The blue spotted salamander is shiny black and has blue spots on its sides, tail, and legs. It is a small salamander, only about 100 mm long.

The blue spotted salamander eats slugs, earthworms, snails, centipedes and many other kinds of small boneless animals.

The blue spotted salamander lives in forests and can often be found near the edge of a pond. In daytime it hides under rocks, stumps and logs. At night it comes out to crawl around under leaves looking for food.

When the salamander senses danger it wiggles its tail back and forth and produces a smelly liquid on its tail. A bird or other animal will try to grab the moving tail and get a mouthful of the smelly liquid. Then it will let go and the salamander will get away. Birds, snakes or shrews might attack them, but because salamanders taste bad, not many animals will eat them.

Blue spotted salamanders lay their eggs one at a time in small ponds, at the base of plants and stones. Each female lays 50 to 100 eggs. The adult salamanders leave the eggs and go back into the forest. The eggs hatch in about a week and the young look like tiny salamanders with big feathery gills. They eat insects and other small water animals. About 2 months after the eggs hatch they loose their gills and move from the water to land.

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