A salamander's diet largely depends on its environment, as some species spend their whole lives underwater while some live on the land. In fact, salamanders are one of the few animal families to have species with and without lungs, or even both. Salamanders that live on land are carnivores with long, sticky tongues like their relatives, frogs. They creep up on prey until they are in striking distance and then lunge forward, shooting their tongue out to catch it. These salamanders eat a wide variety of prey, including spiders, worms, dragonflies, slugs, centipedes, insect eggs, frog eggs and other small invertebrates.
Diet Info
Salamanders that live in the water have gills like a fish and are quick, agile swimmers. A few of them have special bones that allow them to shoot out their tongues like cannons, but most aquatic species hunt by out-swimming their targets and catching them in their wide mouths. An aquatic salamander eats small fish, tadpoles, frogs, leeches, mosquito eggs and anything else that has the misfortune to fall into the water.
Typical Young Salamander Diet:
Salamander diet changes with age. Young salamanders will often eat small daphnia or cyclopsen (small microorganisms in pond water). After a few weeks they will eat larger daphnia. A few weeks later they’ll eat tubiflex worms or mosquito larvae. When they are almost two months old they’ll eat the same food as an adult salamander.
The easiest food to find to feed captive larval salamander or neotonic salamanders (those that remain aquatic) are brine shrimp and black worms. Cut up the black worms for the very small salamanders as it is difficult to feed them whole worms. When they get bigger introduce the tubiflex worms, earthworms, small fish, ghost shrimp, crayfish and other small animals.
Salamander Life Cycle
Typical Adult Salamander Diet:
Adult Salamanders are extremely carnivorous, eating almost anything that moves. They’ll readily eat maggots, mysis, springtails, buffalo worms, fruit-flies, or crickets. I will often offer them red mosquito larvae on a wet tissue.
Most pet salamanders eat once per day, although that number varies depending on certain factors. The salamander's age, size and species are factors when planning a feeding schedule. The temperature of the tank can also affect the salamander's appetite
How often do salamanders eat?
mostly once per day for adult salamanders because they prey on larger organisms, for young salamanders could eat 2-3 times perday depending on the size of the food.