User:Pranavsheo/Sierra newt
Range and habitat[edit]
Sierra newts exist primarily in between the Cascades and Sierra Nevada, because they prefer less humid climates than the rough-skinned newts. The Sierra newt migrates between aquatic and terrestrial habitats seasonally. Outside the breeding season, the newts are land-dwelling, preferring rock crevices and logs, in habitats such as forests, woodlands, and shrub-lands. However, during breeding season, the newts will migrate to aquatic regions to mate and lay eggs. [1]
Reproduction[edit]
Reproduction occurs generally between March and early May. Typically, the adult newts will return to the pool in which they hatched between January and February. After a mating dance, the male mounts the female and rubs his chin on her nose. He then attaches a spermatophore to the substrate, which she will retrieve into her cloaca.
The egg mass released by the female contains between seven and 30 eggs, and is roughly the consistency of a thick gelatin dessert. Typically, the egg masses are attached to stream plant roots or to rocky crevices in small, pools of slow-moving water, but they have also been known to be attached to underwater rocks or leaf debris. While shallow in a wide sense, these pools are rather deep relative to the average depth of a Southern California stream, varying in depth from about 1–2 metres (3.3–6.6 ft).
Adult newts will stay in the pools throughout the breeding season, and can be occasionally found well into the summer. Larvae hatch sometime in early to midsummer, depending on local water temperature. However, the typical incubation length is between 14 and 52 days, varying primarily to water temperatures[1].
Larvae are difficult to find in streams, as they blend in well with the sandy bottom, to which they usually stay close. After the Larvae period which usually lasts till early fall or late summer, the newt will move to terrestrial habitats till they come back to reproduce in 5 to 8 years.[1]