{"id":9781,"date":"2023-07-18T10:46:40","date_gmt":"2023-07-18T15:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/richard.rathe.org\/?p=9781"},"modified":"2023-07-18T10:54:28","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T15:54:28","slug":"red-eft-newt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/2023\/red-eft-newt","title":{"rendered":"Red Eft Newt"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/richard.rathe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/red-eft-newt-1.jpg\" alt=\"Red Eft On the Move\"\/><figcaption><em>Red Eft On the Move<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\nI was recently walking through a dense hemlock forest in upstate New York where I came across some chewed-up mushrooms and several little orange critters crawling around them. I instantly thought a) salamanders? and b) they must be eating the mushrooms. Turns out I was right on the first point and only half-right on the second.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\nI had met what are generally referred to as &#8220;Red Efts&#8221;. They are the juvenile (eft) form of the <em>Eastern or Orange Spotted Newt<\/em> (<em>Notophthalmus viridscens<\/em>, a type of salamander). It turns out they weren&#8217;t eating the mushrooms, they were eating the smaller animals that were eating the mushrooms.\n<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/richard.rathe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/red-eft-newt-2.jpg\" alt=\"Red Eft from Above\"\/><figcaption><em>Red Eft from Above<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\nThese newts have a very interesting life cycle&#8230;\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>They hatch with gills and start out living in water.<\/li><li>Then they morph into these air-breathing orange juveniles that roam around on land for several years. Sometimes traveling far away from where they hatched.<\/li><li>Finally they morph again into dull green adults who go back to live mostly in the water.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> Their Latin name refers to their markings and color: Noto = mark, ophthalmus = eyes, viridscens = greenish (referring to the adult).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Red Eft Newts - Upstate New York - 2023\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DEmgudOfUOk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was recently walking through a dense hemlock forest in upstate New York where I came across some chewed-up mushrooms and several little orange critters crawling around them. I instantly thought a) salamanders? and b) they must be eating the mushrooms. Turns out I was right on the first point and only half-right on the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/2023\/red-eft-newt\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Red Eft Newt&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[529],"class_list":["post-9781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critters","tag-orange-spotted-newt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9781"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9788,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9781\/revisions\/9788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}