By Linda Martinson

Following up with salamanders: I’ve tried a few times, but I haven’t been able to find any salamanders in the evening to train my blue light flashlight on them to see their psychedelic colors. I checked with a bonafide biologist who (even better) was a camp counselor for a few summers at Camp Kanuga. She described gathering some campers and fishing around in shallow marshy pond areas with their hands and pulling out salamanders to examine with regular flashlights. Hmm…I was hoping for something a little different. Maybe less fishing around with my hands in marshy areas at night and more watching them crawl out voluntarily while I shine my blue light flashlight on them. I’ll keep you posted.

We have, however, seen twelve red efts so far this summer! Red efts are eastern red-spotted newts, a common salamander in our area, in the juvenile stage of their lives during which they have lungs. They don’t need to live in water, and they disperse terrestrially in all directions. These newts hatch with gills and no lungs in the water and, in the final adult stage of their lives, they return to the water again to mate and lay eggs. As adults, they become thin-skinned, dull colored and lungless salamanders again that have to remain moist and concentrate on reproduction. Hopefully, they have some fleeting memories of their five to seven years as bright red, completely terrestrial, lunged and thick-skinned, toxic and cocky juvenile red efts.

LM photos