Eastern Tiger Salamander
Ambystoma tigrinum
(click image to enlarge)

Appearance: The Tiger Salamander is the largest terrestrial salamander in the East. Although adults have been recorded at over one foot in length, they are generally substantially shorter (six to eight inches). This salamander is generally black or dark gray with bold, yellow dorsal blotches or crossbands.

Habits and Habitat: The Tiger Salamander is the most broadly distributed species of salamander in the United States, and it occupies a wide variety of habitats. Like all mole salamanders, Tiger Salamanders burrow and are known to occupy moist soils around small ponds or in wet forests. Grasslands and fields are also used, and areas with sandy or friable soils are preferred.

Reproduction/Egg Description: In eastern populations, adults migrate to breeding sites between late fall and late spring during rainy weather, with breeding usually occurring in the winter months. Preferred breeding locations include ephemeral ponds, pools, and ditches as well as permanent (fish-free) ponds and small lakes. Eggs are laid in globular masses of about 50 and are attached to submerged vegetation. Larvae may transform and emerge from ponds in spring and summer months, but in permanent bodies of water they may overwinter, attaining large sizes before transforming the following year.

Distribution and Abundance: The eastern subspecies of the Tiger Salamander occupies the the Midwest and Upper Midwest, eastern Texas and the Coastal Plain of the Southeast. Tiger Salamanders are absent from the lower Mississippi Valley, the Appalachian Mountains, New England, and peninsular Florida. Tiger Salamanders appear to be in decline in many parts of their range as appropriate breeding sites are either lost to development or are stocked with fish, rendering them unsuitable as breeding habitat.

SE ARMI Index Sites: Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge (Eastern Tiger Salamander, Ambystoma tigrinum tigrinum).