Springtime Courtship in Vernal Pools
On rainy spring nights, a silent group of rarely seen animals creep along the moist leaves for their annual rendeznous. Blue, yellow and black, brown and green, these travelers are amphibians that spend most of their lives on or beneath the forest floor, but in the spring they return to their natal pool to mate and reproduce. Their journey brings them to a vernal pool, a depression filled to a depth of two to three feet with snowmelt and rain. Their offspring will spend the first few months of their lives changing from eggs to larvae to adults in the ephemeral water of the vernal pool.
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