A long (up to 16 cm TL), slender lemon-yellow to yellowish orange salamander with scattered black blotches along back and sides. Belly yellow to cream and usually unspotted. Costal grooves and nasolabial grooves present. Eurycea l. melanopleura is more darkly pigmented, with yellow-green to yellow-brown ground coloring and sides of body and tail uniformly dark. Larva slender with low tail fin, long gill branches, dark flecks on the anterior third of throat, and broad pale stripe down back.