Spotted Salamanders
One amazing animal to get to know better is the salamander! Salamanders are amphibians that have long, slender bodies that are moist and smooth. Salamanders in the world vary greatly from color to size. Some have 2 or 4 legs and others have lungs or gills, or neither and breath through their skin. Others have identifiable spots that are easily seen in the night thanks to their yellow florescent spots along their backs. These spots are mostly identified with the Spotted salamander. Our book Salamander Season chronicles the journey of a colony of Spotted salamanders in the process of breeding within a vernal pool (a temporary pool of water).
Salamander egg and tadpole
For most species of salamanders, humid forests and a water source is crucial for their survival to produce offspring and to keep their skin moist. Salamanders are bred hundreds at a time and are born as tadpoles from their eggs. Over time, their bodies develop and the process of breeding in a vernal pool starts all over again.
Salamanders are generally nocturnal and keep cool during the day under rocks or trees. During the night, they go hunting for food which primarily consists of meat such as worms, slugs, and snails. Besides the main priority of most salamanders depending on humid forests and water as sources for survival, their skin also provides a source for protection. Many species of salamanders can secrete a poisonous liquid from their skin to combat enemies. Salamanders are really interesting creatures, aren’t they?
To learn more about salamanders and how other animals develop, check out these books!:
Salamander Season One cold, rainy, spring night, a young girl and her scientist father participate in “Salamander Night” to follow hundreds of spotted salamanders as they venture into a vernal pool to mate and lay eggs. Together, the father-child team studies the salamanders through their complete amphibian metamorphosis, culminating in the adult salamanders’ disappearance into the woods in late summer. In easy-to-understand text, the girl relates the tale through her illustrated, photographic journal. 
Turtles in my Sandbox Imagine finding turtle eggs in your sandbox! When a mother diamondback terrapin lays eggs in a young girl’s sandbox, the girl becomes a “turtle-sitter” to help the babies safely hatch. She raises the teeny hatchlings until they become big enough to fend for themselves in the wild. Then, with the help of experts, she releases them. Along the way, she learns about these unique animals and that she has made an important contribution to their survival. The “For Creative Minds” section includes terrapin fun facts and a turtle habitat craft.
Turtle Summer This is a companion book to Mary Alice Monroe’s novel,Swimming Lessons, the sequel to The Beach House. In the novel, the readers witness a young mother, Toy, writing a journal for her daughter, Little Lovie. This is the journal Toy is writing. Using original photographs, this scrapbook journal explains the nesting cycle of sea turtles and the natural life along the southeastern coast, including local shore birds, shells, and the sea turtle hospital. Adults and children will enjoy the images, information and the journal with or without the novel.
With three books under her belt in the past two years, author Katharine Hall is ready to compare and contrast again with Amphibians and Reptiles. This is the fourth book in our popular series and like the other books in the Compare and Contrast Book series young children will learn a ton of facts and get an up-close look at these slimy or scaly creatures.
Some of the most common questions we get from readers are about coming up with book ideas. Get to know Katharine and her writing…
How have you decided what topics to write about in the series?
I started with Polar Bears and Penguins because so many kids – and even adults! – think that these animals inhabit the same area. So I really wanted to pull them apart and say, no, this is where polar bears are and this is where penguins are, and they are completely different regions. So comparing/ contrasting two groups that are frequently confused is a fun topic and probably my favorite approach. But there are also things that are around us all the time that we don’t necessarily think about or examine. Those make great topics because they involve exploring something familiar and learning new things.
As an avid reader, what were some of your favorite books as a child?
How long of a list do you want? I could go on forever, but I’ll try to limit myself here. When I was little-little, I loved the “Baby Blue Cat” books and anything/everything by Jan Brett. Then by elementary school, I basically read everything and anything I could get my hands on. In terms of non-fiction, I have always enjoyed biographies. My mom stocked our bookshelves with biographies of famous women in history, famous inventors, scientists, and mathematicians – books that introduced me to important people and moments in history and helped expand my understanding of the world. For fiction, the “Harry Potter” series by JK Rowling and the “Song of the Lioness” series by Tamora Pierce were – and still are – near and dear to my heart.
Find out what author Katharine Hall has coming up next in her full author interview!
Ready to compare and contrast Amphibians and Reptiles? Leave a comment and enter to win a copy of the new book, then get started with our Venn diagram!
By Rebecca Cramp
In recent decades, the extraordinarily rapid disappearance of frogs, toads, and salamanders has grabbed the attention of both the scientific community and concerned citizens the world over. Although the causes of some of these losses remain unresolved, the novel disease chytridiomycosis caused by the skin-based fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), has been identified as the causative agent in many of the declines and extinctions worldwide. Bd is now regarded as being responsible for the greatest disease-driven loss of vertebrate biodiversity in recorded history. Like other entirely cutaneous microbes, interactions with the skin of its host determine how and under what conditions the fungus can induce disease.
The skin plays an important role in immune defence. In the first instance, skin acts as a physical barrier against microbes and pathogens. It also produces anti-microbial skin secretions and supports a large microbial community made up of good (commensal), bad (pathogenic) and indifferent (neither good nor bad; having no discernable effect) microbes. Like most animals, the outer skin layer of amphibians is shed (sloughed) on a regular basis—as often as daily to every couple of weeks. However, unlike mammals, amphibians shed (and often eat) the entire outer skin layer in one piece. Therefore, anything adhering to or within that outer layer would be lost from the body every time the animal sloughs it skin. As such, regular sloughing could play a role in regulating the abundance and persistence of microbes (including Bd) at the body’s surface. To date, however, the potential for regular skin sloughing to serve as an immune defense strategy in amphibians has been largely overlooked.
A green tree frog. Photo by Ed Meyer.
To test the hypothesis that sloughing in plays a role in the management of cutaneous microbe abundance, we investigated changes in the number of cultivable cutaneous bacteria on the ventral and dorsal body surfaces of the Green tree frog (Litoria caerulea) with sloughing. Effects of temperature on sloughing periodicity were also investigated in order to determine how the efficacy of sloughing in regulating microbial infection might vary with climate and season. Our study showed that sloughing massively reduced the overall abundance of bacteria, in some cases by as much as 100%. In addition, temperature had a marked effect on sloughing periodicity, with animals in cooler temperatures having a much longer time between sloughs compared with animals at held higher temperatures.
Most importantly however, we found that the extended time between sloughs in animals in the cold treatments allowed skin microbe numbers to increase to levels in excess of those seen in animals in the warm treatment. These data suggest that for pathogens that like relatively cooler conditions (like Bd), the effect of temperature on host sloughing frequency may allow pathogen numbers to build up to such a degree that fatal disease occurs.
What does it all mean, though? Firstly, the epidemiology of skin based diseases like Bd could be in part attributed to the effects of temperature on host sloughing periodicity particularly when disease outbreaks occur in cool habitats and/or at cooler times of year. Secondly, differences between species in the frequency of sloughing could influence pathogen establishment and go some way to explaining why some amphibian species are more resistant to cutaneous pathogens than others. Thirdly, the ability of commensal (good) bacteria to protect against pathogens may be reduced in frog species which slough frequently as commensal bacteria would also be lost from the skin with sloughing, unless they are able to recolonise the skin rapidly.
Understanding the role the skin plays as the first bastion of defense against external pathogens is vitally important as the rate of emergence of both novel and pre-existing infectious diseases is predicted to skyrocket in the future as a result of anthropogenic climate change.
Dr Rebecca Cramp is a Research Officer at The University of Queensland in the laboratory of Professor Craig Franklin. Rebecca has diverse research interests and is currently working on several projects including a study of disease susceptibility in frogs, the control of ion regulation in acid-tolerant amphibian larvae and the effects of environmental stressors on immune function in amphibian larvae. She is a co-author of the paper ‘First line of defence: the role of sloughing in the regulation of cutaneous microbes in frogs‘, which appears in the journal Conservation Physiology.
Conservation Physiology is an online only, fully open access journal published on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology. Biodiversity across the globe faces a growing number of threats associated with human activities. Conservation Physiology publishes research on all taxa (microbes, plants and animals) focused on understanding and predicting how organisms, populations, ecosystems and natural resources respond to environmental change and stressors. Physiology is considered in the broadest possible terms to include functional and mechanistic responses at all scales.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only earth and life sciences articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: A green tree frog. Photo by Ed Meyer. Do not reproduce without permission.
The post Why do frogs slough their skin? appeared first on OUPblog.
When was the last time you held a frog or toad in your hands? I do it every spring when my son and I catch tadpoles, watch them swim in a big bowl for a bit, then release them. We never bring them home, as state law requires you keep them as pets once you remove them from the wild. I've also been known to chase down a toad or two when I'm with the neighborhood kids. It's good for them to get up close and personal with these creatures, and many of them won't touch, so I do!
Today's book pairing is inspired by my fascination with these amazing amphibians.
Poetry BookToad by the Road: A Year in the Life of These Amazing Amphibians, written by Joanne Ryder and illustrated by Maggie Kneen, is a collection of 26 poems about the life cycle of the toad. Grouped by season—Spring-Summer, Summer, Late Summer-Fall, and Winter-Spring—each section contains from five to seven poems. On nearly every page readers will find a poem, illustration and brief bit of informational text. Most poems are told in the voice of a toad or group of tadpoles or toads.
The book opens with a counting poem. Here's an excerpt.
The Pond's ChorusOne toad,
One song.
Two toads
Sing along.
Three toads,
Better yet.
Four toads,
A quartet.
Here is one of my favorite poems from the book.
Zap, ZapMy tongue is a tool—
Far better than most—
For catching my breakfast,
Though I shouldn't boast.
It's long and it's swift
And it's covered with goo.
I flick it at cricket
And stick him like glue.
This poem is accompanied by the following bit of informational text.
A toad waits and watches an insect or worm creep near. Then it flicks out its sticky tongue to catch it prey. The toad swallows its meal whole and then wipes its mouth clean.
There is beautiful poetry here and a wealth of information to boot.
Poems and Text©Joanne Ryder. All rights reserved.
Nonfiction Picture Book 
Frogs, written and photographed by Nic Bishop, provides readers with a thorough introduction to members of the order Anura. Found on every continent, frogs and toads (which are just a type of frog) come in every imaginable size and color. Bishop does an outstanding job presenting this variety in the photographs and text.
It is clear that Bishop has his readers carefully in mind. Scientifically, he doesn't talk down to them, but rather helps to make the mystery that is life and science more understandable. The conversational tone hooks readers and keeps them interested, making the book inherently understandable.
Every page is filled with scientific information, amazing and sometimes quirky facts, and those gorgeous photos. In terms of layout, somewhere on each page is a main (or important idea) written in large font, a paragraph of information, and a short section in small font with an additional fact or two. Here's an example.
Some people are confused about the difference
between a frog and a toad, but you do not have to
be. A toad is just a kind of frog. It usually has drier
skin than other frogs and can live farther from water.
It also has shorter legs, so it hops rather than jumps.
Toads can live a long time. A pet toad in England was famous for living for thirty-
six years. A bullfrog, by comparison, may live for
about twenty years in captivity.
Toads are often found in forests or even in backyards. Some people think they look ugly, but toads can produce the most beautiful trilling calls during springtime.Text ©Nic Bishop. All rights reserved.
The text as a whole is thoughtfully laid out and proceeds in an orderly and reasonable fashion through a variety of topics, from where frogs live, to what they look like, how their bodies are constructed and adapted, their eating habits, means of escaping predators (camouflage and those incredible legs and jumping skills), the sounds they make, reproduction, and much more.
Consider introducing amphibians with one or two of the poems in Ryder's book. After reading the informational text that accompanies each poem, dig further into the content by pairing the poem with the appropriate section from Bishop's book. For example, Ryder's poem
Escape (p. 11) and the related informational text focus on eyes. In FROGS (p.15) you'll find even more information about frog eyes. Did you know that frogs use their eyeballs to swallow? You'll also find terrific photos throughout the book to examine frog and toad eyes more closely.
For additional resources, consider these sites.
Finally, for a bit of whimsy, consider adding this book to your reading list.
Tuesday, written and illustrated by David Wiesner is a Caldecott medal winner. In this wordless picture book (almost!), frogs riding lily pads like magic carpets sail over the countryside and into an unsuspecting town for an evening of fun.
Cassie Ammerman, Publicity
Are frogs a canary in a coal mine? We don’t actually know. What we do know is that amphibians have been disappearing for decades and all we have are theories of why. In their new book, 
Extinction in Our Times: Global Amphibian Decline, James P. Collins and Martha L. Crump have gathered everything we know about disappearing frogs and used it as a lens to see clearly the larger stories: climate change, conservation of biodiversity, and a host of profoundly important ecological, evolutionary, and ethical issues.
The following post is an excerpt from Extinction in Our Times, explaining why we should care about the loss of biodiversity in general, and why we should worry about frogs specifically.
Why Should We Care about Loss of Biodiversity?
Conservation biologists, philosophers, environmental ethicists, and others offer several key reasons to conserve biodiversity. One argument is that organisms have direct economic value for humans. We use plants and animals for medicines, food, clothes, building materials, recreation, and other luxuries and necessities. But what if an organism that is of no use to us for food or hides is screened for useful medicinal compounds and found to have none? Do we sanction its extermination? Why must a plant or animal be of direct economic benefit to humans to have worth? Economic value alone is not the only reason to preserve biodiversity.
Another reason often given…to conserve biodiversity is that organisms, as components of ecosystems, provide services, and their interactions with other organisms contribute to the overall healthy functioning of ecosystems… On a practical level, biologists want to know just how much the loss of a few species will reduce the quality of services within a specific ecosystem. Two schools of thought prevail.
One idea, called the “rivet hypothesis,” is that every species contributes to ecosystem integrity. The analogy is that biological species are like rivets in an aircraft. Only a limited number of rivets can be removed from an aircraft before it falls apart. Similarly, as species are lost, at some point ecosystem function becomes damaged.
The alternative view, called the “redundant species hypothesis,” suggests that high species richness is not necessary to ecosystem function. The argument is that as long as the biomass of primary producers, consumers, decomposers, and other trophic levels is maintained, ecosystems can function perfectly well with fewer species… Some ecologists suggest that even if all the organisms now considered to be threatened with extinction did indeed go extinct, other plants and animals would take over their roles and ecosystems would continue to function with scarcely a hitch.
Going from theory and empirical data for specific ecosystems to generalizations about all ecosystems, however, is a huge leap. Scientists are a long way from agreeing on which species (if any particular ones) are crucial to maintain productive ecosystems…
Why Should We Care if Amphibians Decline?
People differ in their concern over amphibian declines… Peter Daszak, who at the time was at the Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia, and his colleagues proposed that global declines of amphibian populations are “perhaps one of the most pressing and enigmatic environmental problems of the late 20th century.” At the other extreme, an editor emeritus of a Tennessee newspaper wrote: “We read an article recently that indicated that frogs are becoming an endangered species. The information in the article indicated that scientists (interested in frogs) were unable to explain what has happened. Personally, we have not missed the frogs as we have little contact with them.”
If we could chat with that editor emeritus, how would we convince him that conservation of amphibian diversity is important? Why should we care if amphibians disappear?
…We should care if amphibians disappear because we use them for our own benefit. Every year we use huge quantities of frogs…in medical research and for teaching purposes. Isolation, identification, and characterization of novel chemical compounds that occur in the granular glands of anuran skin have led to the development of new drugs for human use. In 2001, The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimated the average quantity of frog legs sold for human consumption to be 4716 metric tons annually from 1987 to 1997. We buy millions of amphibians each year for pets: poison dart frogs, pacman frogs, White’s tree frogs, and fire-bellied toads to name but a few.
Amphibians play a key role in energy flow and nutrient cycling, in both aquatic and terrestrial environments. They…serve as “conveyor belts” by transferring energy from invertebrates to predators higher up on the food chain. This transfer of energy is efficient because amphibians expend relatively little energy to maintain themselves. About 50 percent of the energy an amphibian gets from food is converted into new tissue. That, in turn, is transferred to the next level in the food chain when a predator eats the amphibian…
Amphibians provide the world a valuable service through their eating habits. Tadpoles eat tremendous quantities of algae. In doing so, they alter the dynamics of aquatic ecosystems and reduce the rate of natural eutrophication (over-enrichment of water with nutrients, resulting in excessive algal growth and oxygen depletion). Most adult amphibians eat insects and other arthropod prey. A population of 1000 cricket frogs (Acris crepitans, small tree frogs about 3 to 3.8 cm long) consumes an estimated 4.8 million small insects and other arthropods annually.
Thus, both because of what they eat and because they serve as food for fish, reptiles, birds, mammals, and other animals, amphibians play a central role in the food web…
A world without amphibians would be an aesthetically less interesting place. Frogs serve as good luck charms for people all over the world, because of their association with rain. Frogs symbolize fertility—some species produce more than 20,000 eggs at a time. They represent resurrection, because they seemingly appear out of nowhere after heavy rains. Frogs are “magic.” How else could they transform from aquatic, algae-eating swimmers into terrestrial, carnivorous jumpers? From tadpole form to frog form?
Amphibians, especially frogs and toads, provide inspiration for our artistic endeavors. Many cultures have folk tales about a kissed toad turning into a handsome prince. Who could forget Mr. Toad in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, or Beatrix Potter’s Jeremy Fisher… Archeologists worldwide unearth ceramic vases and vessels with anuran designs, and frog and toad images are woven into tapestries and carved into wood and stone.
Finally, from an ethical standpoint, we are obliged to respect and protect amphibians, just as we should respect and protect all other organisms. It is easier for people to respect organisms considered to be “good” than the “bad” ones such as malaria-carrying mosquitoes. As just indicated, most cultures value amphibians.
