North GroundHuntNorth Ground Hunt — return to North Ground
Species authority page

Smallmouth salamander

Ambystoma texanum · Salamanders and newts · Amphibians

Smallmouth salamander (Ambystoma texanum): Relatively small head with a blunt, short snout, swollen behind the eyes, with the lower jaw barely protruding past the upper. Pale grey to black above with irregular light blotches that darken toward the sides; dark belly; 14-16 costal grooves; adults 11-17.8 cm. This profile does not establish whether taking it is legal anywhere.

Check rules for a place and date

Certified rules currently represented in Hunt: coverage in development. This is coverage, not a legal answer.

Scientific name
Ambystoma texanum
Family
Ambystomatidae
In North America
Native
Range
NatureServe lists it in the central US (Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and the states south to Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, and west to Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma) and in Ontario.
Biology

How to identify it

Relatively small head with a blunt, short snout, swollen behind the eyes, with the lower jaw barely protruding past the upper. [1][2]

Pale grey to black above with irregular light blotches that darken toward the sides; dark belly; 14-16 costal grooves; adults 11-17.8 cm. [1][2]

Males are smaller with longer, more compressed tails; breeding animals look paler with more conspicuous light markings. [1][2]

Larvae have light bars on an olive-green or dark-brown background. [1][2]

Field knowledge

Where it lives

Tolerates a wide range: tall-grass prairie, moist pine woodland, floodplain and oak forest and heavily farmed land; breeds in forest ponds, temporary pools, ditches and slow stream pools. [1][2]

Field knowledge

How it behaves

Secretive; hides under rotting logs, rocks or leaf litter or in crayfish and small-mammal burrows; an evening rain may bring it above ground. [1][2]

Adults eat earthworms, insects, slugs and other invertebrates; larvae are generalist aquatic predators. [1][2]

Inactive during the coldest and driest months. [1][2]

Regulatory handoff

Limited legal take

Legal take of this species exists only under narrow conditions — a quota, a draw, a permit, a small area, or animals released or held on private land — set by the authorities below. Nowhere else is a legal opportunity implied, and Hunt shows one only where a certified rule establishes it.

Where legal take is listed

Being listed is not an open season. Seasons, zones, licences, methods and limits decide whether this animal may be taken on a given day and place — check Hunt or the authority before you go. Listings read 2026-09-30.

Geospatial intelligence

Where it is found

NatureServe lists it in the central US (Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and the states south to Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, and west to Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma) and in Ontario.

Biology

Sources

Every claim above is attributed to one of these published sources.

  1. NatureServe · reviewed 2026-09-30

    NatureServe

  2. Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology · reviewed 2026-09-30

    Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology