Did you know that the Appalachian ecosystem, and the Eastern USA in general, contains the highest diversity of salamanders and newts (order: Urodela) in the world?
I love these guys. If you live near a healthy creek out east, you may have spent time turning over rocks to find salamanders and newts. They are charming, and they are bio-indicators of a relatively healthy stream. They’re also weird. See:
Since they are slow and squishy, some species produce pretty wild toxins, including tetrodotoxin, which has fun effects such as numbness, convulsions, and death. Fire salamanders can shoot another neurotoxin, salamandrine, straight at predators.
In some species, the male and female do not touch to reproduce. The male deposits a spermatophore on the ground or pond bottom, and the female takes it into her cloaca (or doesn’t, depending on a variety of factors).
Salamanders can be territorial, and will leave pheromone laden poop to mark their territory.
The lungless salamanders get all their oxygen through their skin.
Tiger salamander tadpoles will eat each other if they get too crowded, but they’ll avoid eating relatives.
Some newts of the family Pleurodelinae have a life cycle that goes aquatic -> terrestrial -> aquatic. The juvenile terrestrial form is called an eft.
One captive red hills salamander lived from (at least!) 1978 to 2014, or at least 36 years. These are small animals; larger species can live decades even in the wild. The lifespan of many species is unknown.
Although most salamanders lay eggs in water, some species lay eggs on land or even give birth to live larvae.
In some northeast forests, the biomass of salamanders rivals that of mammals like shrews and mice. There are a LOT of salamanders in our forests.
Hellbenders
HELLBENDERS
HELLBENDERS ARE REAL
In conclusion, salamanders are great, they’re important, you should love them. [Video is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported and created by Joe Milmoe - longer video here]
[Map is from Biodiversity Mapping and uses data from the July 2013 update. Hellbender 1 from USGS. Hellbender 2 from USFWSmidwest. Hellbender 3 from Brian Gratwicke.]
