Description: It is typically dark gray, brown, or black on its dorsal surface, but a lighter shade on its anterior. Some individuals may also have silver or blue specks on their sides; the area around the vent is usually gray. These salamanders are slender, with a wide nose and distinctive long toes, and range in size from 4.3 to 7.1 inches.

Habitat: The secretive adults tend to hide under stones or logs, or in leaf litter and other underbrush in deciduous forests during damp conditions. They are usually not found in conifer forests, likely due to the dryness and prickliness of some pine and spruce needles, which may injure amphibians with their thin skins. They are found burrowed underground for most of the year during dry or freezing conditions. They must get below the frost line (about 18 inches) in order to survive winter conditions in northern latitudes. They often burrow in rich sandy soils found in upland deciduous forests or sometimes in older-growth damp hemlock forests.

Range: This species' range was mapped as encompassing an area in the United States of America from southeastern New York through Pennsylvania and eastern and southern Ohio to southern Indiana, and southward to south-central Kentucky and northern Virginia, with an extensive area of hybridisation with Ambystoma laterale northward of this range to eastern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, Upper Peninsula of Michigan, southern Ontario, southern Quebec, and eastward to Nova Scotia.

Found in these States: CT | IL | IN | KY | MA | MD | MI | NH | NJ | NY | OH | PA | RI | VA | VT | WV

Diet: The larvae are carnivorous, typically consuming aquatic invertebrates. An insufficient food supply may result in cannibalistic behaviour. Adults are also carnivorous, eating a variety of small invertebrates.

Reproduction: Eggs are laid in small agglomerations attached to submerged twigs or other natural support at the pond's edge. Clutches can contain between 5 and 60 eggs, averaging about 30. The age at which they first breed, and the frequency with which they breed, are unknown; females are estimated to first breed at 22 months, and males at 34 months. Eggs develop rapidly, and may hatch within 15 days. Larvae stay in the pond from two to four months, during which time they grow to between 3 and 8 times their hatching size.

Status: Listed as Least Concern in view of its wide distribution and presumed large population.

Taxonomy: