{"id":8558,"date":"2011-04-02T14:38:56","date_gmt":"2011-04-02T19:38:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=8558"},"modified":"2011-04-02T14:38:56","modified_gmt":"2011-04-02T19:38:56","slug":"spotted-salamanders-off-to-late-slow-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=8558","title":{"rendered":"Spotted Salamanders Off to Late, Slow Start"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Yellow Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) Egg Sac<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A light rain sprinkled the South Coast of Massachusetts on Friday night with temperatures still hovering in the high 30s\/low 40s.\u00c2\u00a0 We had not yet seen any sign of spotted salamander mating congresses and no egg sacs so far this season because temperatures have been\u00c2\u00a0unfavorable.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, we experienced an April Fool’s Day snow storm this year.\u00c2\u00a0 Nothing to write home about, only a couple of inches of heavy flakes, but still enough to delay the kick start to spring.\u00c2\u00a0 Even frogs and spring peepers have been few and far between.\u00c2\u00a0 The wild seems eerily silent this year.<\/p>\n

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Spotted Salamander Individual Egg<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

After\u00c2\u00a0last night’s gentle rain, Turtle Journal opted to scour the shallow channels of Marion’s abandoned Goldwitz Bog this morning, and we found a small concentration of spotted salamander egg sacs in the\u00c2\u00a0very early stage of development.\u00c2\u00a0 Obviously, since it was broad daylight,\u00c2\u00a0we saw no spotted salamander specimens.<\/p>\n

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Development of Spotted Salamander Eggs and Larvae<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Combining original Turtle Journal footage from last season with material from Yale University in 1920, the video clip above documents the development phases of spotted salamander eggs.\u00c2\u00a0 The eggs we found today\u00c2\u00a0in the abandoned Goldwitz cranberry bog, as pictured above, are clearly at early stages of development.\u00c2\u00a0 You can read about last year’s nighttime\u00c2\u00a0adventure to discover the spotted salamander mating congress under Turtle Journal articles\u00c2\u00a0“Slithering Salamanders, Turtleman!\u00c2\u00a0 Why Did the Spotted Salamander Cross the Road<\/a>?”\u00c2\u00a0 and “Portrait of a Spotted Salamander<\/a>.”\u00c2\u00a0 (ASIDE:\u00c2\u00a0 Fortunately, you won’t have to read about how the Turtleman got a permanent “dueling” scar across his nose while scrambling through the bog’s\u00c2\u00a0thorny bushes in the dark of night.)<\/p>\n

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Spotted Salamander Egg Sacs in Goldwitz Bog<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Today’s egg sacs were in the same approximate location of last year’s mating congress, although much, much fewer in number.\u00c2\u00a0 We expect to see more mating activity over the coming nights, especially if there’s any warm rain in the forecast.<\/p>\n

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Close Up of Spotted Salamander Egg Sacs<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Above our camera\u00c2\u00a0zooms in on the only egg sacs that we discovered today, April 2nd.<\/p>\n

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Close Inspection Show Early Developmental Stage of Eggs<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

And the camera zooms even further to show the eggs\/embryos in\u00c2\u00a0early stages of development.<\/p>\n

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Extreme Close Up of Individual Egg Sacs<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

With an extreme close up of individual egg sacs, and comparing them to the video above, you can clearly see how early in the development process these larvae remain.\u00c2\u00a0 We suspect … based on our continuing observations of this area … that the eggs may have been deposited last night, April 1st\/2nd.<\/p>\n

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Entire Eco-System Springs to Life<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sometimes we forget how important these events are to the entire eco-system as\u00c2\u00a0colonies of interesting critters\u00c2\u00a0erupt around salamander and frog mating aggregations, a magical time on the South Coast when the entire bog springs to life and to sound.\u00c2\u00a0 We leave you with a trilling chorus of “A Little Amphibian Night Music” … an original creation by the\u00c2\u00a0Slithering South Coast Croakers.<\/p>\n

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Yellow Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) Egg Sac A light rain sprinkled the South Coast of Massachusetts on Friday night with temperatures still hovering in the high 30s\/low 40s.\u00c2\u00a0 We had not yet seen any sign of spotted salamander mating congresses and no egg sacs so far this season because temperatures have been\u00c2\u00a0unfavorable.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[287,402,826],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8558"}],"version-history":[{"count":46,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8621,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8558\/revisions\/8621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}