• Large, robust salamander
• Black, dark grey to dark brown base colour, with yellow spots on back, tail, legs, and head
• Spots may be absent
• Grey belly
• Snout blunt
• Prominent costal grooves
  

• 10.8 to 24.8 cm
  

• Extends north to Lake Nipigon
  

• Widespread and locally common in southern and central Ontario
  

• Moist deciduous and mixed forests with closed canopy
• Forest floor under leaf litter, logs, and in rock crevices
  
• Usually no farther than 800 meters from breeding pools
• Uses burrows of other animals
  

• Vernal Pools or ephemeral wetlands adjacent to woodlands
  

• Late March to the mid-April
  

• Not Applicable to humans
  

• 1 to 250 eggs in a oval egg mass (6-10 cm) surrounded by a gelatinous matrix
• Egg masses attached to submerged sticks or other vegetation
  
• Egg masses clear to opaque, but may turn green with algae
  
• Hatch in 20 to 60 days
  

• 1.2 – 4 cm
• Greenish grey to brown above with small yellowish flecks on sides
• External gill

• About 6 cm
• Dark grey or brown with scattered greenish yellow flecks
• Dull yellow or tan bellies
  

• Adults to breeding vernal pools and wetlands in late March to late April
• Breeding migration usually takes place on the first warm rainy nights of early spring.\
• Juvenile migration late July to September
• Appear to use the same routes year after year
  

Small aquatic crustaceans, insect larvae, mollusks, tiny fish, and the larvae of other amphibians

• Diving Beetles, Giant Water Bugs, Caddisfly larvae, and Dragonfly nymphs, fish, Eastern Newts, and the larvae of other Ambystoma salamanders
  

• Worms, snails, slugs, insects, millipedes, spiders, and other invertebrates

• Snakes, turtles, herons, and raccoons

• Introduction of fish may affect the survival of larval salamanders
• Habitat loss and pesticide use may also reduce numbers in populations
• Sensitive to disturbance by logging or grazing
• Fatal encounters with automobiles during migration