Natural History: On a cold December morning, snow covers the forest floor and only a small stream remains liquid. This water has been stored below the earth, in aquifers, which helped keep it from freezing. Here, animals and plants can subsist despite the cold. One of the most charismatic is these is the red salamander. While many salamanders escape the cold by digging underground, the red salamander, amongst other stream salamanders, prefer these seepages, finding solitude in escaping ground water. The red salamander’s life cycle has revolves around this year-round supply of water, here these salamanders remain as larva throughout the winter, allowing them to grow larger than other competing species. After two to three years, these larva will lose their gills and be able to travel over land, becoming bright red with age. Older individuals slowly lose their colour becoming deep purple or darker. Here, scars from territorial battles with other red salamanders become most apparent.
Sources:
Galloway, Hazel. "Northern Red Salamander Larva." Mountain Lake Biological Station, University of Virginia, 18 June 2010, mlbs.virginia.edu/organism/northernredsalamander. Accessed 3 Dec. 2023 Mitchell, Joe, and Whit Gibbons. Salamanders of the Southeast. University of Georgia Press, 2010, pp. 167-70. |