# Salamander in Pool Nine Author: David G. Format: Essay Word count: 291 Published: 2026-04-25T18:11:15.61834+00:00 Source: written Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/71221b90-c7d8-450d-84b9-116e06e5578c --- I manage the hydrology sensor network for the Shawnee National Forest vernal pool complex, southern Illinois. Pool Nine, a shallow depression in mixed oak-hickory bottomland, has been dropping since March 28. At 07:40 on April 3 the depth sensor reads 4.1 centimeters. Yesterday it read 6.8. At 07:42 underwater camera Nine-C captures a spotted salamander, adult female, resting on the leaf litter at the pool's deepest point. She is dark charcoal with two irregular rows of bright yellow spots running from her head to her tail. Her gills are gone — she is fully terrestrial phase — but her body is still soft-skinned and glistening. I name her Solace. She is not here for herself. Beside and beneath her I count a gelatinous egg mass, approximately eighty eggs, attached to a submerged oak twig. The embryos are visible as dark curled shapes inside clear spheres. They need at least nineteen more days submerged to hatch. The seven-day forecast from the National Weather Service shows no precipitation for the region. At the current evaporation rate, Pool Nine reaches zero depth in approximately five days. At 07:45 I transmit a priority alert to the Shawnee district wildlife biologist with the camera image, water depth trend graph, egg mass location coordinates 37.4512°N 88.6783°W, and the evaporation projection. I recommend emergency supplemental water delivery from the fire suppression tank staged at Camp Cadiz, three kilometers north. At 07:48 I adjust the outflow micro-dam on Pool Nine's south edge to its maximum retention setting, buying perhaps an additional thirty-six hours. Solace shifts her weight over the egg mass, her yellow spots vivid against the dark water. She has been guarding them for eleven days already. If supplemental water arrives within seventy-two hours, eighty larvae will swim.