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nder plethodon cinereus i ve been wanting to do a big post on a species of amphibian that is near and dear to my heart for awhile now with the semester coming to an end i ve finally gotten the chance to write it this post is all about the red backed salamander plethodon cinereus my aim is to give a general overview with some interesting detailed bits of this incredibly common species why is it so special to me p cinereus is the first species i ve ever had the chance to do real research on starting back in the fall of 2014 i began a job as an undergrad research assistant at ohio university i work in dr shawn kuchta s lab under maggie hantak one of dr kuchta s ph d students it s been an incredibly fun and incredibly educational experience so far i ll talk more about her research and what i do at the end of this post that aside let s move on to some basics be warned this is going to be a really long post the red backed salamander plethodon cinereus is a terrestrial species of plethodontid salamander as with all other salamanders in the family plethodontidae the red backed is lungless since they lack lungs respiration instead occurs across the skin and the lining of the mouth for these salamanders to breathe correctly they must remain moist so gas can be exchanged freely across the cells in the skin as a result desiccation drying out is a constant threat to this salamander in order to remain moist they must inhabit areas that meet a certain threshold for moisture these salamanders can be found in deciduous forests mainly under rocks and logs where moisture is retained when it is wet enough they will travel throughout the leaf litter on the forest floor in search of food during the summer months when the heat dries out the top layers of the forest floor p cinereus will move into the ground using old worm burrows or possibly making burrows itself p cinereus is an incredibly abundant species in the forests of the northeast part of the us and it can be found in nearly every county here in ohio in fact p cinereus is thought to be the most abundant vertebrate species in the northeast quarter of the us they can reach densities of 2 8 individuals per square meter in good habitats making this species more abundant than birds and mammals combined in addition there is some compelling evidence that the 2 8 individuals per square meter number is actually an underestimate it might be double that number see semlitsch et al 2014 it is important to note that the bulk of a given population of red backed salamanders lives below the surface so trying to accurately estimate a population is difficult when you can only find those individuals who are on the surface see taub 1961 when maggie and i travel to a good location in northern ohio we can normally find at least one individual under every rock or log you flip it s amazing to think that all those individuals we readily find under cover objects represent only a fraction of the individuals actually living in that location the two common morphs of the red backed salamander with the red stripe morph on the right and the lead morph on the left one of the really interesting characteristics about this salamander is its color polymorphism polymorphism is where there are two or more clearly different phenotypes an individual s set of physical traits in a species generally speaking p cinereus exhibits three color morphs first is the red stripe morph pictured above on the right this is by far the most common morph the second most common morph is the lead or lead backed morph pictured above on the left the third morph is the erythristic morph which is very rare the erythristic morph is essentially all red with a creamy white stomach in addition to these three morphs there are several other rare color anomalies iridistic albino leucistic amelanistic and melanistic you can read more about the different color phenotypes in j d moore s paper here as stated previously the red stripe morph is by far the most common especially in ohio there are however many polymorphic populations northern ohio has a relatively high density of polymorphic populations where one can find both the lead and red stripe morph and occasionally the erythristic morph all living together in the same location the ratios between the morphs vary according to each site interestingly there are a few all lead populations in ohio such as the population on south bass island this is not a common occurrence by any means there is an extreme amount of color variation not only between color morphs but also within the morphs and anomalies at some locations we visit the red stripe morphs have a very bright and well defined red stripe at other locations the red stripe is very mottled and dull with high amounts of black across the body on the other side of the coin the leads at some locations are a very dull and subdued black while other locations have very iridescent and beautiful leads like the one pictured above unlike many salamander species p cinereus does not have an aquatic larval stage the entire life cycle is terrestrial and that means we run into many juvenile individuals when in the field and the juveniles are cute extremely cute pictured above is a small yes small adult red stripe individual next to a juvenile lead individual many of the juveniles we find could easily fit on a penny most but not all salamanders lay eggs and this includes the red backed salamander when we measure the salamanders we are able to see the eggs of any pregnant females these eggs can be very pronounced as the photo above shows if you count carefully you can see a total of 8 eggs the white blobby things in the abdomen in the individual above as mentioned earlier while many salamanders have an aquatic larval stage the red backed is completely terrestrial the eggs are laid in a protected area mainly in rotten logs there is a larval stage but this stage happens completely in the egg upon hatching the juveniles are fully developed and essentially a smaller version of the adult how do you tell the sex of a red backed salamander there are a few differences between the two sexes but the easiest way is to look at their heads females have a very round snout males on the other hand have a very broad square like snout which you can see above another feature to look for is the presence of cirri cirri singular cirrus are a fleshy downward extension of the upper lip cirri function as chemoreceptors and the males use these for a multitude of reasons most commonly to sense out a potential mate s pheromones you can see the cirri on the male above they are the two tiny mustache like extensions hanging down on either side of the snout as always you can click on a photo to view a larger version of it one of the incredibly interesting characteristics of salamanders is their ability to regenerate whole limbs and parts of major organs it s a tough world out there and salamanders can lose parts of their body due to predators but also due to fights with larger salamanders red backed salamanders are known for being fiercely territorial and they will defend their territories against many different intruders like the northern ravine salamander spotted salamanders or centipedes occasionally resulting in the loss of limbs the tail is the part that is most often lost like in the individual above when it comes to tails salamanders are like lizards when in a situation with a predator the red backed salamander will wave its tail in an attempt to get the predator to go after that part instead of elsewhere as soon as the predator latches onto the tail the tail pops off giving the salamander time to escape the tail wiggles violently for a short bit to confuse the predator even further in order to hopefully allow a safe escape for the salamander salamanders can regrow legs in only 7 10 weeks but tails take a little long due to their size and how much actually comes off the individual above who was found in the fall probably has a fully regrown tail by now while the red backed salamander is a prey item for many other animals it is still a ferocious predator itself i m currently in the middle of a dietary study that aims to find out if there is a difference in the type of food the red stripe and lead morphs eat the red backed salamander eats a large variety of arthropods although i did find a weird one who ate a mushroom the photos above give you an idea of some of their usual prey items on the far right is their favorite type of food mites there s an incredible diversity of mite species on the forest flood and the salamanders will eat many of them in the center are springtails another favorite on the far left is a pseudoscorpion one of the more awesome looking arthropods they eat in addition they also consume ants beetles assorted tiny wasps spiders and more one of more interesting individuals we ve come across so far this spring is the one pictured above we had traveled to a location where around 15 of the population was erythristic an unusual reddish or orange coloration while we didn t find any completely erythristic individuals maggie did find the one above which exhibits partial erythrism note how most of the body is a red orange while the stomach is a creamy white there s too much black on the individual for it to be considered completely erythristic but you can tell it is definitely not a normal red stripe individual if you re interested in learning more partial erythrism and erythrism in general is covered in the j d moore paper that i linked to earlier in the post several weeks after i wrote this initial post we came across another interesting individual pictured above this is what has been called the silver striped or silver backed variant of the red backed salamander as you can see the stripe running down the back in this individual is a silvery grey color instead of the normal red color sadly there s not much information i can find on this color abnormality other than assorted photos of similar individuals vincent farallo an ohio university graduate student did tell me that he has seen a lot of individuals like this at strouds run state park in athens county maggie hantak measuring a red backed salamander using a method termed mander mashing seriously no salamanders are harmed in this process as i mentioned earlier i currently have a job as an undergrad research assistant my job is essentially to help maggie hantak a ph d student at ohio university collect data at her field sites in northern ohio as well as working independently on a dietary study for her in a nutshell maggie is exploring multiple facets of the evolutionary ecology of the red backed salamander with regard to the differences between the red stripe and lead morphs she s been a wonderful mentor to me and has helped me get involved in real research i ll be spending the first half of this summer in northern ohio as her field assistant with the last half spent down in athens to try and finish the dietary study i ll also hopefully have the opportunity to begin my own research on plethodon electromorphus the northern ravine salamander this summer as of october 2016 i am beginning my own independent project on the northern ravine salamander stay tuned for more information in the upcoming months i ve got several more salamander posts in the works that i ll hopefully be finishing up sometime during summer so if you re a herpetology person stay tuned otherwise i ll be covering the usual interesting things i come across this summer including flowers birds insects parks and more thanks for reading posted by kyle brooks at 2 55 pm 3 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels nature ohio photography parks amphibians herping ohio university research salamanders friday april 4 2014 even more salamanders i went out herping once again thursday night april 3 with some fellow wildlife and conservation biology students from ohio university we went to the same place as last time state route 356 in athens county sadly there wasn t any salamander migration going on like there was the other night but we did find some salamanders and some other interesting things let s start with the star of the night this is a marbled salamander ambystoma opacum this one raised quite the stir among our group besides being a lifer for almost all of us the coloration of this salamander is amazing this species does not migrate in the spring and instead breeds in the fall we only found this one because we decided to flip a large chunk of concrete on the side of the road the marbled salamander is uncommon in ohio it has been recorded in 26 counties of the 88 but some of the counties that have no records surely have populations that just haven t been found for example hocking county has no record of them but i m sure hocking county has them somewhere the thing is marbled salamanders spend most of their year underground which obviously makes it hard to find them these two slender slimy salamanders are the eastern red backed salamander plethodon cinereus these are really common salamanders in ohio there are two different color morphs that can be found in ohio the red backed shown above and a lead morph not shown they are found most often underground and under rocks and logs in moist forests red backed salamanders need a moist environment because they are lungless salamanders since they do not have lungs they instead breathe through their skin which must be kept moist since their skin is so permeable these guys like the eastern red spotted newt i mentioned a few posts back are very sensitive to pollutants in their environment as they will absorb them directly into their body okay so this one isn t from thursday night this photo is actually from a few weeks ago at the ridges in athens athens county the salamander in question is a southern two lined salamander eurycea cirrigera this one was found in a small creek under a rock this species is found in the southern two thirds of ohio there were actually a couple within a pretty small area of the creek i found two adults and a juvenile one that still had external gills this is not a salamander if you couldn t tell regardless i love these little guys and wanted to throw one in this is a spring peeper pseudacris crucifer as you can see from the x on its back i ve covered more on these guys on another post of my blog which can be found here if you re interested herping frogs a toad and more these were so loud thursday night which is when this one s photo was taken that my ears were ringing for over an hour when i came home this is also not a salamander but i m still throwing it in while walking through a swampy area along the road i came across a small patch of tiny wildflowers this is the harbinger of spring erigenia bulbosa this is actually the first wildflower i ve come across this year and i was very excited when i stumbled across it as the name implies this is one of the first wildf...
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