The time of year is finally here. Birds are singing again, daylight is stretching well into the evening and many of us are wandering back out into the yard with a shovel and a vague plan for the tomatoes, veggies and flowers soon to fill our yards.
Garden beds are being cleaned out, vegetable starts are being planned and if you’re ahead of the game, you’ve probably already begun turning over soil that hasn’t been disturbed since last fall.
In the process, you’ll encounter the usual cast of garden characters: earthworms, a slug or two and almost certainly a half-rotten tulip bulb that didn’t quite make it through winter. One thing you might not expect to see peering up at you from under your planters, however, are two big, glossy eyes – the eyes of a salamander.
You’d be correct to think that you’re most likely to find a salamander (and me, cooing at it) dozing next to a mountain stream on a pleasant spring afternoon. But unbeknownst to many folks, there’s at least one salamander species living right here in the shrub steppe and agricultural patchwork of Yakima County.
The long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum) is a funky little creature known for its stout body, broad head and colorful markings. Most individuals have a greenish-yellow stripe running down their backs, often broken into irregular splotches, with light speckling along their sides. And as their name suggests, the outer toe on their hind feet is noticeably longer than the others — an oddly charming anatomical quirk that most humans wouldn’t notice, but herpetologists instantly clock.
Long-toed salamanders belong to a group known as mole salamanders, which is a very appropriate name considering how much of their lives are spent underground. They spend much of the year tucked beneath logs, rocks, boards and loose soil, emerging when the nights are crisp and dewy. They are experts at finding the secret pockets of moisture in our dry and dusty landscape.
Around this time every year my phone starts buzzing with texts from friends.
On a crisp spring day someone flips open the lid of an irrigation valve box while turning on water for the season and suddenly they find a small dark creature blinking up at them from the corner. Someone else is cleaning out a flower bed and discovers one curled beneath a board. A friend digging through the soil turns over a coiled salamander body.
The messages usually arrive with a slightly blurry photo and some version of the same question:
“What on earth is this thing?”
Occasionally, the concern escalates.
“Is it poisonous?”
“Is it going to bite me?”
“Should I move it?”
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The short answer is no, no and please don’t.
Most salamanders (with the notable exemption of the rough-skinned newt, Taricha granulosa, which is a different story entirely) are completely harmless to people. They’re not venomous, they don’t sting and while they possess tiny teeth, the chances of one biting you are roughly equal to the chances of being bitten by your garden carrot. If anything, salamanders are far more interested in escaping your shadow than confronting it; mostly they’re just trying to live their quiet, damp little lives in the shady corners of our yards.
From a salamander’s perspective, irrigation boxes are prime real estate. Imagine you’re a creature that prefers cool, dark and moist environments. You’re trying to avoid the hot central Washington sun, and ideally, you’d like the occasional insect to wander past for a convenient snack. An irrigation box checks all the criteria.
Lift the lid in spring and you might find a salamander tucked along the wall, sitting perfectly still and waiting for the disturbance to pass. They have an almost comical ability to freeze in place – they have virtually no defense mechanisms and aren’t very fast, so it makes sense that they think if they don’t move, no one will notice them.
Despite their slightly bewildered expressions, salamanders are excellent neighbors to have in the garden. Like many amphibians, they are enthusiastic insect eaters. Beetles, flies, spiders, small worms and other tiny invertebrates all end up on the menu, and a single salamander can consume a surprising number of garden pests over time.
They also play an important role in soil health. As they move through loose dirt, rodent burrows and spaces beneath rocks and wood, salamanders help mix organic material deeper into the soil. Their presence is often a sign that the ground is retaining moisture and supporting healthy invertebrate communities. In other words, if salamanders are hanging out in your garden, you’re probably doing something right.
For most of the year, long-toed salamanders remain hidden underground, emerging mainly on brisk, damp nights. In early spring, often during rainstorms, they begin migrating to shallow pools and wetlands to breed. Salamanders prefer water bodies without fish, which would happily snack on their eggs and larvae.
In those temporary waterbodies they lay small clusters of gelatinous eggs attached to plants or sticks beneath the water’s surface. Within a few weeks the eggs hatch into tiny aquatic larvae that look a bit like miniature dragons, complete with feathery external gills waving from the sides of their heads.
Eventually those gills disappear, legs strengthen and the young salamanders leave the water behind, slipping back into the soil to begin their mostly unseen lives of terrestrial amphibians.
For the rest of the year, they live their lives beneath our feet for the most part. Their unseen existence is why it always feels a little magical when someone discovers one by accident.
To the person who found it, it may feel like some strange creature wandered into their yard from another planet. In reality, that salamander may have been living in that exact spot for months, maybe even years, sharing the space while we watered tomatoes and pulled weeds above its head; they’ve been our neighbors and garden companions the whole time.
If you find yourself opening an irrigation lid this spring and see blinking salamander eyes staring back at you, consider yourself lucky. You’ve just met one of the most unobtrusive residents of the Yakima Valley, a creature that spends most of its life hidden, diligently working the night shift beneath our gardens.
Just say hello and set the lid back gently when you’re done. After all, you wouldn’t want someone leaving the roof off your house either.
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