Salamanders

Celebrate Amphibian Week With Knowledge, Action

May 5, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Amphibian Week occurs during the first full week in May and was created to raise awareness about these creatures which are severely threatened and are currently the most threatened vertebrate class globally.

A 2023 global assessment found that 40.7% of all amphibian species are threatened with extinction. The crisis is driven by habitat loss, pollution, and increasing impacts from climate change, with roughly two in five species at risk. [Read more…] about Celebrate Amphibian Week With Knowledge, Action

The Lengthening Days of Spring

March 19, 2026 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Light in the evening brings the first sign of spring’s arrival. Before the snow has fully melted or any scraps of green start to appear, those lengthening days are a promise. Just when I’ve forgotten the world was ever anything except cold and gray, I’ll step outside into a mauve six o’clock sunset and remind myself to be patient.

Soon the salamanders will be stirring in the leaf litter, the fiddleheads will poke their sleepy heads above the ground, and color will return. But how does the forest know when spring has truly arrived? [Read more…] about The Lengthening Days of Spring

Preparing for Amphibian Migrations; Volunteers Sought

January 28, 2026 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Beneath the towering trees of New York State, under the leaves and rotting logs, lives a group of amphibians. Nocturnal in their behavior and hunkered down in underground retreats, forest salamanders often go undetected – until they move on rainy nights in large numbers for their annual breeding migrations to vernal pools.

Along with wood frogs, these amphibians encounter many roads that bisect their habitat, and in some places, they also encounter volunteers who lend a hand to provide safe passage. You can be one of the those volunteers. [Read more…] about Preparing for Amphibian Migrations; Volunteers Sought

Vernal Pools on the Rensselaer Plateau

April 27, 2025 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

Winter lingers long on the Rensselaer Plateau. The snow piles deep, muffling the landscape in an icy hush, and the trees stand still in their frozen slumber. But as the days lengthen and the sun begins its slow work of softening the land, the transformation begins.

The snow melts, trickling down into the forest floor, pooling in low spots, carving out secret, glistening pockets of water between the trees. These pools, often small and shallow, are the first sign of life returning to the woods. [Read more…] about Vernal Pools on the Rensselaer Plateau

Ed Kanze’s Nature of the Place Reflects on Adirondack Flora and Fauna

April 14, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Nature of the Place: On the Flora and Fauna of the Adirondacks (North Country Books, 2025) is Adirondack nature writer Edward Kanze’s invitation to slow down, smell the roses, and get to know fellow creatures with more longstanding claims to this landscape than we have.

Theirs is the real internet Kanze argues, a web of life that weaves together an almost infinite number of threads into a fabric that’s a wonder to behold and something close to a miracle in a largely hostile universe. [Read more…] about Ed Kanze’s Nature of the Place Reflects on Adirondack Flora and Fauna

Vernal Pools: Nursery for Amphibians, Buffet for Predators

April 11, 2025 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

When the winter snow melts and the spring rain begins, vernal pools appear on the landscape. These ephemeral wetlands form in depressions in forests or ridge lines and offer essential breeding habitat to amphibians and invertebrates, including wood frogs, spotted salamanders, and fairy shrimp.

Because vernal pools dry up in high summer and are disconnected from other waterways, fish cannot survive in them – making them uniquely attractive to many amphibian and invertebrate species. [Read more…] about Vernal Pools: Nursery for Amphibians, Buffet for Predators

The Many Lives of the Eastern Newt

March 28, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

You’re probably familiar with the basic amphibian life plan: start as a wriggly water-breathing tadpole, transform into an adult that breathes air. This is the pattern followed by all our frogs and toads, and our mole salamanders as well.

Enter the eastern newt, an amphibian with three different forms, whose ability to transform its body and its lifestyle makes its peers look like amateurs. [Read more…] about The Many Lives of the Eastern Newt

Tree Cavities: Prime Real Estate for Wildlife

March 14, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Tree cavities are a precious commodity for wildlife. It has been estimated that about one-fourth of northeastern forest wildlife species need trees with cavities.

Some cavities are excavated by birds while others are created by decay and broken branches. Trees with cavities are used by wildlife for nesting and raising young, protection from predators, a place to store food, hibernation, and roosting. [Read more…] about Tree Cavities: Prime Real Estate for Wildlife

The Winter Lives of Salamanders

December 5, 2024 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

In the cold October air, my classmates and I gathered around the square oak board placed on the ground more than a year earlier. Carefully, we lifted it and peered underneath.

Against the dark brown soil, two shiny lines caught our attention: salamanders. Both were Eastern red-backed salamanders (Plethodon cinereus), the most abundant salamander species in the Northeast. [Read more…] about The Winter Lives of Salamanders

Headwater Streams: Vital Sources of Clean Water

April 19, 2024 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

For nearly 15 years, I have been exploring the headwaters of a river near my home. The entire drainage area, encompassing all the streams, rainfall, and snowmelt that pass into a single river, is called a watershed.

Within each watershed, a system of rivers and streams forms a network, in which small first-order streams (headwaters) meet to form second-order streams that converge to form third-order streams, and so on. [Read more…] about Headwater Streams: Vital Sources of Clean Water

Mild Weather Spurs Early Salamander and Frog Migration in Hudson Valley

March 8, 2024 by Editorial Staff 2 Comments

In late winter and early spring, amphibian species like wood frog (Lithobates sylvatica), spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum), and Jefferson-blue spotted salamander (Ambystoma jeffersonianum x laterale) emerge from underground shelters in the forest and head to vernal pools for breeding. [Read more…] about Mild Weather Spurs Early Salamander and Frog Migration in Hudson Valley

The Inevitable First Frost

September 23, 2023 by Tom Kalinowski Leave a Comment

It is inevitable. Regardless of how nice the summer has been, a time comes in September when the first frost of the season coats every exposed surface with a layer of ice crystals and brings about the official end of the growing season. [Read more…] about The Inevitable First Frost

The Amphibian Migrations and Road Crossings Project

April 15, 2023 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

In March and April throughout New York State, community volunteers get out their flashlights, reflective safety vests, and rain-gear in anticipation of annual amphibian breeding migrations.

Volunteers can document the migration and help salamanders and frogs as part of DEC’s annual Amphibian Migrations and Road Crossings Project. [Read more…] about The Amphibian Migrations and Road Crossings Project

Northeastern Stream Salamanders

April 30, 2022 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The life cycles of the three species of stream salamanders native to the Northeast – northern two-lined, northern dusky, and spring – are closely tied to the small streams where they are found. All three species belong to the Plethodontidae family, which are lungless salamanders that breathe through their skin.

Stream salamanders forage for small invertebrates both on land and in water and have a lengthy aquatic larval stage during which breathing is done with gills. The presence and persistence of these amphibians, therefore, can be greatly affected by the condition of the forested buffer along streams, as well as other factors, including atmospheric pollution. [Read more…] about Northeastern Stream Salamanders

Critter Crossings: Amphibians In Spring

May 13, 2021 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

There’s a myth environmental educators like to tell, and it goes something like this: after every long northern winter, spring returns. Days lengthen, temperatures rise, the snowpack slowly disappears, and one afternoon, it begins to rain – a soaking, 45-degree rain that continues well into the night.

On that one big night, all of the wood frogs and salamanders and spring peepers clamber out of their winter burrows and migrate – up to a quarter-mile, on tiny feet – to their breeding pools. An explosion of life, all on that one big night. We call this myth: Big Night. [Read more…] about Critter Crossings: Amphibians In Spring

Salamander Mysteries: Complicated Genetics

April 3, 2021 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

On a warm, rainy April night a few years ago, I drove up our muddy, rutted dirt road through the mist, steering around the wood frogs hopping across the road. As I approached the vernal pool, there were more frogs in the road, so I parked to avoid hitting them and walked the rest of the way. [Read more…] about Salamander Mysteries: Complicated Genetics

Amphibians Aglow: Biofluorescence On Show

August 22, 2020 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The living light of bioluminescent organisms like fireflies, anglerfish, and marine plankton is legendary.

The dazzling light shows put on by synchronous fireflies in Great Smoky Mountains National Park are so popular that park managers have had to institute a lottery system for viewing them.

An entire recreation industry has grown up around kayaking through glowing surf from Florida to Washington.

And a few years ago, I even saw someone dressed as a deep-sea anglerfish at a Halloween concert – complete with glowstick lure dangling from her forehead. [Read more…] about Amphibians Aglow: Biofluorescence On Show

Outside Story: Life In A Swamp

July 25, 2020 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

There was a sucking sound as my rubber boot sank into the deep black muck. Naturalist Jon Binhammer and I were standing in the middle of a hardwood swamp in central Vermont.

Above us, dainty red flowers clung to the still-bare branches of red maple trees and fat black buds encircled the stems of black ash. Though the trees in the surrounding uplands had leafed out, the swamp was cooler, and these trees had not yet unfurled their leaves.

Bright yellow blooms of marsh marigold covered the swamp’s floor, growing out of mud and pools of water. Speckled alder shrubs, named for their spotted stems, were scattered about. In the distance we heard the “kuk-kuk-kuk” of a pileated woodpecker and the “toolili” of a blue jay. [Read more…] about Outside Story: Life In A Swamp

Salamanders

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