Has it been cold where you live? Here in western NC it rained hard for two days and was really warm but now things have changed over and it is back to winter and freezing temperature at night. Even so, if I visited the right kind of wetland I have a good chance of finding some gelatinous masses like the one pictured below. Any ideas about this? Do you know or have a guess about who might have left it? Have you ever noticed this at the bottom of a pond near you? Check back next weekend to see if your guess was correct.
Weekly puzzler #97. I also came across these eggs a couple of weeks ago. Are they Peeper eggs? I was actually thinking about the eggs yesterday as I strolled across the frozen tundra on top of Bearwallow mtn. Will they survive the freezing temperatures?
Hey Pete! Thanks for taking the time to write! They are NOT peeper eggs, but good guess! I will do a whole post about it on Saturday, but the short answer is that they are yellow spotted salamander eggs. Wood frog eggs-which can be found in ponds around here right now–look similiar but there are some differences that I will talk about this weekend. Yes, they will survive the freezing temperatures–this happens pretty much every year. They have amazing adaptations!!! Hope you are well!!
Two eyed yellow spotted salamander eggs. So noted because of the jelly mass around the eggs which are in jelly themselves.
Spotted salamander is correct! You are a smart boy.