In all of the nearly 50 years of annual visits to a cabin in the Allegheny Mountains, I had never seen a creature like the little fellow that greeted me on the porch one morning last month.
It was as orange as a brilliant sunrise, and wore spots of red. It sat there, as if injured. I was tempted to pick it up, but then wondered if it was perhaps paralyzed by the sound of my heavy footsteps. I went about my business and returned a few minutes later to find it gone.
In doing some homework to learn more about the stubby little newt, I learned that during their orange period, a part of a metamorphosis between periods wearing drab brown colors and moving from land to an adult life in water, the Eastern Newt’s bright orange color stands as a warning to predators that it is poisonous.
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