Mountain Stream Salamander (Ambystoma altamirani): facts, sounds & photos

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Mountain Stream Salamander (Ambystoma altamirani) lives in pine-oak streams across central Mexico. It feeds on not specified. Its conservation status is Endangered.

Fascinating facts about the Mountain Stream Salamander

At just 115 mm long, the mountain stream salamander is about the length of a small ruler, with a slender 50 mm tail that sports a low dorsal fin and an even smaller ventral fin.
It calls the high-elevation pine and pine-oak woodlands of central Mexico home, thriving between 2,700 m and 3,200 m above sea level in tiny mountain streams.
The species begins life as an aquatic larva that must stay in the water, then metamorphoses, losing its gills and fins, to become a land-capable adult, yet many individuals never leave the stream at all.
Over the past three generations the salamander’s numbers have plummeted, earning it an endangered status and “Special Protection” under Mexican law because logging, tourism, pollution, stream diversion, and introduced trout have devastated its fragile habitat.

At a glance

Rangecentral Mexico

Habitatpine-oak streams

Dietnot specified

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