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Water pollution is also a great factor in the habitat destruction of the Chinese giant salamander; the immense decline in their population can be traced to, among the other major problems of over-hunting and failed conservation efforts, the tainting of the water that they live in. Mining activity in particular in areas near their streams often ...
The skin of salamanders, in common with other amphibians, is thin, permeable to water, serves as a respiratory membrane, and is well-supplied with glands. It has highly cornified outer layers, renewed periodically through a skin shedding process controlled by hormones from the pituitary and thyroid glands.
Other closely related salamanders in the same family are in the genus Andrias, which contains the Japanese and Chinese giant salamanders. The hellbender is much larger than any other salamander in its geographic range, and employs an unusual adaption for respiration through cutaneous gas exchange via capillaries found in its lateral skin
A newt is a salamander in the subfamily Pleurodelinae. The terrestrial juvenile phase is called an eft. Unlike other members of the family Salamandridae, newts are semiaquatic, alternating between aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Not all aquatic salamanders are considered newts, however.
A white-headed dwarf gecko with tail lost due to autotomy. Autotomy (from the Greek auto-, "self-" and tome, "severing", αὐτοτομία) or 'self-amputation', is the behaviour whereby an animal sheds or discards an appendage, [1] usually as a self-defense mechanism to elude a predator's grasp or to distract the predator and thereby allow escape.
Due to habitat destruction and pollution resultant of the rising human population of Pátzcuaro, a city located on Lake Pátzcuaro, the achoque population has decreased severely in the past decades. [10] Lake Pátzcuaro is part of a larger basin, which makes the lake the final source for any runoff produced by the surrounding villages. [9]
Like most woodland salamanders, the Shenandoah salamander eats mites, flies, small beetles, springtails, and other soil invertebrates. [9] No direct observation of predation of the Shenandoah salamander has ever been reported, but potential predators residing within the habitat of the Shenandoah salamander include ring-necked snakes, short-tailed shrews, brown thrashers, and towhees. [10]
In salamanders, webbed feet have arisen in multiple lineages, but in most do not contribute to increased function. However, in the cave salamander species Chiropterotriton magnipes (bigfoot splayfoot salamander), their webbed feet are morphologically unique from other salamanders and may serve a functional purpose. [13]