Possible Clues:

• It's not gross to eat with pond inhabitant
• Salamander women caught in trap
• Its eye is used in recipes
• Colorful cold-blooded vertebrate
• "Contract with America" name
• Brilliantly colored salamander
• Small, lizard-like amphibian
• An amphibious start for 23 down, by the sound of it
• The tea is fresh with water to get on with science
• Trap to catch weak little animal