Description: A very small (to 2.6 inches), slender terrestrial salamander with only four toes on the hind foot, 12 to 14 costal grooves, and no constriction at the base of the tail, which at the base is square-like in cross-section, round posteriorly, and lacks a keel. Color and patterning highly variable. Dorsal coloration copper, bronze, gold, or brownish-orange, and ranging from patternless to bearing a mid.dorsal stripe or being marked with a faint to bold herring bone pattern; dorsolateral stripe usually black to dark gray, narrow anteriorly and widening toward the tail. Gray, white, or bluish flecking sometimes on head and adjacent to dorsolateral stripe and onto tail. Ventral surface of head white, which extends onto body, commonly becoming silvery but replaced by yellow by mid-body (sometimes) and beneath tail (always). Cirri (a pair of fleshy protruberances below the nostrils) present in males during breeding season.

Habitat: A wetland species mainly found in hillside seepage bogs and commonly associated with pitcher plants and sphagnum moss.

Range: It is found only in a small portion of the Gulf Coast of the United States, being found in the western Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama and Mississippi. It is likely the most geographically restricted of all species in the dwarf salamander complex.

Found in these States: FL | GA | MS

Diet: Various small invertebrates

Reproduction: Females bear eggs in January and February; gilled larvae have been found from February to June.

Status: Its highly restricted range, both state and global, coupled with loss of Lower Coastal Plain pitcher plant bogs that are its primary habitat, make this a species of high conservation concern in need of further distributional and population data. Potentially, the species may merit threatened species status at federal or state levels. At least some populations occur on federal and state lands in the panhandle, notably Eglin Air Force Base and Blackwater River State Forest, although this does not assure their perpetuation.

Taxonomy: It was previously thought to be a population of the Coastal Plain dwarf salamander (E. quadridigitata) but a 2017 study found it to be a distinct species based on genetic evidence, and described it as E. sphagnicola. It is unlikely that any previous studies had analyzed populations of this species.