Plethodon jordani (Jordan’s Red-cheeked salamander) - Photograph courtesy of Stephen G. Tilley

Great Smoky Mountain National Park is often referred to as The Salamander Capitol of the World because 30 species of salamander can be found in its 524,000 acres. The Smokies are considered a biodiversity hotspot for one group of salamanders called the "lungless salamanders." Salamanders can really range in size. The Hellbender, the largest in the park, can grow up to almost 3 feet in length, has teeth and roams stream bottoms at night. The smallest species in the Smokies is the Pygmy and it usually is smaller than 2 inches. Salamanders are amphibians that live in streams, seeps and moist places at any elevation in the Smokies. At least one salamander in the Smokies is endemic—the Jordan's Red-cheeked Salamander (above). It is found living in moss at the highest elevations, a habitat that unfortunately is very threatened because of exotic species and air pollution.

Salamanders are four-legged, have smooth, moist skin and lack scales. Most salamanders, when in their larval stage, or teenage years, live in the water. This stage for salamanders can last anywhere from a few days to several years, depending on the species. As adults, many salamanders are called quasi-terrestrial, meaning they live on lAND water. Salamanders have long narrow bodies and tails for swimming and small legs for crawling on land. You can look at a salamander and tell where it prefers to be by noticing things like the shape of the tail and the length of the legs. Species that are usually found in water have tails that are more keeled or triangular shaped. Species found on land typically have round tails and longer legs. Salamanders are voiceless so they rely on pheromones and smell to find that perfect salamander to mate with.

Salamander Monitoring

Brittany weighs a very small larval salamander - Photograph courtesy of the NPS

Most people go to the doctor for a yearly checkup to make sure they are healthy. Park biologists do a similar thing for the plants and animals in a park, only the periodic checkup is called monitoring. Salamander monitoring in the Smokies is done in several different ways; one method is a mark and recapture study. A length of stream is marked off into one meter sections, students on field trips enter the stream to look for and hopefully catch salamanders. They note the flag number where they caught their salamander and bring it to the data collection station by the stream's edge. There, each salamander is identified to species, weighed, measured and checked to see if it has been previously marked. If it is large enough and not already marked, the salamander will be brought up to our lab where we carefully inject it with a small, fluorescent number tag. We keep it overnight to make sure there haven't been any injuries and then release the salamander back to the same spot where it was originally caught. If we catch that salamander again, we can compare the data from the first time and check to see how much it moved and grew. Biologists actually know very little about the habits of aquatic salamanders.

Rhyacotriton olympicus (Olympic torrent salamander) - Photograph courtesy of Interactive Earth

One of the reasons it is important to monitor salamanders is because they are considered bio-indicators due to their sensitivity to environmental change. Salamanders lay eggs in water; the eggs have no outer covering or protective shell like chicken eggs. This makes their eggs very vulnerable to chemical pollutants, ultraviolet radiation, and other things that disturb growth. Also salamanders skin is permeable, meaning it allows water and gases to enter and leave; they're 'environmental sponges'. When the water is healthy, they're healthy and they're eggs are healthy. Things like acid rain affect the water salamanders live in and lay their eggs in. When there's a low population of salamanders in a water source that may be an indication of low water quality.

Perhaps because they are so mysterious, salamanders are the subject of numerous myths and legends. The name salamander comes from Greek words meaning fire-lizards. Ancient peoples linked salamanders to fire because salamanders often crawled out from logs that had been thrown onto fires, leading people to believe that these animals could walk through fire.

Resources

Book Resources

• Tilley, Stephen G. and Huheey, James E. Reptiles and Amphibians of the Smokies. 2001. Great Smoky Mountains Association. Gatlinburg: TN.
• Huheey, James E., Stupka, Arthur. 1967. Amphibians and Reptiles of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The University of Tennessee Press. Knoxville: TN.
• Petranka, James. 1998. Salamanders of the United States and Canada. Smithsonian Books.
• Martof, Bernard S. 1980. Amphibians and Reptiles of the Carolinas and Virgina. The University of North Carolina Press. Chapel Hill: NC.
• Conant, Roger. 1958. A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of the United States and Canada: The Peterson Field Guide Series. Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston: MA.

Fun Children Books

• Horstman, Lisa. The Great Smoky Mountains Salamander Ball. Great Smoky Mountains Association. Gatlinburg: TN. Ages 5-10.
• Mazer, Anne. The Salamander Room. 1994. Dragonfly Books. Ages 4-8.

Websites

• Salamanders of North Carolina has great photos, conservation information, endangered species and fun facts on amphibians and reptiles in North Carolina. Highly recommended.
• The Hellbender Homepage has great information, photos and details about conservation efforts for the amazing Hellbender salamander.
• University of Georgia has photos and information about the salamanders of South Carolina and Georgia.

Classroom Information

Glossary: air pollution, amphibians, aquatic, biodiversity, bio-indicator, endemic, exotic species, larval stage, lungless salamanders, metamorphosis, monitoring, pheromone, reptiles, terrestrial

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