The dwarf salamander ranges from Texas to North Carolina and southern Florida.
It wasn’t crossing the road. It was lying quietly parallel with the yellow line and it was only 1 ¼ “ in length with a diameter hardly greater than a broom straw. It was a newly metamorphosed dwarf salamander, Eurycea quadridigitata. It was probably the smallest salamander that Jake or I had ever road hunted, and yes, I still wonder how either of us, never mind both of us, ever saw this creature that looked upon closer inspection like nothing more than a fine crack in the pavement?

Having an average adult length of 2 ¾ to 3 ¼ inches (and a record length just a hair over 3 ½ inches), at its largest the dwarf salamander is aptly named. As currently described this is probably a species complex. It is a salamander of southeastern swamplands and is small enough to hide beneath even tiny pieces of vegetative debris.

In keeping with its swampland habitat, this is a dark colored salamander. The dorsum is lighter than the sides, often bears a vague herringbone pattern and is divided by a narrow, dark, vertebral stripe that may be continuous or broken, and usually shades to a yellowish or sometimes orange color with no stripe on the tail. A dark dorsolateral stripe is present on each side. The sides and venter are grayish. There are only 4 toes on each foot.
I assure you that it was for the possibility of seeing other herp species that we had travelled to Florida’s Panhandle, but the finding of this little dwarf among dwarves was certainly noteworthy.

An adult male Florida gopher frog.
Living in a region where a goodly number of anurans exist has its herpetological ups and downs. The ups are that on almost any rainy night throughout the year we can see or hear some species of frog, toad, or treefrog. The downs are that to find some species we have to brave the chilly nights and cooler waters (remember, we are Floridian wimps!) of seasons other than midsummer. But, when we do tailor our searches a bit and search out cool weather species, we may find the gopher frog, Rana capito aesopus, a localized and secretive taxon that awaits heavy rains and flooding conditions to begin its breeding sequence.

And so it was on this night. It had rained, poured, rained, then misted all day and Jake decided this was the night when gopher frogs would be active. The problem was, he hadn’t cleared this with the gopher frogs. But Jake swore that that if I would just get him to where the frogs were he WOULD NOT come back to the car without a picture. So we headed westward to visit a known gopher frog locale.

When we arrived it was almost dark, it WAS windy, and it was cool. We could hear no gophers from the road so we, in shorts and flipflops, clawed and shoved our way through 100 feet of brambles and thorny shrubs to pond edge. By this time it was cold, windy and moonlit. But guess what? Gophers WERE singing. We got to the water and I said something to the effect of "they're here, they're singing, go get 'em Jake." His response was "ummmmmm--I forgot my camera."

By now the frogs were calling loudly so I suggested that Jake go and at least find one so he could add it to his life list. He went. I stood and shivered. Jake got 1/4 way across the pond and the frogs stopped singing. Jake stood. One frog called. Jake, sounding like a dyspeptic porcupine, produced an answering snore. Lo, the frog called again. Jake stalked s-l-o-w-l-y towards it. It was now a contest of whether the pond would evaporate or the frog would die from old age before he got to the calling site.

OK, so you've got the idea by now. The trip was a washout. Frogs 10. Jake and me, zero. But we had fun, and later that year, on a warmer and even rainier night, we were more successful. Jake got his photos.