Quest for Paedomorphic Mole Salamanders

-
Miranda Gulsby in Pettyjohns Cave with her first ever Cave Salamander (Eurycea lucifuga) — Also, she was sporting my Flatwoods Salamander design SEPARC shirt. Just a very salamandery shot.
Drs Ensign and McNeal's KSU Biology course, with state Herpetologist and Amphibian Foundation Scientific Advisory Board member John Jensen. The professors let me enlist the students to help collect paedomorphic Mole Salamanders (Ambystoma talpoideum) for our captive breeding program @ #MetaMo @amphibianfound


Mole Salamanders are both a species, and a family of salamanders. The family: Ambystomatidae is so named due to the fact that most species of this family are fossorial (spend the majority of the time underground).

The chunkiest of the bunch is Ambystoma talpoideum, the Mole Salamander.

These adorable ambystomatids, the Mole Salamanders (Ambystoma talpoideum) have large heads, and short, stocky bodies
Mole Salamanders (the species) have an interesting reproductive strategy and can be facultatively paedomorphic. If the conditions are right, these animals can speed up the time until they are able to reproduce through a process called progenesis. They can reach sexual maturity while still in their larval stage.

According to John Jensen, state Herpetologist with Georgia DNR, these paedomorphs will eventually metamorphose into the adult forms after a year of progenic reproduction. Paedomorphosis (as opposed to metamorphosis) is the retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood — I can relate.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ask the frog staff: How many tadpoles actually survive into adulthood?

-
Image
Hi Mark. A frog friend and I were at the lily pond today and it was rife with tadpoles of various sizes and stages. Two questions: 1) It looked like the two ducks might be feeding on them ... do they? 2) How many tadpoles actually survive to frog adulthood? — Christine C. This particular topic has come up a lot recently, and one of our visitors beautifully photographed a heron eating a rather large bullfrog out of the lily pond in the Children's Garden . It was a graphic interaction, but demonstrates how vital amphibians are in food webs and one of the reasons we use to illustrate how important it is to keep amphibians around. Almost everything eats them, or their tadpoles, or their eggs ... or all three.  Many animals eat frogs exclusively (including some frog species!), and the herons at the Garden obviously love them. I have seen ducks eating tadpoles quite rapidly. In fact, my amphibian class last summer quantified how quickly different aquatic birds could consume ta
Read more

Amphibians and Solar Eclipses — What to Expect

-
Image
Green Tree Frogs are typically vocal during August and we may hear an increase in their breeding activity during the eclipse! Very little is known about amphibians and their response to a solar eclipse. We may even expect such a short lapse in photoperiod to be largely ignored by amphibians. One of the few reports on the subject comes from data gathered during a solar eclipse in New England in 1932. Wheeler, et al (1935) documented a lot of activity, with species such as Spring Peepers, Grey Tree Frogs and American Toads temporarily behaving as if it were night. We are encouraging our Metro Atlanta Amphibian Monitoring Program (maamp.us) participants to get out, if possible to their survey sites and record their observations during the eclipse. We would also encourage the entire Atlanta community to submit their observations of amphibians while they are out witnessing the event. Did you hear an increase in frog calling? Was there an increase in activity? Did the frogs, toads and sa
Read more

Species Highlight: Captive Breeding of Fringed Leaf Frogs

-
Image
Adult female on exhibit  Baby Fringed Leaf Frogs are so cute. These guys are growing fast! Two pairs of Cruziohyla craspedopus in amplexus The colors show up nice on the purple leaf ... Three pairs of Fringed Leaf Frogs in amplexus, and a clutch on new eggs on the leaf below the group on the right. This setup follows, as closely as possible, the suggestions of Erik Anderson.
Read more