Santa Cruz Long-toed Salamander - Life Cycle

Life Cycle

Most of this salamander's adult life is spent in upland coast live oak forest in small animal burrows during the long dry season (May to October) in coastal California. Once winter rains have soaked the soil and filled ephemeral streams, both males and females migrate up to 2 km to breeding ponds that exist only in winter. In January, the males arrive at the ponds first, in time to prepare for a nighttime courtship. When the male and female have completed their courtship, the male deposits a packet of sperm, the spermatophore, in the water, which the female retrieves and uses to fertilize her eggs. She may lay the eggs singly or in loose clusters of six to eight eggs in shallow water 5–8 cm deep.

Neither parent tends the eggs, which hatch into tadpoles in March and metamorphose into adult salamanders when the pond begins to dry out. The tadpoles commonly eat small copepods. Predators that eat long-toed salamander larvae include aquatic invertebrates, garter snakes, and other vertebrates. Other species of salamander tadpoles (larvae) compete with those of the long-toed salamander.

The breeding ponds of most species of long-toed salamanders completely dry up during the dry season. The year-round ponds likely harbor frogs, fish, and other aquatic predators that eat young salamanders, so these salamnders prefer ephemeral ponds. Most species of long-toed salamanders migrate up into nearby forests and do not spend any time near the breeding pond once they have metamorphosed and the pond is dry. A. m. croceum juveniles, though, often spend their first summer close to the breeding pond in a rodent burrow or rock fissure, only later migrating uphill into the forest. This may be because A. m. croceum breeding ponds retain water all summer.