Tiger salamander

A salamander with tiger markings

The tiger salamander is among the largest terrestrial salamanders in North America, reaching over 30 centimetres in length. Its body is stout, with a broad head and small eyes, and it wears an unmistakable livery: yellow-olive blotches and bars on a brown or blackish ground, a pattern reminiscent of a tiger and the source of its name. It belongs to the mole salamander family (Ambystomatidae), the same as the axolotl.

Habitat and distribution

It lives across much of temperate North America, in very varied habitats — grasslands, woods, fields — as long as there is soft soil to dig in and pools or ponds for breeding. It is closely tied to an underground life.

Behaviour

Like other mole salamanders, it spends most of its life hidden in burrows and tunnels it digs in the ground, emerging mainly on damp, rainy nights. It feeds on worms, insects, snails and other small invertebrates. In spring it moves to pools to breed, where it lays its eggs; the aquatic larvae, with external gills, develop until metamorphosis.

Curiosities

Under some conditions the larvae may not complete metamorphosis and remain aquatic while becoming adult and reproductive, a phenomenon called neoteny — the same that permanently characterises the axolotl. The tiger salamander is sometimes kept in a terrarium, where it can live for over ten years.

Conservation

The IUCN lists the species as Least Concern: it is common and widespread. Loss of wetlands, pollution and the introduction of fish into breeding pools can nonetheless have local effects.