SALAMANDERS

THERE ARE 3 KINDS OF SALAMANDERS... totally aquatic, semi-aquatic, and completely terrestrial.

  • SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS for SALAMANDERS 
    • long, slender, lizard-like animals
    • limbs that twinges side ward
    •  long tails
    •  their skin are generally smooth and lacks scutes but feels cold and wet and sometimes slimy
    • longer backbones than other amphibian groups
You may find in other sources or sites that newts are included with the amphibian groups. To make less confusion, I will talk about newts as well in this page.
Newts are also under the groups of SALAMANDERS but they do have some differences in their characteristics.
  • SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS for NEWTS 
    • Newts have flattened tails which makes them excellent swimmers
    • Have long backbones too!
    • most newts found are rough skinned
    • They have a complex life cycle.
    •  Newts are very colorful and are very active and bold during the day.
WHERE DO THEY LIVE?
                 The AQUATIC live out their complete life cycles in the water. The SEMI-AQUATIC live primarily on land, hibernating during the winter, and enter the water as breeding season begins. After mating and egging is complete, they once again return to land. The TERRESTRIAL salamanders spend their entire lives on land, rarely entering the water though they are never far from it. 


                      Salamanders avoid direct light, and many of them are nocturnal as a result. The animals do not thrive well in dry conditions, as most species need to keep their skins moist to promote general health and gas exchange through their skin. WHAT DO THEY EAT??

                  The answer to that question depends of the age of the salamander. The younger the salamander, the smaller the food. In most of the cases the larf, also known as the hatchling eats his own eggshell and lives the first week of micro-organisms called 'infuus' that lives in water. Again this group is also carnivorous so after a week the larf starts eating small animals, such as little daphnids or cyclopsen. After two weeks they like larger daphnids and after three or four weeks they are large enough for tubifex(aka sludge worm) or red mosquito larvae. After six up to eight weeks they eat the same as the adult animals, only smaller formats.
Adult salamanders at the water stage eat what larfs eat plus other animals like rainworms, maggots, and mysis.
Adult salamanders at the country stage eat almost everything what crawls and smaller is than themselves, like fruit flies, spiders, rainworms, maggots, springtails, flour maggots and buffaloworms, basically like what all amphibians eat. 

HOW? 
                           Most use movement to find food others can use touch or odor. The way the eat is the catch food with the mouth.Some attack their prey directly and kill them in their mouth but some get their prey just like how frogs and toads do, with their tongues.

AQUATIC=respond to odor


TERRESTRIAL=respond to movement


THE DEVELOPMENT:METAMORPHOSIS
 The development of salamanders are basically the same way as most amphibians except for the loosing of the tail and sometimes in other situations the loosing of the gills. The thing that differed is also how the legs grew because instead of the back legs coming out first, it was the front legs. CHECK OUT MORE INFO IN THE "ABOUT" PAGE.
BUT IN THE CASE FOR TERRESTRIAL SALAMANDERS: Early born young will reach the terrestrial stage by the end of the year; late born young usually overwinter as larvae, metamorphosing the following spring.
 FOR NEWTS 
Like what I said i while ago, newts have a complex life cycle. It's almost like they undergo two life cycles. Eggs laid in the pond will hatch into an aquatic, gilled larval stage. These larvae will undergo metamorphosis and become terrestrial subadults, or "efts". Efts often wander long distances from water for long periods of time. Like how some salamanders leave the water and live terrestrially for years and come back after just to breed. But after returning to the water, they would undergo its second life cycle, transforming into a mature adult form with often these changes=large dorsal fins, flattened tails for swimming, color change, changes in limb morphology etc
Hibernation
 
                         Salamanders from cooler climates bury themselves in soil or in the mud at the bottom of ponds, going deep enough to avoid frost and to maintain an even temperature. During this time their metabolism is greatly reduced, thus reducing the amount of energy (calories) burned in the effort just staying alive.
Failure to hibernate will not only affect their ability to breed, but it may shorten the animals' life as well. Hibernation is an important part of their life cycle. 

REPRODUCTION
In spring the adults move to small ponds to look for mates. When a female comes close to a male, he waves his tail and dances in front of her. Then he grabs her with his back legs around her body. He lets go and moves in front of her and puts some sperm on the bottom of the pond. She moves over the sperm and takes it inside of her so her eggs will grow. They also have some similarities in their reproduction just like frogs and toads where the male goes on top of the female. The female salamander lays a few eggs at a time on plants or sticks on the bottom of the pond. They would lay around 100 eggs.



RESPIRATION
             Most salamanders breath just like how any amphibian do--through their lungs and skin. But there is one thing that also makes them unique is that some salamanders don't have lungs and rely only their skin to get oxygen to their body. This is called cutaneous respiration.   
 
ANATOMY

SKELETON


EXTERNAL ANATOMY




   IF YOU WANT A SALAMANDER AS A PET, HERE'S A SITE FOR YOU: http://www.anapsid.org/sallies.html