I have a cousin, name of Doug. When I was little we called him cousin Dougie. My siblings and I always thought that Dougie was cool for several reasons. One was that he lived out in the country in, what seemed to us at the time, a huge house, with an in home theater in the basement. In the 70′s this was a lot less rare than it is today– especially in rural Wisconsin. Not everyone had projection laser disc players hooked up to top notch stereo equipment placed before a leather sectional couch! I had never been to a movie theater, but I was sure that watching Star Wars in this manner was superior to any other viewing option.
Another reason we thought highly of Dougie was that he gave us things– hand-me-down (would it be hand-me-overs from a cousin?) clothes, old toys, and animals. Yes, animals. As I recall, he gave me at least three snakes– all of which I killed (due to poor husbandry) or lost– and two salamanders.
I had never seen salamanders before, and found them fascinating. These were just your-run-of-the-mill tiger salamanders, a dull brownish-gray with dull yellow spots, but to an ignorant 9 year old, the were as exotic as a blue-faced macaque. We somehow managed to keep them alive for over a year, housing them in a fish tank, of which one half was filled with sand and the other with water, and feeding them meal worms. I do not recall what ultimately became of them, and I am sure that my conscience is the lighter for that.
Before moving to Ohio, the only other salamader I had seen was on a job site as a security guard– another tiger salamander which I found taking refuge from the heat of the day beneath an old piece of plastic.
Then last May, my sons and I were checking a little tract of land (the same one where I found this brown snake) for critters.
Suddenly we heard, “Dad, a LIZARD!” It was Joseph. Winfield and I came running quickly. While they seem rare, Five-lined Skinks do occur in our area, and we had been hoping to find one sometime. We found Joe stooped over a broken piece of clay tile looking at the little creature below. (The pics in this post may be “clicked on” to get a larger, clearer version.)
It was a salamander, the first non-tiger salamander I had ever seen. I was amazed at the fact that we found it in a semi-developed area so close to our house. I took this opportunity to explain the difference between lizards and salamanders to the boys as they had never seen either in the wild. They were rapt.
This find, coupled with all the salamanders we found in the Hocking Hills area, really piqued my interest in these little creatures. I decided to do some reading on the subject. Turns out, our library had not one, but two copies of the definitive work on Ohio Salamanders (by Pfingston and Downs). After some reading of this revisiting the Peterson field guide I came to suspect that this was an hybrid of Blue-spotted and Jefferson’s Salamanders, which is weird because neither species occurs in its pure form in our area. I will not, however, take the time to go into the fascinating biology behind this.
Anyway, as I read more, I further learned that smallmouth salamanders also live in our neck of Ohio, and that all three of these species (members of the Ambystoma genus) can be found on rainy spring nights when the temp is about 50 F, or so, making their way to the spring pools of rainwater where they breed. Often, the easiest way to find them is to cruise the roads near woods harbouring such ponds, and spot the little pilgrims as they cross the road.
So as March rolled around I watched the thermometer and the weather forcast. Finally, the right night came– Thursday, March 9. The weather had been in the 50′s and we had had a good amount of precipitation, and more was predicted to come that night. The kids and I decided to go check it out.
At about 7:30 pm (temp: 56 F, conditions: light rain) we headed out. There were two places within a mile of our house I intended to hit. One was a county nature preserve with extensive vernal pools, the other was a stretch of road between two wooded tracts of land, near where we had found our first Ohio salamander. We decided to hit the road near the woods first, and we were not disappointed. We immediately began seeing several species of frogs (Western Chorus, Leopard, and Bullfrog, the first and last of which are pictured below in the “group photo”).
Then, in the headlight, we saw something longer and slimmer in the road ahead. It was half crawling, half swimming through the scant water that lay on the road. It was a salamander. What was strange was that it looked as if it possessed characteristics of Jefferson’s, Blue-spotted, and Smallmouth Salamanders. I decided to keep a few of the dozen or so we found for purposes of making a positive ID. 
Some of these photos are not the best, and I blame the minuteness of the subjects (the largest of the salamandes was only 5 inches long), my cheap digital camera, and my general ineptness.
This one is looks almost totally like a Jefferson’s. The blue spots are a little more extensive than would be the case if it were pure, however. 
This one looks almost pure Blue-spotted in coloration, but the mouth looks Smallmouthish.
Whatever they are, they really are neet looking animals.
I emailed a prominent state herpetologist to see if he could help with a better ID. He was very interested and decided he would come by my house the next day to pick up a couple of specimens for genetic analysis. The “Jeffersonian complex” of salamanders (as it is called) is of particular interest to him. In fact he may assist in the revising of the Ohio Salamander book I referenced above.
He arrived at my house on Saturday evening, and I turned over the goods (later that night, I let the rest go). He was excited about both the salamanders I gave him as well as some previously unknown records of frogs (Western Chorus and Blanchard’s Cricket) from our county. We talked for a while, and he gave me a couple of hints on where I might find some species I had not yet seen as well as some locales he would like me to check out for him to see population persist of some old locales on record. As he left he also told me that he believed the hybrid salamander populations (which are entirely female) were using male Smallmouth salamanders to fertilize their eggs (the male reproductive cells, merely stimulate the eggs to grow; they do not contribute any genetic material–making the offspring true clones of their mothers). I decided to see if I could find any.
The following Monday night I found this animal. As you might be able to tell, it is less blue on the sides, and is not so much spotted as it is blotched. This coupled with the convex snout and small mouth led me to believe it was a Smallmouth. However since it was not a male, neither I nor my new biologist friend could say for sure (he thought it was probably a hybrid).
The really interesting thing to me about these finds is that these animals are so common in a fairly developed area. They do spend much of their “active” portion of the year underground, coming out only on humid or rainy nights to forage. The real impressive sight, however, is the spring mating migration. One warm rainy night in March, and the neighborhood looks like some sort of weird horror film. The locations at which we found many of the salamanders and the direction they were coming from seemed to indicate that they had spent the winter in peoples front yards!
Anyway, I plan to go out and do a little more field research this weekend, weather permitting. As always, I will keep you posted.