Day

Day-Glo Dragons

All the rain has been wonderful for our amphibians and has made them much more visible this summer. Amphibians are dependent on the close proximity of water. Their eggs are laid in water and the larvae remain there for some period of their development. In addition, most of our local species require high humidity in order to keep their scale-less skin from drying out. Unlike our dry, rather flaky skin, the moist skin of amphibians can absorb significant amounts of oxygen from the air. Some of our salamanders have neither lungs nor gills, but breathe directly through their skin. The trade-off for this convenience is their tie to water: they can’t go far without it. Most of our salamanders, therefore, don’t stray far from ponds and streams and are only active at night. They are most visible after rain, when the air is still saturated with water vapor.

Perhaps our most visible salamander is the Red Eft, or Eastern Newt. Its life cycle is a bit unusual, and that is part of why it is so easy to see. Like other salamanders, the eggs are laid in water and hatch into larvae. These aquatic larvae transform into a terrestrial stage, the eft. None of our other local species have an eft stage in the life cycle. The eft is a juvenile, similar in size to the adults, but not reproductive. The skin of the eft is thicker, affording a little more protection from desiccation, and the efts wander widely as they disperse from the larval habitat. Because they wander through a variety of forested habitats, often far from water, we encounter them more often than probably any other salamander. They are still most active after rain, when the air is humid.

The terrestrial efts are also red, as their name indicates. Day-glow orange is really a better description, and their whole body is this vivid color. Along their backs, there are tiny circles of even brighter orange encircled by black. This bright coloration is a warning to potential predators, for that pretty skin produces a potent neurotoxin. The efts average 3 to 4 inches in length. They are strong and active, and look like tiny dragons or dinosaurs as they clamber over twigs and branches. By the way, Red Efts have lungs; they don’t belong to the group of salamanders that lacks lungs and gills.

After a few years in the eft stage, the salamanders undergo another transformation to adults. They move back to the larval habitat of water, regaining smooth, moist skin. They also lose their brilliant coloration. Efts that are brownish in color and found near ponds are probably changing into adults.

The adults are aquatic--they live in ponds--and in my ponds at least, are the only common salamanders present year-round. The adults are olive green on the back and dull yellow on the belly. They retain the orange spots encircled by black of the efts, and these spots are the key to identifying them. In the spring and early summer, the adults undergo an elaborate courtship. They grasp one another and flip upside down, exposing their yellow bellies. Eventually, the male deposits a spermatophore and the female picks it up. The adults can be hard to spot against the brown bottoms of ponds, except during this active courtship or when they ascend to the surface for a mouthful of air.

The adults and efts eat insects or other small animals they encounter. I’ve also observed the adults feeding on frog eggs. This past spring, the first clump of wood frog eggs that appeared in my ponds was completely consumed by a horde of Red Eft adults. This first cluster was joined a few days later by dozens more clusters containing hundreds or thousands of eggs, and I understood why the wood frogs lay so many eggs in such close proximity. The lone eggs were consumed, but the massed eggs overwhelmed the glutted efts and other predators. Many other natural phenomena, such as the good and poor mast years of oaks and other nut trees, function similarly to satiate the predators and ensure that some young of the prey species survive. As long as the balance of predator and prey is not disturbed, there will be enough individuals to support each species.

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