Mole salamanders are facultatively paedomorphic meaning that they may retain larval characteristics as adults and continue to live in water or complete metamorphosis and live in the terrestrial environment.
Marbled salamander characteristics.
Characteristics the marbled salamander is three to five inches long.
The marbled salamander is a medium sized 3 4 5 inches adult length thick bodied salamander with white or gray bands across a black to dark brown black body.
Ambystoma opacum the marbled salamander is found throughout most of the eastern united states from massachusetts west to central illinois southeastern missouri and oklahoma and eastern texas south to the gulf of mexico and the carolina coast it is absent from peninsular florida.
The belly may be black or brownish black occasionally with some light speckling.
The female has gray markings and the male has white markings.
The bands of females tend to be gray while those of males are more white.
Marbled salamanders spend most of their lives in self excavated burrows or those dug by small mammals and are most commonly found in deciduous or mixed pine forests on sandy soil.
Adults can grow to about 11 cm 4 in small compared to other members of its genus.
This species is sexually dimorphic males tend to have white crossbands and females tend to have gray silvery crossbands.
Marbled salamanders ambystoma opacum urodela.
Like other ambystomatids these salamanders spend most of their time underground in burrows and are infrequently seen outside of the breeding season.
They can be identified by their black dark brown body including its venter with light white silvery crossbands on the dorsum.
It has 11 12 costal grooves vertical grooves.
Background marbled salamanders are distributed across the eastern us from new hampshire to northern florida and west to lake michigan in the north and texas in the south 1 the species generally inhabits deciduous forest and prairie and is absent from much of the appalachian mountains 1 2 in massachusetts it is present at relatively low abundances partially due to being at the extreme.
The decision to undergo.
Disjunct populations are found in eastern missouri central illinois in northwest ohio.
The marbled salamander is a stocky boldly banded salamander.
Marbled salamanders grow to about 3 5 4 25 in 9 10 7 cm in size and are stout bodied and chubby in appearance.
Adults are found in forested habitats and seem to prefer sandy pine forests more than the marbled salamander.
The marbled salamander varies in length from 9 10 7 cm 3 5 4 2 in.
Range the marbled salamander can be found from southern new hampshire to northern florida and west to.
