‘Slick little ground dwellers’ thought to be locally extinct found in MA, zoo says

On a rainy night in September, a team of scientists ventured into the Massachusetts woods in search of “slick little ground dwellers” that were considered locally extinct for nearly a century.

They found what they were looking for — adult marbled salamanders.

Zoo New England celebrated the salamanders’ discovery in an announcement via the Franklin Park Zoo on Sept. 30. The discovery of five adult salamanders indicates that conservationists’ efforts to re-introduce the creatures to Middlesex Fells was successful, the zoo said.

“Finding healthy adults — the first to be seen in the Middlesex Fells for almost a hundred years — makes us optimistic that the population will continue to reproduce in the coming years,” the zoo said.

The salamanders can be elusive, earning the nickname “mole salamanders” for spending most of their lives underneath logs or in burrows, the zoo says. They’re almost never seen during the day, but they lay their eggs in the fall, giving scientists a slim window to spot the amphibians.

The black-and-white salamanders are also relatively tiny. They usually cap out at less than 4.5 inches in length, according to the University of Georgia.

Despite those difficulties, the team of Zoo New England staff and volunteers found them at a pool on a rainy evening in September.

Marbled salamander larvae had been found in March “after six years of captive rearing and translocation efforts,” Zoo New England announced. The zoo said it has released hundreds of salamanders since 2016, but officials didn’t have a grasp on how many had survived or whether the species had taken hold.

“Some time in the 1930s, the salamanders became locally extinct when increasing urbanization made the habitat unsuitable for them,” the zoo said.

The salamanders are now classified as a threatened species in Massachusetts.

The lizard-like amphibians perform “a vital role of ‘nutrient cycling’ in an important local ecosystem,” the zoo said in its announcement.

Marbled salamanders are found mostly in the eastern United States, stretching from northern Florida up to New England, according to the NC Wildlife Resources Commission. Habitat loss is the species’ greatest threat, the commission says.

“Not a bad way to spend a rainy evening in September!” the zoo said.

Middlesex Fells Reservation is a nearly 2,600-acre preserve about 6 miles north of downtown Boston.

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