Mar. 9, 2009

Salamander Mating

(I'm going to try this again.  Firefox crashed last night and, surprisingly, ate my long entry I had typed up. ) Yes, it's that time of year again!  Spring is in the air and the spotted salamanders are feeling especially social! Isn't he cute?!  Spotted salamanders belong to the family of salamanders known as mole salamanders.  Mole salamanders spend the majority of their year underground, eating yummy things like earthworms and other invertebrates.  They do come out this time of year to return to the vernal pool of their birth to mate.  The males arrive first, scoping out prime spots in the pool in which to deposit their packets of sperm, called spermatophores.  The females arrive later, according to some mysterious timetable that somehow involves rain.  When the females arrive at the pool, the males begin vying for their attention.  This is accomplished by nudging the females. Somehow, the females find this exciting and will then choose the male who nudges them the best.  They will follow this male (with the nudging skilz) to where his spermatophore is.  She will then insert the spermatophore in her cloaca, where internal fertilization will take place. She will later lay a gelatinous mass of eggs in the vernal pool: (I took this picture on a previous expedition.  Those are baby salamanders in there!) Anyway, Saturday night was the park district's best guess on when the salamanders would be mating.  So I grabbed the girls and our flashlights and headed for the park.  (Katie was in full-blown 13 year-old mode and did not want to come. ) It was a gorgeous night!  I mean, all of Saturday was so gorgeous  I was practically giddy.  I felt like Anne:  "Don't you feel as if you just loved the whole world on a morning like this?"  So having a chance to go to the park on a beautiful, warm, moonlit night was the perfect way to end the day. The moonlight was so wonderful.  We walked without flashlights most of the time, the silver light spilling through the still-bare trees onto the path, making it glow a pale white.  The dark clouds were scudding across the sky, blown by the high winds, and making the moon look as if it were flying instead. When we got to the pond, we saw several male salamanders in the pool.  Because it had decided not to rain (hence the moonlight), we didn't see any salamanders making their way to the pool.  We did hear a few, brave spring peepers attempting to get a riotous chorus started.  Mostly they failed, but it was good to hear them trying.  We never did find any, however.  There simply weren't enough out to find yet. We did scare a mallard pair who had settled in for the night.  Poor things.  They probably thought they had a sweet spot to spend the night in, and suddenly they were surrounded by loud people and kids with flashlights! Though we didn't find any salamanders hanging around outside of the pool, it was still cool to see those in the water.  And we headed home shortly thereafter.  I really am practically beside myself with joy over springtime this year!  I think with the renewed hope I have in my heart, the new life I see springing up around me is a tangible picture of what is in my soul.

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