What's Your Nature?

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Eastern (Red-Spotted) Newt

Posted by Clare Jenkins,
North Country explorer from Colton, New York
July 27, 2013

While doing some trail work off the Northville-Lake Placid trail, our group passed a pond which was full of large salamanders. Due to their aquatic habitat, these are classified as newts and are the adult stage of their adolescent form, the red eft. The efts are small salamanders that are easily spotted on damp days in the woods due to their distinctive bright red coloring and red spots. The adult form loses this red coloration and instead turns an olive-green color, but retains the red spots, as well as developing a fin on their tail for better movement in the water. The adult then lays eggs on underwater plants which, in a month or two, hatch into the tadpole stage of the newt.