One interesting behavior I notice about this salamander is how raises and hooks its tail when threatened. This is an offering made to a predator to distract it from the head or body. Should it lose its tail, it will grow back. The photo at the bottom shows the tail slightly raised in this position. The tail is flattened on the dorsal sides, making it a very good swimmer. Their coloration makes them very difficult to spot when they are in the water.
Blue-spotted Salamanders are listed as "Threatened" in the state of CT, and should never be taken from the wild.
Late winter/early spring rainy nights are the best time to find this attractive, medium-sized, blue-flecked salamander. Like their larger cousins, the Spotted Salamanders, Blue-spots emerge from their burrows beneath the leaf litter to meet up and mate with each other beneath a nearby body of water. But, unlike the Spotteds, they are not limited to vernal pools and will mate in permanent swamps, where there may be fish present. However, if vernal pools are the only habitat present, laterales in the area will be dependant upon them. They lay their eggs singly or in clusters on the pond's bottom.
The Blue-spotted Salamander images were taken in a habitat supporting "LLJ" hybrids. This means 2/3 of their genes are laterale and 1/3 are jeffersonianum. In essence, they are closer to Blue-spotted than Jefferson's Salamander.
The larvae of laterale are predacious and transform into young terrestrial, and fossorial, (meaning that they dwell beneath the leaf litter) salamanders by late summer/early autumn. Their winters are spent underground.
Over the many years, the Blue-spotted Salamander has hybridized with another mole salamander, Jefferson's, forming a confusing complex of combinations. It often takes an expert, and/or DNA samples, to tell what percent of each species these hybrids are made up of. There are very few populations in Connecticut that contain pure populations of either laterale or jeffersonianum.
Juvenile Blue-spotted Salamander
Blue-spotted Salamander with tail slightly hooked and raised.
