Question: Eggs on land! What are they?

[Annie12345]

Yesterday we found several piles of what my husband called 'land jellyfish' in our pasture near our pond. Upon close inspection they are obviously eggs of some sort and although I'm not certain they are going to be salamanders, I think it is likely. I'll try to post a photo of the 'land jellyfish' for you, but I'll describe it too: Lying on the ground in the grass under a fallen tree branch about twenty feet from our pond are three 'piles' of clear gelatinous looking stuff with small dark eggs in them. The piles are each about a cupful, or enough that you could probably hold it in one hand if your hand was big.Each pile has a hundred or more dark brown eggs about the size of peppercorns. We live on the northern part of the Olympic Peninsula (Washington State) about ten miles from the Straits of Juan de Fuca and at about 1300 ft. elevation.

We'd like to collect a pile of these and see what they are when they hatch. I'm assuming they would have to be terrestrial salamanders since they aren't in or ever really near the water. Do you have any suggestions on how to set up a terrarium for them. It will probably be temporary, we just want to see what they turn out to be. Would it be best to keep the terrarium outside since our house is warm? If we do decide to raise a few of them, how many could we keep in a small aquarium, and what do we feed them? And how do we feed them?



One 'pile' looks a little different from the other two. The jelly part is cloudier, the eggs larger and lighter colored. I figure they are either closer to hatching, or a different kind of critter. Any ideas?

Are there animals that will eat the eggs and the new hatchlings? What? I made a little hardware cloth box and set it over them just to make it harder for anything to get to them for now.

Thanks! Annie
PS. I'm going to be so disappointed if we hatch a hundred banana slugs.

 

[CatSpit]

Wow, nature in action! That's really neat to see, and I do hope you get to see what they become (and hopefully not banana slugs). I can't help with identification, but hopefully someone on the forum will be able to tell you what you've got there. :happy:

 

[AuSu]

One or two years ago we found kind a similar bunch of eggs near a pond, over a stone or something like that, just amazing. But then I succeeded to find in a book that it was just similar frog eggs; bird had aten frog and spit out the eggs. I'm not sure if this is the same, but it might be. We collected the eggs (even it's against the law to collect any reptiles, amphibians or eggs here) since it was so abnormal and I thought we might see if they develop, but no luck. These eggs you have seem in good condition and it can be a totally different story - and another amphibian, too! I'll be lurking here what happens

 

[Bellabelloo]

They look very much like Ambystoma maculatum eggs, the cloudy colour makes them look like my maculatum eggs. However I I have never heard of them being laid on land

Have you had a lot of rain over the last few days? I wonder if it is possible the pond was flooded when they were laid ?

 

[Annie12345]

Thanks for the replies! The idea of eggs spit out is an interesting one! We never thought of that!

Yes! We had an unusually hard and long rain just prior to finding the eggs. I didn't know about amphibians laying eggs on earth, so I was puzzled to find them there, but thought maybe the frog or whoever laid them was confused by all the wetness. This spot was never under water, but with the soggy ground and rain coming down, it may have felt like it was!

I've only once found a salamander in our garden, but that doesn't mean a lot, I don't garden very much, just plant bulbs and pull weeds mostly. We are very excited to see what these might turn out to be! We'll make a terrarium today with conditions similar to where we found the eggs and wait and watch. I'll post more photos as they change.

 

[tcbemis]

If they are in fact A. Maculatum, they should be in water. I just don't want to be the one to tell you to do that and have it all go bad ?. If you DO decide to put them in water, then I'd get a good amount of the ground water they were laid near and use that.
We had great luck hatching about a hundred last spring, with 0 mortality rate, which is amazing. We currently have 6 of the salamanders now.
You've found a great place to ask your questions, these folks are wonderful. Good luck!

 

[Annie12345]

I googled A.Maculatum to see what they look like and where they live. Since we are in Washington state and they are native to the eastern states and Canada, I'm fairly certain the eggs aren't theirs! The eggs haven't changed noticeably since we found them. A younger pair of eyes looked at them and the young man said he thought he saw movement. To me they just look like little round dark brown peppercorns suspended in clear jelly. It's going to be quite exciting to find out what they are!

Someone told me that there are frogs that lay their eggs on land and then move them to the water when the hatch. Now that's not something I had heard of either. Just one more thing to consider!

 

[tcbemis]

Now that I look they didn't look all that much like our eggs did, but they were cloudy like that. That's pretty neat though... I can't wait to "see" what they are!

 

[Annie12345]

I've moved the eggs to a terrarium that is out on our back deck. I don't know if they'll hatch since it's been frozen each morning this past week and I bet that doesn't help them. But on the other hand, maybe the freeze won't hurt them, just postpone their hatching. I've moved two batches to the terrarium. One has the clear jelly and dark brown eggs, the other cloudy jelly and whitish larger eggs. A friend who has a phd in aquatic ecology or something like that and who lives in the area, suggested that I put half of them in the water and half out, because she suspects they are frog eggs that just got mislaid in the rainy weather. But I found I couldn't easily separate them. That gelatinous stuff is really tough! So I hung half of one of the globs in over the water and the other half on the ground. We'll see how it goes.
http://www.caudata.org/forum/images/attach/jpg.gif
http://www.caudata.org/forum/images/attach/jpg.gif

The only difference I can see in the globs of goo are that the ones that were all clear are now getting a little cloudy around some of the eggs. One or two look like they MIGHT have uncurled, but that may just be that I didn't notice them on the ground, but when they were in my hand I could see that some looked different.

 

[tcbemis]

In my experience, when frogs eggs cloud they're dying and getting moldy. But since that's what I thought was happening to by A. Maculatum eggs (which I had been told were tree frog eggs), I don't know what to tell you lol. It's apparently natural for A. Maculatum, maybe other sals as well?

 

[Otterwoman]

A. gracile eggs look a lot like A. maculatum eggs.

 

[Annie12345]

Oh.. I hope they aren't dying and rotting! I'm so curious about what they are! I read about the Ambystoma gracile and it probably lives in our area (what I read didn't say it lived on the Olympic Peninsula, but named lots of places nearby) and the egg mass they described does sound like it, although they weren't laid in water!

Anybody know how long it should take for these eggs to hatch, if they are going to?

 

[tcbemis]

I'm not sure... Maybe someone else could chime in. Our emerged after about 2 weeks, but that was after we'd gotten them in May....

 

[sde]

They are in fact Ambystoma gracile eggs, like Otterwoman says.

They will die if they aren't in the water. My guess is that the pond was flooded when the salamander laid the eggs and then when the water level went back down it left the eggs stranded. Put the eggs in less than a foot of water, keep them outside, and hope for the best. They could very well be dead already, hopefully they aren't, though. When they hatch they will look like tiny black tadpoles, but will grow into larger salamander larvae. Eventually when they become adults they can be up to 8 inches, but usually they are 6 or 7 inches.
Unfortunately it is illegal in Washington state to keep these in captivity, since they are wildlife. I would either put them back in the pond ( where there are probably many more of these! ), or put them in a tank with water until they hatch, then put the hatchlings back into the pond.

You may spot the larvae in the pond on occasion, especially at night. They will grow into something that looks like the picture attached below. After this they may metamorphose, or they may stay aquatic. After a few years they will become adults. The metamorphosed adults look like the salamander in the second picture. Aquatic adults look the same as larvae, just adult sized.

If you want to learn more about this species and many others, check out the "Washington Herp Atlas" website, it has info on every reptile and amphibian species in Washington state. Also, there are some great field guides that include Washington amphibian species. "Amphibians of Oregon Washington and British Columbia" is a good one, as well as "Amphibians of Washington and Oregon".

Hope this helps! -Seth

 

[AuSu]

Has anything happened yet? Any development?

 

[Annie12345]

Here's an update on the eggs we found. So you don't have to reread, we found three piles of eggs in clear gelatinous goo under a fallen branch about ten or fifteen feet from our pond. I moved two of them to a terrarium and put them on our deck. We left the other bunch alone.
All three have gradually changed. The two in the terrarium have gradually gotten bigger and the goo around the eggs is getting cloudy. But the eggs themselves are about the size of peas... and still round. Could be part of the rotting process I suppose, but I hope not!

The third pile is really making some interesting changes though. It is the one we left under the tree branch on the grass in the horse pasture. The goo is still clear and the eggs are definitely changing! They are no longer round but look remarkably like little slugs. We see no movement, even if we jiggle the pile and use our imaginations.

If I can remember how I did it last time, I'll put a photo in here. The first is the one that looks best. The other two are the ones in my terrarium.

Annie

 

[tcbemis]

I've never seen amphibian eggs that look like that developing, I agree, they remind me of slugs. I hope someone jumps on with some ideas. They certainly don't look like the A. Maculatum I'd had.
I don't think the other ones look viable, I'm sorry. It does look like mold. But you never know, there could be some live ones in the still.
Keep up the updates! This is so interesting!

 

[sde]

The eggs in the first picture are actually developing, and are probably a week or two from hatching.
Most of the eggs in the next pictures are dead. Although a few look to still be okay.
They are definitely A. gracile eggs.
If the first egg mass isn't put in the water, then when they hatch they will die. They need to be in the water to survive. And by the looks of it, they have a good chance of surviving, so I would put them in the water so they can continue their growth. -Seth

 

[tcbemis]

The funny thing is though, from what I understand, is that the first (healthy looking) batch is on land, while the unhealthy looking ones are in a tank.
But I agree, now might be the time to put them into the water.

 

[Annie12345]

We've got WIGGLIES!!!! The pasture ones are definitely wiggling! If they turn out to be slugs they are certainly going to be the most active slugs I've ever seen!! Several of you have suggested moving them to the pond, but since moving the others was a disaster, we're thinking maybe we'll move some water to them.