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Salamanders
Salamanders are on the surface of the land and in the water in late winter and early spring. Here is some information on seven species that live in the S.F. Bay Region. Some of the information was learned by reading books by Robert C. Stebbins.
| California Slender Salamander - (Batrachoseps attenuatus)
There are more than ten species of Batrachoseps in California with more being described as we go. B. attenuatus is the only one found in the greater San Francisco Bay Region. It is abundant and, in damp places, can be found easily under surface objects (logs, boxes) or in humid leaf-litter.
These are "lungless" salamanders (respiration takes place through the skin) that lay eggs in damp, dark places. They never purposely enter water and young resemble adults but are smaller. The Slender Salamanders are non-migratory and the entire home range may be a patch roughly 12 feet in diameter. Primary food is slugs. |
Note the wormlike body with tiny legs.
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| Arboreal Salamander - (Aneides lugubris)
Found mostly in Oak savannah and old orchards in damp, westerly coastal ranges and less so towards the eastern ridges. Sometimes found below large trees under surface objects, but the animals are more often in the trees themselves where egg laying and hatching, as well as overwintering of adults occurs. Good climbers, Arboreal Salamanders even have prehensile tails to help them move through non-horizontal spaces.
These, too, are "lungless" salamanders. See above, under California Slender Salamander. These, too, eat mostly slugs and other mollusks. |
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| Yellow-eyed Salamander and Oregon Salamander - (Ensatina eschscholtzii)
"Ensatina" is a strange genus that contains seven or more sub-species (or species) which range elliptically through foothills around the great valley of California. Polymorphic (see plates 3 and 4 in Stebbins), specimens from different spots within the range have drastically different patterns but where each phenotype (sub-species) distribution meets the next, there is a narrow zone of introgradation (animals, there, show characteristics of both merging populations). It makes a nice chain around the valley except at the bottom where Southern Sierran ones do not link-up with those of South Coast Range groups. Now, isn’t that strange?
Ensatina eschscholtzii is also a "lungless" salamander that lays eggs in or under damp wood and hatched young are like small adults. Some female Ensatinas stay close, and protect their eggs.
Yellow-eyed, Oregon and Monterey Salamanders are Ensatina sub-species that occur in the S.F. Bay Region. |
Yellow-eyed Salamander
Oregon Salamander
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| Pacific Giant Salamander - (Dicamptodon ensatus)
Found mostly in moist canyons with cold, running streams and "old growth" forest canopy. Adults may be 10 inches long. With large heads and mouths they seem a perfect match for their habitat-mate and favorite food…Banana Slugs (Alameda County Banana Slugs and all found north of San Francisco Bay are Ariolimax columbianus. The most widespread of five species of Ariolimax, the Columbian Banana Slug is common on up the coast, well into Alaska.) Oops, I got derailed for a minute, there!
Terrestrial adults return to natal streams to breed and eggs are laid in the water. Larvae are wholly aquatic and breathe with use of gills. Eventually the gills disappear and lungs develop allowing the redesigned creature to leave the water and walk up on the land. It’s magical to see this happen – it’s like the beginning of life itself. |
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Newts
There are only three species of newts (just an old English word for some arbitrary groups of salamanders) in the genus Taricha. All three inhabit parts of the San Francisco Bay Region and two of them are endemic to California.
All of them contain Tarichatoxin – one of the most poisonous chemicals in nature – but you pretty much have to ingest the animal’s tissue to die.
Now Garter Snakes prey on newts but have become immune to the toxin. On British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, newts are 1000 times less poisonous than those on the mainland. Garter Snakes that evolved on the island have not, then, developed immunity and when an island snake eats a mainland newt, the snake dies. Of course, mainland snakes can eat as many island newts as they want. It’s all just so amazing.
| Rough-skinned Newt – (Taricha granulosa)
A lot like California Newt but lower eyelid is black (not orange) and when viewed from directly above, the eyeballs do not break the head’s outline.
More coastal, generally, than the California Newt, which prefers more open terrain. Rough-skinned and California newts breed in ponds and deeper pools on slow moving streams. Red-bellieds like faster moving streams and rivers.
All Tarichas have aquatic larvae. |
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| California Newt – (Taricha torosa)
A lot like T. granulosa but lower eyelid is orange, and, when viewed from above the eyeballs break the outline of the head. (There are areas of intermediacy where animals cannot be identified, even by experts.)
In Northern California, T. torosa is rare or absent from the outer coast where
T. granulosa is the only species to be found.
Read Rough-skinned Newt, above, and Red-bellied Newt, below. |
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| Red-bellied Newt – (Taricha rivularis)
Obviously a Taricha, but unique in several ways. Black above, and tomato-red below, with a black vent strap and a longer tail than the other species.
The whole world range is four counties (Sonoma, Lake, Mendocino, and Humboldt) in Northern California. T. rivularis is the "river newt" that breeds in fast-moving streams where it also grew up as a fully aquatic organism. |
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Rich Stallcup
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