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PA Press: 'Neon gummy bears'

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Posted by: W von Papineäu at Sun Sep 17 21:39:51 2006  [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by W von Papineäu ]  
   

POCONO RECORD (Pennsylvania) 17 September 06 'Neon gummy bears' scoot about Pocono forests (John Serrao)
Toward the end of August, a tiny, "cute" animal leaves its watery birthplace and enters the forest, where it undergoes a physical transformation before the arrival of cold weather. Its skin changes from smooth and slippery to granular and dry, and its color becomes bright reddish-orange. This is the "red eft" stage of the red-spotted newt, certainly one of the most familiar creatures of the Poconos.
During my recent walk through a mixed forest of hemlock, beech, maple and oak, scores — or perhaps hundreds — of these inch-long baby salamanders crawled across the trail and took shelter beneath rotting logs near a large swamp where, in early spring, they had emerged from eggs deposited by adult newts. This was the first of two major transformations experienced during the life of this remarkable animal.
Newts belong to a widespread family of salamanders, of which there are five other species in North America in California and the Gulf area and many others in Europe and Asia. Only one — the red-spotted newt — occurs in the northeastern United States.
Averaging about 4 inches in length, this salamander is olive green, with a yellow, black-dotted belly and bright red spots along its sides. Inhabiting lakes, ponds, swamps and quiet streams, the newt is commonly seen swimming beneath the water's surface with its flattened tail undulating in alligator-like fashion. Occasionally, it comes to the surface for a gulp of air.
In winter, a few newts remain active in the cold water beneath the solid ice, and all their oxygen requirements are satisfied by "breathing" directly through the skin. Most of them, however, leave the water in autumn and hibernate below the frostline in the soil of the forests and wetlands.
The adult newt described above is not the stage with which people are most familiar. It is the immature "eft" stage that is so commonly encountered by hikers on rainy summer days along the forest trails. These bright reddish-orange salamanders appear like small, neon "gummy bears" casually crawling along the ground during the day when all other species of salamanders are hiding beneath logs, rocks or leaf litter to avoid the eyes of birds and other predators.
But the newt has an adaptation that prevents it from becoming a meal — a very toxic skin that renders it completely inedible. In fact, most of the world's newts share this trait. The western rough-skinned newt has a toxin 10,000 times more lethal than cyanide, and the Spanish ribbed newt actually pushes its sharp ribs through its skin when attacked by a predator, puncturing its poison glands and bathing the attacker's mouth and eyes with toxin.
Most newts also advertise their toxicity by sporting bright "warning colors" that make a potential predator's unpleasant experience much easier to remember in the future. With our red-spotted newt, the adult's brightly colored spots fulfill this purpose, while the immature eft's entire body is flaming orange-red. This species is avoided by fish, birds, most reptiles and mammals, although it is reported that garter snakes are partially immune and skunks occasionally peel off the toxic skin to eat the innards.
The toxin must be consumed to show an effect, however; a person who picks up a red-spotted newt would not be poisoned.
The newt's diet is entirely carnivorous. Adults eat aquatic insects, mollusks and crustaceans, and I have watched them trying to penetrate the jelly-covered surfaces of wood frog and spotted salamander egg masses in the icy waters of early spring they also gobble up the tiny tadpoles that emerge from these eggs. The terrestrial efts eat insects, worms and other invertebrates.
As soon as winter is over, male red-spotted newts recognized by the black knobs along their inner legs and toes, used for holding onto females find females in the water and clasp them from above with their hind legs. Attached in this manner, the males also wave their tails in the water and rub the females with their chins. This stimulates the females to follow the males after they let go and deposit spermatophores on underwater leaves. A female's eggs are fertilized when she takes a spermatophore into her genital opening, after which she deposits 200 to 400 eggs singly on submerged plants. In one or two months, the larvae hatch and by later summer they transform into the tiny terrestrial efts I witnessed in late August. The eft stage may be omitted in some regions where the forest is too dry or inhospitable and the larvae turn directly into aquatic adults.
In three to five years some experts say as many as eight, the efts migrate from the forest to their watery birthplaces, using the earth's magnetic field as a navigational aid. Their bodies turn from orange to olive-green, the skin becomes smooth again and the tails grow fins as adaptations to the aquatic existence they will pursue for the remaining five to 10 years in the life of this amazing amphibian.
'Neon gummy bears' scoot about Pocono forests


   

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