Salamander means "Fire lover"
The Scientific name for spotted salamanders is : Ambystoma maculatum

Ambystoma = "Blunt mouth"
Maculatum = "Spotted"

The Family is Ambystomatidae, which means "mole salamander" because they burrow underground

The Southeastern US has more salamanders than any other region in the world!

Each spotted salamander has a unique pattern of spots. Some only have a couple of spots, but most have two uneven rows of yellow-orange spots.

A spotted salamander can live as long as 20 or even 30 years.

Spotted salamanders prefer to live in woods close to their mating pool. Males usually arrive at the pools earlier than the females, after traveling as much as one third of a mile to dance and mate. That's like a human walking two and a quarter miles, or from Green Springs to SoHo.

Salamander skin is very sensitive to air pollution, so if a population is healthy, that is a good indicator that the habitat is clean.

Spotted salamanders MUST have temporary pools that appear in late winter and dry up in the summer.

Older spotted salamander adults migrate away from the breeding pools to give their offspring a better chance.

Salamanders have 10 times more DNA in each cell than humans do

Some spotted salamanders deposit eggs with a clear jelly and others deposit eggs with a cloudy jelly. No one knows if there's a benefit of one type over the other.