Striped Newt

They are close relatives in the same genus, Notophthalmus, and share the general newt life cycle and the bumpy skin, but the striped newt is smaller and, as the name says, has a distinct red or orange stripe running the length of each side of the body, which the eastern newt lacks. The eastern newt is widespread and common across the eastern United States and has a famous bright orange terrestrial juvenile called the red eft. The striped newt is confined to a small area of Florida and Georgia, is much rarer, and its land stage is less consistently bright. Where the two occur near each other, the side stripe is the reliable field mark.

The striped newt lives in a habitat, the longleaf pine sandhills and flatwoods, that is hot, sandy, and prone to long dry spells, and its breeding ponds are dry for much of the time. When there is no water to breed in, the newt has to survive on land in conditions that would quickly dry out a small, moist-skinned amphibian. Gopher tortoise burrows solve this. The burrows are long, deep, and maintain a stable, cool, humid microclimate year-round, and they are used as refuges by more than 350 other species, the striped newt among them. The decline of the gopher tortoise, itself a threatened species, therefore removes shelter that the newt relies on, linking the two animals' fates.

It depends on a specific and now scarce combination of features — an open, frequently burned longleaf pine landscape with clusters of shallow, isolated, fish-free ponds that dry out every few years, plus healthy populations of gopher tortoises providing burrows. That ecosystem once covered much of the southeastern coastal plain and has been reduced to a few percent of its original extent by logging, conversion to plantations and farmland, development, and, critically, the suppression of the natural fires that keep the pine woods open. Without fire, hardwoods and shrubs fill in and shade the breeding ponds, which stops the newt from breeding. On top of that, the remaining populations are small and far apart, so a local extinction tends to be permanent.

There is a serious effort. The species is a focus of longleaf pine restoration across the southeast, which involves reintroducing prescribed fire, thinning invading hardwoods, and restoring the hydrology of temporary ponds. Several institutions, including the Jacksonville Zoo and partners, breed striped newts in captivity, and a multi-year reintroduction programme has released thousands of captive-bred newts and larvae into the Apalachicola National Forest to re-establish the panhandle population after it collapsed. These measures have shown some success, but the striped newt remains dependent on active management of a rare habitat.