100 Species #8: Red-backed Salamander

[urbpan]

Red-backed salamander Plethodon cinereus

I was clearing debris in the back yard when I picked up a chunk of broken cinderblock and found a cherished old friend. When I was a young boy playing in the woods of Stafford Connecticut, turning over logs was my favorite pastime. Most of the time I'd find just a few sowbugs, maybe a centipede or some earthworms. But if the conditions were right--moist but not soggy, leaf litter without too many pine needles--I'd find a salamander. That was always a delight.

The red-backed salamander is far and away the most common tailed amphibian in New England. In fact, one often-repeated notion is that the total mass of red-backed salamanders in the Northeast is greater than that of any other animal. Probably not, but it's a neat idea. Here is a remarkable creature, with a backbone but no lungs, an amphibian that never goes to water but lays its eggs in the wet debris of a suburban lawn.

The red-backed salamander was relatively recently featured on this blog as More Urban Species #39.

Comments

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

I'm confused. What's the difference between newts, salamanders, and efts?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Broadly, all tailed amphibians are salamanders.

One group of salamanders, called newts, has a more complicated life cycle than most others: The hatch from eggs as aquatic larvae, go through a terrestrial immature stage called efts, then when they become sexually mature return to the water as adult newts.

Lungless salamanders, like the one above, go through their metamorphosis within the egg, and hatch as miniature adults.

Many other salamanders, like the familiar spotted salamander, hatch in the water as aquatic larvae, then metamorphose into terrestrial adults.