Mud salamander facts for kids
The mud salamander (Pseudotriton montanus) is a bright red salamander that belongs to the Plethodontidae family. You can find it in streams, wet areas called seeps, and swamps. They often hide under logs, rocks, and leaves. These salamanders live in the eastern half of the United States, with one group found only in central Mississippi.
Mud salamanders have short, strong bodies. They usually grow to be about 7.5 to 16 centimeters (3 to 6 inches) long. Their color changes depending on their age and where they live. Salamanders from coastal areas are darker, while those from inland areas are brighter. Inland mud salamanders also have more clear black polka dots on their bodies. When they are young, they are often crimson red with plain stomachs. As they get older, they turn a darker red, almost purple, and their stomachs get spots. Mud salamanders have 16 to 17 grooves along their sides, called costal grooves.
These salamanders are ectothermic. This means they can't control their own body temperature. Their body temperature changes with the temperature around them. Mud salamanders are sometimes confused with two other types of salamanders: the red salamander (Pseudotriton ruber) and the spring salamander (Gyrinophilus porphyriticus). You can tell a mud salamander apart from a red salamander because it has golden pupils and a shorter nose. It's different from a spring salamander because it's shorter and doesn't have a special ridge on its nose. There are four different kinds of mud salamanders, called subspecies. These are the Gulf Coast mud salamander, rusty mud salamander, Midland mud salamander, and eastern mud salamander.
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Contents
What is a Mud Salamander?
The mud salamander is known for its reddish-brown color and brown eyes. It has a strong body and a short tail. By the time it's an adult, it usually has 30 to 40 clear, round black spots on its back.
How Mud Salamanders Change as They Grow
Young mud salamanders are often bright red, orangish-brown, or crimson. Their stomachs don't have spots, and their spots are separate. As they get older, their colors become darker, turning more brown. They also get more spots, and these spots become larger. Their stomachs also start to get spots. Adult mud salamanders can grow to be about 7.6 to 20 centimeters (3 to 8 inches) long. They are usually quite stocky.
How to Tell Them Apart
It can be very hard to tell mud salamanders and red salamanders apart. The main differences are in their eyes and noses.
- A mud salamander has dark brown eyes and a short nose.
- A red salamander has bright yellow eyes and a long nose.
Mud salamanders generally have 16 to 17 grooves along their sides, called costal grooves.
Life Cycle and Reproduction
Mud salamanders usually breed during the warmer months of the year. Females lay their eggs in the autumn and winter. A female salamander usually lays eggs once every two years, but sometimes once a year. Male salamanders can breed several times a year.
How They Mate
When a male finds a female, he performs a special "tail dance." The female then walks over his tail. This allows the male to pass his sperm to the female. Female mud salamanders are ready to reproduce when they are about four to five years old. Males are ready much earlier, around two to two and a half years old.
Eggs and Young
A female mud salamander might stay with her eggs to help them develop. The eggs usually take three or more months to hatch. The young salamanders hatch in the winter. A group of eggs, called a clutch, can have anywhere from 65 to 200 eggs.
Where Mud Salamanders Live
Mud salamanders live in wet, muddy places. These include swamps at low elevations, bogs, seeps (where water slowly comes out of the ground), springs, and streams. These places must have a muddy bottom but also clean, clear water.
Their Homes
The mud salamander likes to burrow into the ground. They find shelter in burrows under leaf litter, logs, stones, or tree bark. They might also dig tunnels in the banks of creeks. These amphibians spend most of their lives close to water. However, they also dig into the soil around their watery homes.
Young mud salamanders (larvae) usually live underground in muddy springs. You can often find them in leaves, debris, and mud in springs, seeps, and streams. After they lose their gills and become adults, they dig burrows in muddy areas. They often use burrows made by crayfish. They will sit with their heads sticking out of these burrows, waiting for food to pass by. At night, they come out of their burrows to look for food.
Staying Close to Home
Mud salamanders usually don't wander as far from their main home as their relatives, the red salamanders. Mud salamanders seem to prefer small, muddy seeps and springs that might dry up in the summer. Both young and adult mud salamanders go deep underground during the hottest summer months. This is especially true in small springs and seeps that dry up. The young salamanders with gills go deep into the mud where there is underground water. The adults stay deep in their burrows. During the hottest times, you usually only find them at night or when it rains. They come out to find food for a short time before returning to their muddy burrows.
Other salamanders, like dusky salamanders, are often found in the same places as mud salamanders. Dusky salamanders are much easier to find. When they are around, the more common dusky salamanders often become food for the mud salamanders. Sometimes, small muddy springs where mud salamanders live flow into larger streams. These larger streams might have more common species like dusky and two-lined salamanders. In these cases, mud salamanders might go into the main stream to find more food. This is because there might be less competition for food outside their smaller, main home. Also, two-lined and dusky salamanders are good food for the larger mud salamanders. You might find mud salamanders in creeks that don't seem like their perfect home. This often means they have traveled out of their main home to find food. It's likely that a good muddy habitat is close by.
What Mud Salamanders Eat
A mud salamander's diet changes as it grows.
Larval Diet
When they are young (in the larval stage), these small creatures tend to eat other small water animals. They usually eat invertebrates that are the same size or smaller than them. Young salamander larvae are also known to eat other salamander larvae.
Adult Diet
As an adult, the mud salamander's diet becomes more varied. However, they still eat smaller prey. We don't know a lot about what adult mud salamanders eat. But we do know they likely feed on earthworms, beetles, spiders, and even smaller kinds of salamanders. Mud salamanders can also eat very tiny invertebrates, like mites. What a mud salamander eats mostly depends on the habitat where it lives.
Conservation Status
The mud salamander is very rare in Virginia. Because of this, it was put on the threatened species list in 1979. The Virginia Herpetological Society believes this species is safe worldwide. However, it is in danger in Virginia because it is so rare there. Many surveys and searches were done in the 1980s to find mud salamander groups in western Virginia. Even with great effort, few sightings of this species were made.
Since little is known about the species, it's hard to find out what might threaten them. But threats to other types of salamanders probably affect mud salamanders too.
- Update: Several mud salamanders were found in Macon County, North Carolina (December 15, 2015).
- Update: On April 24, 2016, one was found in a National Forest in Lumpkin County, near Dahlonega, Georgia.
- Update: On March 28, 2018, one was found in Eastern Kentucky during a survey by Mr. Torrey A. Stegall. The county wasn't named because they are so rare there. But it was found in the Daniel Boone National Forest.
See also
In Spanish: Pseudotriton montanus para niños
