salamanders are members of the mole salamander family. They live most of their entire long lives underground. These sturdy fellows live 10 years under your feet, if you are walking near broad-leafed trees. Unless you happen to dig right where they are, you may never know who you are standing on.
A reader from Clinton, called last week because he'd been digging in his garden and struck gold. Or rather, bright yellow polka dots. On a whopping big, moist body. The muscular black creature was as long as the blade of a garden trowel.
The salamander did not try to bite. They never do. The reader set him on the driveway long enough to snap a photo. Then the sally simply wriggled away to get back to the safety of the cool, dark soil.
What would he eat down there? Like much about mole salamanders, the spotty's diet is a bit in question. Worms, soil insects, grubs, burrowing crickets and emerging cicadas make up some of their diet. Because they live and feed down in the dirt, scientists haven't been able to study how they locate prey or manage to dig so well without claws or even fingernails on their toes.
Salamanders never have nails. It is not in their body plan. They have no fur or feathers, but only moist glossy skin. Some salamanders have sacrificed lungs for a svelte body shape, breathing only through their damp skin. Spotted salamanders have a robust and complete set of innards. They have to survive for so long making only yearly journeys to the nearest pond or even flooded depression in the forest floor.
I was out when the reader called, but my son Henry was able to identify the mystery animal. He is a naturalist by osmosis. A life spent with his parents, both enthusiastic animal people, has rubbed off. A love of nature, shared, always inspires others. Besides, once you have seen a spotted salamander, you never forget it. Henry saw one first when he was in kindergarten.
We held the young spotty in the "overnight" tank we kept for nature finds. For this visitor, we made the old aquarium damp and dirt-filled with plenty of places to hide. He did, of course. Henry had plenty of chances to see the salamander before we released him the next day, exactly where we had found the colorful critter. The animal wriggled under some leaves and was "gone."
Only, of course, he lived on — for many years. For a moment, imagine the last 10 years of your life; all you have done and seen, learned and changed. The world has changed, too. Ten years ago, our economy was healthy, China was "undeveloped," and we were not even considering war. Ten years: so much trauma, both personal and political! For that entire time, millions of chubby spotted salamanders have been living calmly and silently in the soil, untouched by events we had thought were earth-shattering
http://www.nhregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19832515&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=635055&rfi=6