Range in California: Red
Click the map for a key to
the other Ensatina subspecies
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Adult, Mendocino County |
Adult, Humboldt County, in defensive pose, with milky secretions on tail. |
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Adult, Sonoma County |
Adult, Sonoma County |
Adult, Humboldt County |
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Adult, Siskiyou County |
Adult, Mendocino County, with milky defensive secretions on tail. |
A "pure" adult E. e. oregonensis, King County, Washington
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Adult and juvenile Intergrades, Shasta County |
Juvenile, Shasta County |
Adult, Shasta County |
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Tiny juvenile, Sonoma County |
Tiny Juvenile, Mendocino County |
Hatchling, Siskiyou County |
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Underside of adult, Mendocino County |
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Habitat |
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Habitat, Shasta County |
Habitat, Humboldt County |
Habitat, 2,600 ft., Siskiyou County
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Habitat, Mendocino County |
Habitat, Sonoma County |
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You can see pictures of Oregon Ensatinas and their habitat from Washington and Oregon here.
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Short Video |
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An adult crawls around on the forest floor. A juvenile shows it can move very fast when it wants to.
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Description |
| Size |
| Adult Ensatina measure from 1 1/2 - 3 1/5 inches long ( 3.8 - 8.1 cm) from snout to vent, and 3 - 6 inches (7.5 - 15.5 cm) in total length. |
| Appearance |
A medium-sized plethodontid salamander which breathes through its smooth moist thin skin. The legs are long, and the body is relatively short, with 12 - 13 costal grooves. Nasolabial grooves are present. The tail is rounded and constricted at the base, which will differentiate this salamander from its neighbors. Males have longer, more slender tails than females, and a shorter snout with an enlarged upper lip.
This subspecies is light to dark brown above with small yellow to orange flecks. The sides are yellowish-orange and mottled with light markings. The underside is whitish with fine black speckling. There is yellow to orange coloring on the base of the limbs. Juveniles have dark blotches on the body and tail, but typically have the yellow or orange limb coloring. |
| Behavior and Natural History |
Ensatina live in relatively cool moist places on land, and stay underground during hot and dry periods where they are able to tolerate considerable dehydration. They are most active on rainy or wet nights when temperatures are moderate. High-altitude populations are also inactive during severe winter cold.
Adults have been observed marking and defending territories outside of the breeding season.
Typically feeding is done using sit-and-wait ambush tactics, catching the prey with a sticky tongue, but sometimes Ensatina will slowly stalk their prey.
Longevity has been estimated at up to 15 years.
When disturbed, Ensatina will stand tall in a stiff-legged defensive posture with its back swayed and the tail raised up. Often they secrete a milky white substance from the top of the tail. This noxious substance repels potential predators and sticks to the mouth of a predator that is trying to swallow them. When severely threatened, an Ensatina may drop its tail to distract a predator. The tail can be re-grown.
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| Sound |
| Rarely, Ensatina make a hissing sound, similar to the hissing of a snake, when threatened. (Stebbins 1951; Brodie, 1978.) |
| Diet |
| Eats a wide variety of invertebrates, including spiders, beetles, crickets, sowbugs, centipedes, millipedes, worms, snails, and termites. |
| Reproduction and Young |
Reproduction is terrestrial. Breeding takes place in Fall and Spring, but may also occur throughout the winter. At the end of the rainy season, typically April or May, females retreat to their aestivation site under bark, in rotting logs, or in underground animal burrows, and lay their eggs, remaining with them until they hatch. Females lay from 3 - 25 eggs, with 9 - 16 being average. In labs, eggs have hatched in 113 - 177 days. Young hatch fully formed and probably emerge with the Fall rains.
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| Range |
The Oregon Ensatina subspecies is traditionally reported as occuring along the Pacific coast from southwest British Columbia south to Sonoma county, but Stebbins (2003) eliminated the range of the subspecies E. e. oregonensis in California, showing instead, a very large area of intergradation in California, which would mean that this subspecies does not actually occur in California in its pure form. See Taxonomic Notes below.
Ensatina is the most widely-distributed plethodontid salamander in the West, ranging from an isolated location in the mountains of Baja California north along the extreme northwest coast of Baja California, through most of California excluding the deserts, the central valley, and high elevations in the mountains, continuing north into Oregon and Washington west of the Cascades Mountains, and farther north into Canada along the coast of southern British Columbia. Also found on Vancouver Island. |
| Habitat |
| Inhabits moist shaded evergreen and deciduous forests and oak woodlands. Found under rocks, logs, other debris, especially bark that has peeled off and fallen beside logs and trees. Most common where there is a lot of coarse woody debris on the forest foor. In dry or very cold weather, stays inside moist logs, animal burrows, under roots, woodrat nests, under rocks. |
| Taxonomic Notes |
Ensatina eschscholtzii is typically treated as a "ring" species, consisting of 7 subspecies: E. e. croceater, E. e. eschscholtzii, E. e. klauberi, E. e. oregonensis, E. e. picta, E. e. platensis, and E. e. xanthoptica, which ring the Central Valley, but do not interbreed where the rings overlap in Southern California (and possibly in the central Sierra Nevada.)
Some researchers consider Ensatina eschscholtzii to be comprised of two or more species forming a superspecies complex, recognizing E. e. klauberi found at the southern end of the ring, as a separate species - Ensatina klauberi.
Robert Stebbins refers to this taxon not as a subspecies, but as a "morphotype," which he defines as "a morphologically recognizable set of populations with a geographic range that may be out of synchrony with taxonomic findings based on molecular evidence." (Stebbins, 2003) His range map does not show this morphotype occuring in California. The California populations of E. e. oregonensis shown on older range maps are now labelled integrades by Stebbins, and we follow his map. We are dealing with these intergrades separately from the other subspecies, in order to show some of the variation in their appearance across their widespread distribution in the state. |
| Conservation Issues (Conservation Status) |
| None. |
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Taxonomy |
| Family |
Plethodontidae |
Lungless Salamanders |
| Genus |
Ensatina |
Ensatinas |
| Species |
Eschscholtzii |
Ensatina |
Subspecies
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oregonensis |
Oregon Ensatina |
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Original Description |
Ensatina eschscholtzii - Gray, 1850 - Cat. Spec. Amph. Coll. Brit. Mus., Batr. Grad., p. 48
Ensatina eschscholtzii oregonensis - Girard, 1856 - Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Vol. 8, p. 141
from Original Description Citations for the Reptiles and Amphibians of North America © Ellin Beltz
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Meaning of the Scientific Name |
Ensatina: Latin - sword shaped/similar to, possibly referring to the teeth.
eschscholtzii: honors Johann F. Eschscholtz.
oregonensis: belonging to the state of Oregon.
from Scientific and Common Names of the Reptiles and Amphibians of North America - Explained © Ellin Beltz
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Alternate Names |
None
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Related California Salamanders |
Large-blotched Ensatina
Monterey Ensatina
Painted Ensatina
Sierra Nevada Ensatina
Yellow-eyed Ensatina
Yellow-blotched Ensatina
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More Information and References |
Natureserve Explorer
California Dept. of Fish and Game
AmphibiaWeb
Speciation in Progress
Stebbins, Robert C. A Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians. 3rd Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003.
Behler, John L., & F. Wayne King. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians. Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.
Bartlett, R. D. & Patricia P. Bartlett. Guide and Reference to the Amphibians of Western North America (North of Mexico) and Hawaii. University Press of Florida, 2009.
Bishop, Sherman C. Handbook of Salamanders. Cornell University Press, 1943.
Lannoo, Michael (Editor). Amphibian Declines: The Conservation Status of United States Species. University of California Press, June 2005.
Petranka, James W. Salamanders of the United States and Canada. Smithsonian Institution, 1998.
Corkran, Charlotte & Chris Thoms. Amphibians of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Lone Pine Publishing, 1996.
Jones, Lawrence L. C. , William P. Leonard, Deanna H. Olson, editors. Amphibians of the Pacific Northwest. Seattle Audubon Society, 2005.
Leonard et. al. Amphibians of Washington and Oregon. Seattle Audubon Society, 1993.
Nussbaum, R. A., E. D. Brodie Jr., and R. M. Storm. Amphibians and Reptiles of the Pacific Northwest. Moscow, Idaho: University Press of Idaho, 1983.
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The following status listings come from the Special Animals List which is published several times each year by the California Department of Fish and Game.
This salamander is not included on the Special Animals List, which indicates that there are no significant conservation concerns for it in California.
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Organization
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Status Listing
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| U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) |
None |
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| California Endangered Species Act (CESA) |
None |
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| California Department of Fish and Game |
None |
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| Bureau of Land Management |
None |
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| USDA Forest Service |
None |
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| Natureserve Global Conservation Status Ranks |
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World Conservation Union - IUCN Red List
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