# @olympic_nps on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DJSXj2QOcyA
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/40914458-olympic-nps-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/e2e848951d.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-05-05T21:29:27.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Olympic National Park (@olympic_nps) — https://gondola.cc/olympic_nps

## Caption

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…newt migration! Just in time for national #AmphibianWeek, the rough-skinned newts out at Lake Crescent are on the move. 

Each spring, they emerge from the forests and return to lakes and ponds where they gather in great numbers to feed—and breed. Like a slow, steady heartbeat, this migration is one of many ecological cycles that bring together land and water, terrestrial and aquatic. 

If you visit Lake Crescent over the next few weeks, give newts a brake! Those tiny legs are made for walking but they’re no match for your Land Rover. #MigrationMonday 

Did you know? 

👀 Despite their diminutive size, that newt might be older than you! Newts do not mature until age four or five, and can live to be 18—or even older. 

☠ Don’t mess with newts! They produce a powerful neurotoxin through glands in their skin. As a result, they have only one natural predator—garter snakes, which have evolved immunity to this toxin over time. To protect themselves, newts have evolved to produce greater and greater quantities, creating what ecologists call an “arms race.” 

💩 What are those little round pellets in the lake? Each year, the newt migration arrives just in time to gobble up a benthic algal bloom in the shallow waters, leaving behind…well, the same byproduct that all herbivores do. This newt poop is broken down by microorganisms as part of a healthy aquatic ecosystem, returning the nutrients to the lake ecosystem.

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 2,421
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- **Comments:** 12

## Tags

amphibianweek, migrationmonday

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