Good Morning Everyone!
Today, we are thrilled to kick off our new weekly series of posts, #rbwinterwildlifewednesday! Get ready because every Wednesday we'll feature a new species of wildlife that calls R. B. Winter State Park home.
To get us started, today, we're featuring one of the park's most well-known wild animals: a Red Eft! These little salamanders are the land-dwelling juvenile stage of an Eastern Red-spotted Newt. Adult Eastern Red-spotted Newts lay their eggs in Halfway Lake and the many woodland pools in the park and surrounding Bald Eagle State Forest. There, they'll spend three to five months in their larval stage after hatching. In the late summer and early fall, the larvae metamorphize into the familiar bright orangish-red salamanders and begin emerging from the waters where they were born. They'll spend the next two or three years wandering around the forest floor and can often be seen traveling or hunting worms, snails, and insects on rainy days.
Their bright coloring isn't just for looks; it warns potential predators that they'll not make a good meal as they produce a neurotoxin that saturates their bodies and can cause vomiting and other effects in anything that tries to eat them. After several years of wandering through the forest, they'll transition to their adult stage and turn yellowish to olive green. Their tail flattens out to allow them to swim easier, and they'll find a pond, lake, swamp, or slow-moving stream where they'll live for the remainder of their lives.
Photo by Friends of R. B. Winter Board Member Kyle Fawcett.
Be sure to join us next Wednesday to see what species of wildlife we feature next!
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