The Frosted Flatwoods Salamander (Ambystoma cingulatum) is a small (9-13.5 cm total length), elongate species of mole salamander. It has a small, indistinct head, short legs, and a long, rounded tail. Typical coloration consists of a background of brownish black to purplish black overlaid with narrow gray or silvery white reticulations (net-like markings), bands, or diffuse spotting. The gilled aquatic larvae are distinctly colored, having a series of bold brown and yellow longitudinal stripes.

The Frosted Flatwoods Salamander has a very narrow geographic distribution, occurring only in the southeastern coastal plain of the United States. It inhabits seasonally wet pine flatwoods

Flatwoods

Flatwoods, Pineywoods, Longleaf Pine-Wiregrass Ecosystem refers to an ecological community in the Southeastern coastal plain of North America...

 and pine savannas

Eastern savannas of the United States

The eastern savannas of the United States covered large portions of the east side of the continent until the early 20th century. These were in a fire ecology of open grassland and forests with low ground cover of herbs and grasses....

 east of the Apalachicola River

Apalachicola River

The Apalachicola River is a river, approximately 112 mi long in the State of Florida. This river's large watershed, known as the ACF River Basin for short, drains an area of approximately into the Gulf of Mexico. The distance to its farthest headstream in northeast Georgia is approximately 500...

 in northern Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, southern South Carolina

South Carolina

South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

, and southern Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

(Pauly et al. 2007). Prior to European settlement, it was most likely a common member of the fire-maintained longleaf Pine

Longleaf Pine

Pinus palustris, commonly known as the Longleaf Pine, is a pine native to the southeastern United States, found along the coastal plain from eastern Texas to southeast Virginia extending into northern and central Florida....

 (Pinus palustris)-wiregrass

Wiregrass

The name wiregrass may refer to:* Poaceae grasses** Aristida , especially A. stricta , A. junciformis and A...

 (Aristida spp.) community, which has since largely been replaced by urban development, agriculture, and pine silviculture. A recently published study documents the extirpation

Local extinction

Local extinction, also known as extirpation, is the condition of a species which ceases to exist in the chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere...

 of a sizable breeding population as a result of a common silvicultural practice of converting natural pine forest to ditched and bedded slash pine plantation (Means et al. 1996). Further degradation of remaining Frosted Flatwoods Salamander habitat has occurred as a result of the suppression of natural summer wildfires, allowing native ephemeral wetland communities to succeed to dense tangles of hardwood shrubs. As a result of these ongoing land use activities, populations are now extremely discontinuous and widely fragmented throughout the range as longleaf pine habitat is destroyed and degraded. It is currently restricted to a handful of remaining sites in Florida and Georgia, and has an especially tenuous presence in South Carolina.

The Frosted Flatwoods Salamander breeds in small, shallow, ephemeral ponds, generally characterized by an overstory of pond cypress (Taxodium ascendens

Taxodium ascendens

Taxodium ascendens, also known as Pond Cypress, is a deciduous conifer of the genus Taxodium, native to North America. Many botanists treat it as a variety of Bald Cypress, Taxodium distichum Taxodium ascendens, also known as Pond Cypress, is a deciduous conifer of the genus Taxodium, native to...

) and black tupelo

Black Tupelo

Nyssa sylvatica, commonly known as black tupelo, tupelo, or black gum, is a medium-sized deciduous tree native to eastern North America from New England and southern Ontario south to central Florida and eastern Texas, as well as Mexico.-Names:Nyssa sylvaticas genus name refers to a Greek water...

 (Nyssa sylvatica var. biflora) and a diverse understory of native grasses and herbs. Adult salamanders spend most of the year underground in burrows, especially those of crayfish

Crayfish

Crayfish, crawfish, or crawdads – members of the superfamilies Astacoidea and Parastacoidea – are freshwater crustaceans resembling small lobsters, to which they are related...

, where they feed on a variety of small invertebrates. From September through December, adults migrate from surrounding upland habitats to their natal wetlands during rainfall events associated with passing cold fronts. Courtship presumably occurs within dry pond basins or very shallow water, where the female accepts a spermatophore that has been deposited on the substrate by the male. Females lay eggs in small groups, usually within clumps of moist vegetation or in the entrances of crayfish burrows in the dry pond basin. The eggs hatch in response to inundation by rising water levels in the pond basins. The larval period lasts approximately 3 months, with metamorphs leaving the breeding ponds in late spring. Sexual maturity is approximately 1-2 years for males and 2-3 years for females.

Conservation

The Flatwoods Salamander was listed as Federally Threatened by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in 1999 but populations continue to decline. When the species was separated into two species in 2007, the Frosted Flatwoods Salamander and Reticulated Flatwoods Salamander

Reticulated Flatwoods Salamander

The Reticulated Flatwoods Salamander is a species of mole salamander that is native to a small portion of the southeastern coastal plain in the western panhandle of Florida and extreme southwestern Georgia. The species once occurred in portions of southern Alabama but is now considered extirpated...

, the Frosted Flatwoods Salamander maintained Threatened status while the Reticulated Flatwoods Salamander (Ambystoma bishopi) was soon placed on the Federally Endangered list (Federal Register, Vol. 74, No. 26).

External links

• Coastal Plains Institute. Research facility dedicated to the preservation of the herpetofauna
  Herpetology
  Herpetology is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians and reptiles...
  
   characteristic of the Atlantic Coastal Plain
  Atlantic Coastal Plain
  The Atlantic coastal plain has both low elevation and low relief, but it is also a relatively flat landform extending from the New York Bight southward to a Georgia/Florida section of the Eastern Continental Divide, which demarcates the plain from the ACF River Basin in the Gulf Coastal Plain to...
  
  including the Flatwoods Salamander.