Spotted larvae???

[kevinopp]

I live in the Catskills in NY, and have recently done some night herping as the amphibian season is kicking into gear.

in a long watery ditch that we have, i found many, many eggs that i ID'd as wood frogs and spotted salamander eggs. the sally eggs were classic; baseball size foggy jelly with deep green eggs inside and the larva. i brought them home and hatched them in an aquarium. (also caught an adult spotted that night). they were born with gills, but they "resorbed" a few days later, and now, one week into their hatching, there are no gills to be seen at all.

this is my first time palying with spotted larva, but i thought they should have gills the entire time. was my ID mistaken, or will the gills become more prominent? i can take good macro shots if that would help, but there's no gills there!!!

 

[Zach42]

Little late on this, but yea sounds like a case of mistaken ID. You probably got wood frog eggs. Sally eggs tend to be not as clumpy as frog eggs and they are more in the shape of a long glob. They are also typically submerged when found rather then floating like frog eggs. Hope this helps!