These belong to the family called Mole Salamanders, Family Ambystomatidae. This family has 33 species in North America.In Canada the Yellow-spotted Salamander occurs from Nova Scotia northwest to the Gaspé Peninsula and northwestern Ontario. In the United States it extends south to Georgia and eastern Texas.
Breeding sites have been located in all regions of Nova Scotia, including the plateau of the Cape Breton Highlands at 442 m above sea level, and coastal areas close to the high tide mark.
Total number of yellow spots ranges normally from 17 to 54. One adult male from North East Margaree, Inverness County, had no spots at all.
How big do they get? Here are some actual measurements:
Newly transformed young range in length from 2.6 to 3.3 cm (81 individuals measured)
Adult females are usually longer than males (12.4 to 19.4 cm for females, 10.9 to 18.3 cm for males)There are few observations of predation on salamanders because of their secretive living habits, but caddisfly larvae have been seen penetrating the egg mass and eating the developing salamander larvae.
Yellow-spotted Salamanders have been reported in the stomach contents of Brook Trout.
Many types of wetland serve as breeding sites, including old wells.
The earliest recorded observation of adult Yellow-spotted Salamanders during spring breeding is March 26, in 1973, in Colpton, Lunenburg County.
The latest recorded observation is November 4, in 1982, in the Forties area of Lunenburg County.
One mating dance was described like this: "Two males were observed courting one female in a roadside cattail pond during an overcast night. Each male moved along the bottom and gently bumped into the side of the female's body, as though nudging her with his head, then he would slide under or over her body and turn around to repeat the performance, rising to the surface occasionally for air".
The spermataphores, or packets of sperm, look like fuzzy blobs about the size of rice grains, attached to objects on the pond bottom.
Egg masses counted contained from 81 to 293 eggs. They are sometimes laid as one jellied mass, and sometimes as a number of smaller clumps.
Larvae normally mature in one summer but those developing in shaded woodland ponds may overwinter as larvae and transform the following spring. This is true at Heart-shaped Pond in Halifax, and was observed at a pond on Wolfville Ridge, Kings County.
Adult food is mostly spiders, snails, slugs, earthworms and beetles. Snails are an especially important food for juveniles.
Salamander populations appear to suffer when non-native species such as goldfish and red slider turtles are released into breeding ponds. This is a concern for salamanders in residential areas, such as Heart-shaped Pond.