Jello in Nature

About this time of the year if you were to take a walk around wetland areas that have some depressions in the ground; filled with water, it is very possible you may see some jello-like clumps that are clear to a cloudy -white color ( though they can sometimes be a brownish color too) with black spots all over them. These jello looking clumps are salamander eggs.

Spotted Salamander Egg Mass

These eggs in particular are Spotted Salamander eggs.  You  may remember me writing a blog about Marbled Salamanders a while back. Well, the spotted salamander and marbled salamanders are in the same family; the Mole Salamander family (they get that name because they spend alot of time underground). The genus name is Ambystomatidae for anyone wanting to know the fancy, science term.   

The Spotted Salamander will have either a lot of orange and/or yellow spots or very little spotting. It dines on insects and other small critters. Typically it spends much of the year underground, but after a warm rainstorm during the late winter to early spring, will come above ground and migrate to nearby temporal pools.

Spotted  Salamander

In the pools, according to Amphibians and Reptiles of the Carolinas and Virginia by Jeffrey C. Beane, Alvin L. Braswell, Joseph C. Mitchell, et al. "Up to 350 eggs are laid in clear to opaque, jellylike masses attached to sticks and stems in the water." The salamanders will soon after return underground.

Temporary Pool

 

Spotted Salamander Eggs from temporary pool pictured above

Spotted Salamander  Egg Mass attached to a stick

Eventually the eggs hatch into larvae and then later, the larvae transforms into a salamander. Pictured below is a morphed Spotted Salamander.

Photo by ME.

In this blog I am focusing on the eggs, but I would encourage you the reader to do some research on your own and learn more
about the larvae and about the spotted salamander in general as it is a very interesting species!

Photos are by ME.