ROMANCE AMONG THE SALAMANDERS

Warm rainy nights make me think about love.  Cue the Barry White sound track.  Unlike most, I’m thinking about salamander love.  When the night time temperatures begin to cool in the fall and the rains begin, salamanders dream of romance. (I really have no clue if they dream, but bear with me.  Is Barry White still playing in your head?…good.  Let’s get it on then.)  Salamander love begins with a walk in the rain to a lovely, hopefully fishless, pond.  (Fish will eat the salamander eggs.  They are lovely nibbles.)  There on the edge of nirvana (okay it’s still just a pond), the male and female salamander recognize each other (probably just as a male or female of the same species).  They begin their courtship dance.  A step here and a tail swish there.  If things are going well the male will deposit a packet of sperm (spermatophore) on the ground and the female will pick it up.  She will go and lay her fertilized eggs in a gelatinous blob in the water.  End of romance.  Oh, you were expecting copulation!  Bummer, salamanders don’t copulate.