'Craziest thing I've ever seen': Elusive salamanders make surprising mass appearance in Edmonton area

Edmontonians can count themselves lucky to ever see one tiger salamander, let alone the thousands one local woman says recently descended on her childhood home.

Due to the secretive subterranean lives of tiger salamanders, many Edmontonians can count themselves lucky to ever see one.

That said – lucky wasn't the word leaping to mind for one local woman when thousands of the normally-elusive amphibians recently descended on her childhood home.

"It was like something you would read in the end times," Chelsea Brown said. "It was the craziest thing I've ever seen."

Western tiger salamanders, named for their spots and stripes, are found in most of central and southern Alberta.

Salamanders breed in the spring and lay their eggs in local bodies of water.

Once hatched, the legless larvae – similar to a tadpole – feed on invertebrates like mosquito and other insect larvae, and in August they emerge transformed into four-legged terrestrial replicas of their parents.

"They will span out into their surroundings and start to fill their bellies with all types of prey items, basically anything that they can get into their mouths and swallow, they will eat," said Kris Kendall, a biologist with the Alberta Conservation Association (ACA).