Eastern Newt — printable fact sheet
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Eastern Newt
Notophthalmus viridescens
Notophthalmus viridescens lives three lives. It hatches in a pond as an aquatic larva with gills, then metamorphoses into a bright orange terrestrial juvenile — the red eft — which leaves the water entirely and wanders through damp eastern American forest for anywhere from one t…
Did you know?
- The Eastern Newt's skin contains tetrodotoxin, the same potent neurotoxin found in pufferfish.
- Some populations skip the eft stage entirely and go straight from larva to aquatic adult, keeping some larval features — a flexible strategy that depends on whether the pond dries out. The adults are so unpalatable that they can coexist with fish in permanent ponds where most amphibian larvae would be eaten. An eft's skin is dry and rough, unlike the slick adult, and it is genuinely a land animal for years — not simply a juvenile passing through. Their limb regeneration is being studied specifically to understand why mammals scar where newts rebuild.
What I learned
Draw the eastern newt
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