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.
Contact Guilford naturalist
Kathleen Kudlinski at kathkud@aol.com or write her in care
of the Register, 40 Sargent Drive, New Haven 06511.
Jean Cherni
is founder of Senior Living Solutions, a retirement advisory
service. Contact her at jeancherni@sbcglobal.net or
15 The Ponds, Branford 06405.
H. Pearce Company REALTORS®
is a full-service real estate company with more than 100
agents and branch offices in greater New Haven and the Shoreline.
Corporate and & Commercial offices are located in North
Haven, where the company was founded in 1958. All listings
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