Mole salamander facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Mole salamanders
Spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Amphibia
Order:	Urodela
Family:	Ambystomatidae
Genus:	Ambystoma Tschudi, 1838
Type species
Salamandra maculata Shaw, 1802

Mole salamanders belong to the genus Ambystoma. They are a special group of advanced salamanders native to North America. They get their common name because adult salamanders spend most of their lives underground in a deep burrow, just like real moles! One very famous member of this group is the axolotl. Another well-known member is the tiger salamander, which is popular as a pet and serves as the official state amphibian in several places.

What Does a Mole Salamander Look Like?

The tiger salamander has a stout body and bright markings.

A typical land-dwelling mole salamander has a sturdy body with thick legs and wide eyes. Along the sides of its body, you can see deep vertical lines called costal grooves. Many species show off bright colors on dark skin. These patterns range from vivid yellow bars to shiny blue spots.

Adults live alone on land and hunt for food at night. They eat almost any small invertebrate they can catch, including worms, slugs, and insects. Because they live in underground tunnels, people rarely see them. When winter comes, northern species stay safe from the freezing cold by using hibernating underground. They only leave their cozy dens to travel to water when spring arrives.

Life Cycle and Metamorphosis

Mole salamanders have an exciting life cycle with big changes. Most species start life in freshwater ponds before moving to land.

Eggs in the Water

All mole salamanders are egg-laying animals. Every spring, adults return to the ponds where they were born. Females lay clumps of large eggs underwater. These eggs attach to twigs, leaves, and aquatic plants.

Baby Salamanders

A baby salamander hatches into an aquatic larva. A young larva looks a bit like a tadpole, but it has three pairs of feathery external gills sticking out behind its head. These gills sit right above its gill slits to help it breathe underwater. The larva also has a broad tail fin running along its back. It soon grows four front toes and five back toes.

Changing to Adults

As the young grow, they go through a body transformation called metamorphosis. During this change, their external gills disappear. Their tails lose the swimming fins, and their skin and legs grow much thicker. They develop functioning lungs to breathe air and grow true eyelids. Once this big change is complete, they leave the water and begin their lives on land.

Staying Young Forever

Some mole salamanders never grow up in the usual way! This fascinating condition is called paedomorphosis. The salamander keeps its baby features, like feathery gills and swimming fins, even when it becomes a full adult. The famous axolotl stays in this watery stage for its entire life. Axolotls naturally lack enough of a chemical called thyroxine, which triggers metamorphosis. If given this chemical in a lab, an axolotl can transform, but this is unnatural and shortens its lifespan.

Incredible Superpowers of the Axolotl

The axolotl keeps its gills and lives underwater its whole life.

The axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) has an amazing superpower known as tissue regeneration. If an axolotl loses a leg, it can grow an entire new leg back perfectly!

When an injury occurs, special cells rush to the wound to form a healing bump called a blastema. Scientists study these cells to understand how they multiply and fix broken genetic material. When cells divide quickly, they suffer DNA damage. The salamander uses an internal repair system called homologous recombination to perform DNA repair. By studying this process, scientists hope to learn secrets that could help human medicine someday.

The Amazing Tiger Salamander Complex

The tiger salamander group includes some of the biggest land salamanders in North America. They have broad heads, small eyes, and very thick bodies. Because these creatures live across huge areas, different groups have adapted to local habitats:

• The barred tiger salamander (Ambystoma mavortium) lives throughout western regions.
• The California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense) makes its home in the grasslands of California.
• The Plateau tiger salamander (Ambystoma velasci) lives on high plateaus in Mexico alongside the axolotl.

Unique All-Female Salamanders

In parts of North America, scientists discovered unusual all-female populations of mole salamanders. These females do something very strange called kleptogenesis. To start the development of their eggs, they take genetic material from related species, such as the blue-spotted salamander (Ambystoma laterale), the Jefferson salamander (Ambystoma jeffersonianum), the small-mouthed salamander (Ambystoma texanum), or the streamside salamander (Ambystoma barbouri).

Sometimes the mother uses this material to add extra sets of chromosomes, changing the ploidy level of her babies. Other times, she develops eggs through gynogenesis, making copies of herself. This makes them the oldest known all-female vertebrate lineage in the animal kingdom!

Discoveries from the Past

Fossil skeleton of Ambystoma kansense.

Mole salamanders have lived in North America for millions of years. Paleontologists study extinct species by finding their fossilized bones preserved in ancient rock:

• Ambystoma kansense lived during the late Pliocene epoch in Kansas.
• Ambystoma hibbardi was another ancient salamander from the Pliocene of Kansas.
• Ambystoma minshalli crawled across Nebraska during the late Miocene epoch.

How the Mole Salamander Got Its Name

The Swiss naturalist Johann Jakob von Tschudi named the genus Ambystoma in 1838. He did not write down what the name meant. Later, a scientist named Leonhard Stejneger suggested it came from ancient Greek words meaning "to cram into the mouth," describing the salamander's hearty appetite. Whatever its original meaning, these creatures remain among the most fascinating amphibians on Earth!

Species of Mole Salamanders

There are 32 known species in the Ambystoma group. The newest one discovered is A. bishopi. Some of these species live on land, some stay in their larval (neotenic) form their whole lives, and some species have populations that do both!

Image	Species and author	Common name	Distribution	Lifestyle	IUCN status
	A. altamirani Dugès, 1895	Mountain stream salamander, Achoque	Central Mexico, west and south of the Valley of Mexico	Terrestrial and neotenic
	A. amblycephalum Taylor, 1940	Blunt-headed salamander	West-central Mexico (Michoacán state), near Morelia	Terrestrial and neotenic
	A. andersoni (Brandon and Krebs, 1984)	Anderson's salamander	West-central Mexico (Michoacán state), Laguna de Zacapu	Neotenic
	A. annulatum Cope, 1886	Ringed salamander	South-central United States (Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma), Ozark Plateau and Ouachita Mountains	Terrestrial
	A. barbouri Kraus & Petranka, 1989	Streamside salamander	South-midwest United States (Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia)	Terrestrial
	A. bishopi Pauly, Piskurek & Shaffer, 2007	Reticulated flatwoods salamander	Southeast United States (Florida Panhandle and southernmost Georgia), west of the Apalachicola-Flint River	Terrestrial
	A. bombypellum (Taylor, 1940)	Delicate-skinned salamander	Central Mexico (State of Mexico) near Jilotepec	Terrestrial
	A. californiense Gray, 1853	California tiger salamander	Central Valley of California	Terrestrial
	A. cingulatum Cope, 1868	Frosted flatwoods salamander	Southeast United States (southern South Carolina and Georgia south to northern Florida)	Terrestrial
	A. dumerilii (Dugès, 1870)	Lake Pátzcuaro salamander, Achoque	West-central Mexico (Michoacán state), Lake Pátzcuaro	Neotenic
	A. flavipiperatum Dixon, 1963	Yellow-peppered salamander, Ajolote de Chapala	West-central Mexico (Jalisco)	Terrestrial
	A. gracile (Baird, 1859)	Northwestern salamander	Northwest North America (southernmost Alaska to northern California)	Terrestrial
	A. granulosum Taylor, 1944	Granular salamander, Ajolote	Central Mexico (State of Mexico) near Toluca	Terrestrial
	A. jeffersonianum (Green, 1827)	Jefferson salamander	Northeastern North America (Ontario south to Virginia and west to Illinois)	Terrestrial
	A. laterale Hallowell, 1856	Blue-spotted salamander	Northeastern North America (Nova Scotia west to Manitoba and Minnesota and south to Indiana and New Jersey)	Terrestrial
	A. leorae Taylor, 1943	Leora's stream salamander, Ajolote	Central Mexico (Mexico state - Puebla border), Mount Tlaloc	Terrestrial
	A. lermaense (Taylor, 1940)	Lake Lerma salamander	Central Mexico (State of Mexico), Lake Lerma near Toluca	Terrestrial and neotenic
	A. mabeei Bishop, 1928	Mabee's salamander	Coastal southeast United States (southeast Virginia to South Carolina)	Terrestrial
	A. macrodactylum Baird, 1950	Long-toed salamander	Northwest North America (Alaska south to northern California and east to Alberta and Montana)	Terrestrial
	A. maculatum (Shaw, 1802)	Spotted salamander	Eastern North America (Nova Scotia west to Wisconsin and south to eastern Texas and Georgia)	Terrestrial
	A. mavortium Baird, 1850	Barred tiger salamander	Western North America (Manitoba south to Texas and west to Washington and California)	Terrestrial and neotenic
	A. mexicanum (Shaw and Nodder, 1798)	Axolotl	Central Mexico (State of Mexico), Lake Xochimilco	Neotenic
	A. opacum (Gravenhorst, 1807)	Marbled salamander	Eastern United States (New Hampshire south to northern Florida and east to Missouri and Texas)	Terrestrial
	A. ordinarium Taylor, 1940	Puerto Hondo stream salamander	West-central Mexico (Michoacán state), Puerto Hondo stream	Terrestrial and neotenic
	A. rivulare Taylor, 1940	Michoacan stream salamander	Central Mexico (western State of Mexico)	Terrestrial and neotenic
	A. rosaceum Taylor, 1941	Tarahumara salamander	Northwest Mexico, Sierra Madre Occidental	Terrestrial and neotenic
	A. silvense Webb, 2004	Durango salamander	Northwest Mexico (Durango and Chihuahua), Sierra Madre Occidental	Terrestrial and neotenic
	A. talpoideum Holbrook, 1838	Mole salamander	Southeast United States (Virginia west to Oklahoma and south to northern Florida)	Terrestrial and neotenic
	A. taylori Brandon, Maruska, and Rumph, 1982	Taylor's salamander	Southeast Mexico (Puebla), Laguna Alchichica	Neotenic
	A. texanum Matthes, 1855	Small-mouth salamander	South-central United States (Ohio west to Nebraska and south to Texas and Alabama)	Terrestrial
	A. tigrinum (Green, 1825)	Eastern tiger salamander	Eastern North America (New York northwest to Manitoba and south to Texas and northern Florida)	Terrestrial and neotenic
	A. velasci (Dugès, 1888)	Plateau tiger salamander	Mexican Plateau	Terrestrial and neotenic

Sometimes, two groups of all-female hybrid populations are also given their own species names:

• Silvery salamander (A. platineum)
• Tremblay's salamander (A. tremblayi)

Images for kids

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  The ringed salamander has bright stripes across its back.

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  The marbled salamander displays striking silver and black patterns.

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  A small mole salamander hiding in the soil.

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  The long-toed salamander has long toes for walking.

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  A family tree diagram showing how different species are related.

See also

In Spanish: Ambystoma para niños

• Oophila amblystomatis