What Do Salamanders Eat?

Photo: Aah-Yeah / Flickr
Photo: Aah-Yeah / Flickr

Salamanders are carnivores that eat invertebrates such as insects, worms and crustaceans. Salamanders prefer eating live food versus frozen or dried.

Salamanders can go several weeks without eating but ideally should be fed every 3 days. If the salamander is skinny or juvenile, it may be fed daily. Salamanders will generally stop eating when full, so determining how much to feed it at first is discovered through trial and error. In colder conditions, they require less energy and tend to eat less food.

Small worms, such as whiteworms, blackworms and nightcrawlers, are ideal food sources for salamanders and can be obtained at pet and bait shops or grown from starter cultures.