Biologist Snaps First Photos of Baby Giant Salamanders

Michael Reichmuth thought he was looking at fish. The National Park Service biologist was snorkeling in California's icy Olema Creek last September, surveying salmon, when he spotted something unusual beneath the rocks.

Tiny one-inch creatures with external gills and developing legs clustered together, their pale yolk sacs still attached. Reichmuth grabbed his camera and captured what turned out to be a scientific first: newly hatched California giant salamanders in the wild.

"I've never heard of someone finding them right after they've hatched," says Gary Nafis, an amphibian expert who manages Californiaherps.com. Patrick Kleeman, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who identified the species from the photo, agrees it's the first image he's seen of this life stage.

The discovery matters because California giant salamanders are surprisingly mysterious. Despite growing 6 to 12 inches long as adults, making them one of North America's largest land salamanders, they're incredibly hard to find and study.

The blotchy brown amphibians spend most of their time underground or beneath fallen trees in redwood forests. They live only in a narrow range around San Francisco Bay, tucked into streams of the Santa Cruz Mountains, Marin County, and Sonoma County.

California considers them a Species of Special Concern. The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies them as near threatened, though scientists lack enough data to know if their population is truly declining.

That's where citizen scientists come in. Through a partnership called One Tam, researchers are asking anyone who spots a California giant salamander to upload photos to iNaturalist, a platform where observations become scientific data points.

"A single photo logged in iNaturalist can become a data point that helps fill real knowledge gaps," says Lisette Arellano, associate director for community science at the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. The observations help scientists map salamander locations, estimate population age ranges, and understand habitat needs.

The Ripple Effect: Salamanders do more than just exist in ecosystems. They reveal how healthy those ecosystems are. With permeable skin that makes them vulnerable to toxins and drought, their presence signals good environmental quality. Protecting salamanders means protecting the redwood forests and clean streams where they live, which benefits countless other species including the coho salmon Reichmuth was originally surveying.

In 2023, biologists working on a salmon habitat restoration project in Muir Woods found hundreds of giant salamanders, giving researchers an unusual chance to measure and study them. Combined with photos like Reichmuth's and citizen science observations, each data point brings scientists closer to understanding how to protect these elusive giants.

Reichmuth's accidental discovery proves that important science can happen when we pay attention to the unexpected.