Good for you, Diane.

The presence of salamanders is a very good indication of the general
health of your yard environment. When pollution rises, including
overuse of garden chemicals, some of the animals most affected are the
amphibians--frogs and salamanders in particular. Pollution has caused
drastic reductions and extinction of many amphibian species around the
world--they're like an alarm bell.
When I was a kid in Michigan, you'd find blue-spotted and red-backed
salamanders under practically any old log you turned over. If you were
really lucky, maybe one of the larger yellow-spotted ones! I like them
so much that I've got a plastic replica of one (very realistic!) that
lives on my tiled bathroom floor. It never fails to startle guests.
:^)

Now they're pretty hard to find in many places--at least I'm not
finding them very often in my mother's yard in Michigan. I was
thrilled to find one the other day under a log on the SAS campus--I
rolled a log over just to see what might be there. There was a large
blue-spotted one there--slowed down considerably because it was a cool
day. I picked it up so that I could roll the log back in place, then
put the salamander alongside so that it could quickly burrow back in
under the log again--which it did. They're beautiful, and harmless.

Cheers
Sue

On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 10:09:03 -0400, wrote:

Thanks everyone for the responses! I will leave them alone and not
disturb the balance of nature. I'll just be sure to wear gloves from
now on while working in the yard :-)

On Fri, 08 Apr 2005 14:37:20 -0400, wrote:

I recently came across a nest of what I think are salamanders while
weeding a flower bed. They are red with light black spots on their
backs, approximately 5 - 7" long, the head is around 3/4", and they
move extremely fast, About 10 of the little critters came running out
when I uncovered them, and I went running the other direction. I
thought they were snakes at first, but I saw another one later and
noticed that it has front feet. I didn't see any rear feet, but I
might not have seen them because it was moving so fast. I looked up
salamanders and it could possibly be a red salamander or a mud
salamander. My concern is that each female can lay between 70 and 200
eggs and they live for years. I'm sure they are harmless, but they
are very creepy and I don't want them taking over my yard. I have
lived in the area for 19 years and have never seen these before. Has
anyone seen these and do you have any ideas on how to get rid of them?

Thanks,
Diane