Salamander Life Cycle board game

My kids have been learning about amphibians, and I wanted to make something fun for them to learn about the salamander life cycle with. I ended up making a salamander board game! I made it a black and white printable, so anyone can print it and then color it the way they'd like.

The game follows the life of a salamander from egg to larva (the salamander version of a tadpole) until their adulthood. When you get to the "STOP!" space, you wait there there until you roll an even number. Then you can pick whether you want to be a neotenic/aquatic salamander (like an axolotl) or a terrestrial salamander.

Both paths converge, and when you reach the last spot, you have to roll an odd number to lay eggs to finish the game (or start again!).

All you need is the board, a 6-sided die (dice) and some sort of place marker for each person.

I thought it might be fun to upload it so other people can use it, too!

I thought it might be nice to have little game pieces for the kids to color. So I used the axolotl image from here and drew boarders around it.

The below page has 24 axolotl game pieces (each has a front and a back, as you fold it at the tail. The two little tab on the bottom fold out.)

You fold on the top vertical line,  and fold the bottom lines out to make a little standing axolotl. I'll try and take a picture of a premade game piece, but it might take me a while!

That's brilliant! What fun  😀
Thank you

By the way the axolot link is not working

Ra Kenworth wrote:That's brilliant! What fun  😀
Thank you

By the way the axolot link is not working

It took me a second to figure out which link wasn't working. Was it this one:

So I used the axolotl image from here and drew boarders around it.

It's just where I sourced the image, and I wanted to give credit. Upon further inspection of the link, it looks like I forgot the : after HTTPS. Now it's there, and the link should work!

I'm glad you enjoyed the board game!

Yes the "here" link

Much appreciated!

What a nice and informative game for kids.
Back when I was farming Bullfrogs and Tiger Salamanders I gave a lot of presentations at schools and other venues, part of my presentation involved passing around the various life stages of the animals in water-filled zip-lock bags to students sitting on the floor. It would have been wonderful to have been able to leave a game like this with the teachers to further the learning experience for the kids.
Well Done

I love that you did presentations at schools, Steve! Over the years, my husband has brought in his axolotl and neotenic salamander to our kids' various homeschool co-op classes, and they have always been a huge hit. The kids really love learning about these amphibians! I wish we had the critters at all stages of development to show the kids. There's really something "magical" about the transformations amphibians go through, especially since there are SO MANY kids of amphibians. I was really amazed to see how different the life cycles are for different amphibians, especially the caecilians and newts!

One of the activities I did with their class was have the kids pick their own amphibian to assemble the life cycle of. I used the below sheets, cutting out each of the stages for each amphibian. Then the kids went from station to station,  finding their next life cycle picture and gluing it onto their paper. It wasn't as fun as the board game, but they enjoyed it, and many kids went around two or three times, assembling a different amphibian each time.

And just to throw a spanner into the works, the most common sort we have here in Portugal are the fire salamanders, which are born live.



The old legends say they are born of fire, and their Portuguese name, salamandra, is also the word used for a wood stove.

Gotta love those dragons...

Another fun activity we did, was turn the whole room into an frog life cycle obstacle course. They started out under the tables as tadpoles, and then turned into frog and hopped from pillow to pillow, walked along a 2x4 "log", snapped at flies dangled overhead by parents, laid eggs under tables, and then went around again. This was a lot of fun for them, but did start getting a little chaotic after a few times around!

Burra Maluca wrote:And just to throw a spanner into the works, the most common sort we have here in Portugal are the fire salamanders, which are born live.

The old legends say they are born of fire, and their Portuguese name, salamandra, is also the word used for a wood stove.

Gotta love those dragons...

Some Caecilians have live births (the eggs hatch inside their mamas and they go through their "tadpole"--larva--stage inside her, rasping at her insides for nourishment). Other Caecilians go through their larval stage while still inside their eggs and hatch out as adults. Some are hatched at eggs, and spend time rasping at the proteins their mama exudes from her skin.

Here's a Caecilian feeding off of its mama.


And here's a live-bearing Caecilian


I learned so much from researching amphibians to teach the kids. One of the...weirdest... amphibians was the Pipa Toad. The eggs are laid on top of the mother's back, and then her skin sort of....absorbs...them. The babies go through their tadpole stage while still in eggs on her back, and then hatch out as little froggies. The video is not for the faint queasy at heart.



There are so many marvelously weird and wonderful amphibians in the world!

I have to admit, my very favorite amphibian video has got to be the rough-skinned newt getting eaten by a bullfrog!

The rough-skinned newt is one of the most poisonous animals in the world, and is so very unassuming. It's this sweet little critter that is native to my area. But, it is so poisonous that it kills a bullfrog within seconds of being consumed...and then it walks right out of the bullfrog's mouth like nothing happened. Bullfrogs are not native to our area (they were introduced as a food source, and rather displace our native frogs). Those bullfrogs don't know to leave the newt alone, and it shows!

Here's one the kids will love - the Iberian Ribbed Newt, aka Wolverine newt.

They will secrete toxins, then break their ribs and poke the broken bits out of the poisoned bits of skin so that if you pick them up you get injected with poison by the snapped bits of rib bone.

I mean, if someone wrote that in a story would you even believe it?

Burra Maluca wrote:Here's one the kids will love - the Iberian Ribbed Newt, aka Wolverine newt.

They will secrete toxins, then break their ribs and poke the broken bits out of the poisoned bits of skin so that if you pick them up you get injected with poison by the snapped bits of rib bone.

I mean, if someone wrote that in a story would you even believe it?

Duuuuuuuuude, that's crazy!

Our little newt is just this sweet little guy that you can easily catch and carry around. Just make sure you wash your hands after touching, and don't lick the newt. I had no idea there were newts that were as crazily aggressive as your newt!