Mole Salamander (Ambystoma talpoideum)
Description: Mole salamanders are stocky, with short bodies and large heads. They can grow to 4 inches in length. They are normally gray or dark brown in color, with darker mottling and lighter gray undersides. Males can be distinguished by the presence of a swollen cloaca. Larvae and paedomorphic adults are aquatic and have large feathery gills. A. talpoideum can be distinguished from other salamander larvae by the presence of two light stripes on their underside.
Habitat: They inhabit floodplain pine or broadleaf forests, especially near gum and cypress ponds. Adults live under the surface of leaf litter while larvae are aquatic and found in ponds and ephemeral, fish-free waters.
Range: Mole salamanders are found in south eastern lowland areas of the Gulf Coastal Plains of the United States. Their main range extends from eastern Texas to southern South Carolina and inland as far as southern Illinois. It is absent from southern Florida and Louisiana, and there are separate populations in Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, northern South Carolina, northern Georgia and northern Alabama. There is also a small isolated population within the southernmost tip of Indiana.
Diet: This salamander is an opportunistic feeder, eating almost anything smaller than itself which it can overpower, including various arthropods and tadpoles. It has been revealed that A. talpoideum's diet consists almost completely of various arthropods and only a small number of other Ambystomatidae larvae.
Reproduction: The eggs are laid in the spring, during heavy rains. Some larvae undergo metamorphosis while others are neotenic and retain their gills. In larger bodies of water where predatory fish like the bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) are present, metamorphosis is more common. When ponds were dried it also showed higher rates of metamorphosis.
Status: Listed as Least Concern in view of its wide distribution and presumed large population.
»» Kingdom: Animalia - Animals
»» Phylum: Chordata - Chordates
»» Subphylum: Vertebrata - Vertebrates
»» Class: Amphibia - (Amphibians)
»» Order: Caudata - Salamanders
»» Family: Salamandridae - Newts
»» Subfamily: Pleurodelinae - Pleurodeline Newts
»» Genus: Ambystoma
»» Species: Ambystoma talpoideum - Mole Salamander
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ambystoma talpoideum", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0. Content may have been omitted from the original, but no content has been changed or extended.
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