Stats

Lifespan: Up to 20 yrs
Size: Medium
Diet: Insectivore
Activity: Nocturnal
Social: Solitary
Biome: Temperate deciduous forest
Range: North America
Movement: Walking
Breeding: Egg-laying
Defense: Toxins
Status: Uncommon

About

A slender mole salamander with flecks of pale blue-white scattered across its dark body, found across the Great Lakes region and northeastern North America. It spends most of the year hidden underground or under logs, emerging only for brief, synchronized breeding migrations to woodland ponds on the first warm rainy nights of spring.

Life cycle

1.
egg
A jelly-coated egg is laid in water and develops over days into an aquatic larva.
2.
tadpole
A gilled tadpole swims and grazes on algae, slowly absorbing its tail and growing limbs.
3.
juvenile
A near-adult amphibian leaves the water with new legs and lungs, smaller than the mature form.
4.
adult
Fully grown at adult size, breathing air.

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Taxonomy

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Caudata
Family: Ambystomatidae
Genus: Ambystoma
Species: Ambystoma laterale