Comparison With The Long-toed Salamander
The Santa Cruz long-toed salamander range is separate from the more common long-toed salamander. Where the range of the long-toed salamander is from Tuolumne County north, the Santa Cruz long-toed salamander is found only near a few isolated ponds in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties. Like other long-toed salamanders, its belly is sooty to dark brown, and it has tubercles on its feet. The Santa Cruz long-toed salamander has an irregular broken yellow stripe on its back, whereas the common long-toed salamander has a more regular yellow, vertical stripe. Both species have 12 or 13 costal grooves visible from the side. The Santa Cruz long-toed salamander has a measurable degree of mitochondrial DNA genetic distance from the 'coastal' or 'western' subspecies of long-toed salamander. The genetic relationship, however, is still unclear, as more evidence is needed from additional genes and individuals (Thompson and Russell 2005).
In both species, eggs are laid singly near the water surface on rush-like spikes, but sometimes in small clusters at the base of logs or sticking to vegetation in the deeper parts of a pond. Hatching larvae are about 10 mm long, and in their first summer, they grow to 50 to 100 mm, but the Santa Cruz long-toed salamander is generally considered the smaller species. The precise times of migration for both species, to and from the breeding ponds, occur during periods of sustained nighttime rainfall.
Read more about this topic: Santa Cruz Long-toed Salamander
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