I went out at 4:00am and found a lot of spotted salamander larvae!

Still no adults..

Woot woot!




Found in this pool at about 4:30 this morning




Thank you for everyone to help me get this far, but I still neeed more help finding the adults. Any more suggestions?

That's probably a Marbled Salamander larva (not a bad thing at all). Looks like you're in the right place. What are you trying to show in the 2nd photo? Did you see any egg masses?

I agree it looks like a Marbled Sallie, but I often find Marbled and Spotted salamanders in the same areas.

Yes, that mander was born in the fall and likely a marbled. You would be seeing egg masses or very small larvae if you were seeing maculatum. I just found a bunch of Ringed Salamander larvae a few days ago, which like marbleds are fall breeders, and that were about the same size. Likely a good pool though!

4 AM, that's dedication. That kind of desire deserves help, unlike the lazy requests that sometimes come to the forum.

yes, dedication, ive been searching 3 hours a day since middle of feb for a spotted salamander i wanna find just one!!!

Hmm..it really doesn't look like a marbled larvae to me, they are usually a lot darker and have small white spots along the sides of the body. At that size it is a pretty old larvae though. Maybe a larvae from early breeders back in January or before?

The only advice I can give on adult spotteds is check logs at the edges of vernals. Lots of leaf litter around the logs helps too.

Yeah I know, i cant figure which one it is. It has been a sorta warm winter. Averaging temps at 48ish, didnt snow once lol. But it also was a very dry winter.

It has only lightly rained twice since feburary which is why I think maybe the spotteds havnt moved around alot or somthing? But I have been to many pools, no eggs or spotted adults... this all have found. I have flipped so many logs and been through so many leave piles. What do I do? I just wanna find ONE spotted salamander adult