Details
Ambystoma opacum
The marbled salamander is a sturdy forest-floor salamander of eastern North America. Pale crossbands on a black body give it a polished, marbled look.
Map: Ecoregions 2017 © RESOLVE (CC BY 4.0) · Natural Earth (PD)
In the United States it uses deciduous woods, damp leaf litter, and floodplain depressions. It is often associated with seasonal fish-free pools and wetlands.
Length is 9-12.5 cm and weight 10-25 g. The body is black with light crossbands, thick-bodied and short-legged, with subtle sex differences in band color.
Nocturnal adults shelter by day under leaves, logs, or in burrows. They are solitary and emerge on rainy nights to move slowly across the forest floor.
A carnivore, it eats earthworms, isopods, insect larvae, slugs, and other small litter animals. It hunts in damp leaf litter by sensing movement and chemical cues.
Unlike many salamanders, it breeds in autumn, laying eggs in dry pond basins or depressions near water. The female guards the clutch until rains flood the site and larvae enter the water.
It is listed as Least Concern. Local populations depend on fish-free temporary wetlands and the surrounding forest matrix.
