Home: Animals: Amphibians: Marbled Salamander

Bio Facts: Marbled Salamander
Common Name: Marbled Salamander Marbled Salamander
Scientific Name: Ambystoma opacum
Family: Ambystomatidae
Order: Caudata
Class: Amphibia
Range: Southern New England to northern Florida, west to southern Illinois, eastern Oklahoma and eastern Texas.  There are also a few small colonies near the southern perimeter of Lake Michigan.
Habitat:

Moist sandy areas to dry hillsides
Description: Measuring 3.5 to 4.25 inches, the marbled salamander is rather a chunky little amphibian.  They have light markings that are basically cross bands running together or enclosing dark spots along the entire body.  Some have a light stripe along the mid-dorsal line.  Females have gray and males have white markings that contrast dramatically with the black components of the pattern and the plain black belly.  Their limbs are relatively small and the forelimb has four toes while the hind limb has five.
Life Expectancy: n/a
Sexual Maturity: n/a
Diet: In the wild, they eat insects, worms, and other small invertebrates.
Status: Not listed
Behaviors:

Marbled salamanders stay underground most of their lives.  They may wander on rainy nights, but they take shelter before morning beneath boards, logs, stones, etc.

Breathing in Marbled Salamanders is accomplished by movements of the hyoid apparatus in the floor of the mouth and by gulping movements that result in air being “swallowed” into the lungs. 

Marbled Salamanders keep their skin moist by the secretion of mucus from small flask-shaped glands below the epidermis.

The entire outer body surface of salamanders is shed at regular intervals throughout the year.

Eyes are usually well developed in salamanders and the secretion of a gland that runs along the lower eyelid and has several openings onto the eye cleanses their surface.  The secretion is carried away from the eye to the nasal chamber by a lachrymal duct from the inner corner of the lower lid.  This is very similar to the tear duct in higher vertebrates.

The sense of smell is important in salamanders.  It is often used to locate food and also used during courtship.  Air is taken in via the external nostrils and passed through a sensory nasal cavity.  This nasal sac communicates with the cavity of the mouth by an internal nostril or choana, and hence the air from the nasal chamber usually enters the oral cavity.

Breeding takes place in autumn.  Male salamanders often stage an elaborate courtship display in front of the female prior to breeding.  Fertilization is internal and the female picks up with her cloaca a packet of sperm, known as a spermatophore, dropped by the male.  The female deposits her eggs in a low depression, which will be filled by the next good rain.  Eggs, laid in a group but unattached to one another, do not hatch until covered with water.  Until then the female will guard them.
Adaptations:

The limbs of Marbled Salamanders are relatively small and in no case are they modified for jumping.  For rapid movement, they do not use their limbs to any great extent but wriggle with the belly touching the ground.  The movement resembles a fish swimming. 

Marbled Salamanders are generally secretive and are found in out of the way places such as caves, under logs, in crevices and in the humus of the forest floor.
Special Interest:

Salamanders are long long-bodied amphibians that retain a tail throughout their life.  This makes them different from frogs and toads that lose their tail after the larval or tadpole stage.

Salamanders have the ability to shed their tail to avoid capture and the ability to regenerate another one.  They are also capable of regenerating limbs and even parts of their head.
Folklore:

Salamanders were at one time considered highly poisonous.  One superstition suggested that Salamanders were so toxic they could wind themselves around the trunk of a fruit tree and poison all the fruit so that it would kill anyone who ate it.

The skins of Salamanders were believed to be so cold that these small animals could crawl through fire without feeling the heat and even put out the flames. 

Salamanders were once thought to breed in fire and could therefore survive the hottest flames.

It was once thought that asbestos was made from the skin of a Salamander. 

The Japanese dry Salamanders and eat them in a concoction used to rid the body of worms.

The Cherokee held the belief that if you ate the meat of the Salamander and went into the fields soon after, all the crops would die. 

In heraldry, salamanders symbolize courage.
Conservation: Marbled salamanders are not considered to be of any economic importance.
Jacksonville Zoo History: n/a
Revised: January 2002