LEADER-POST (Regina, Saskatchewan) 26 August 04 Salamanders on the move, en masse (Kevin O'Connor)
Leapin' lizards!
An army of amphibious critters was on the move through a rainstorm Monday night headed toward the University of Regina campus, piquing the interest of local scientists.
"That's bizarre," said U of R biology professor Mark Brigham, when told about the southward trek of salamanders towards the campus.
"It's really unusual," agreed Bob Ewart, a naturalist with Wascana Centre Authority, who has seen a number of salamanders over the years around Wascana Lake, but never a mass migration.
"They probably got flooded out," he suggested.
At around 9 p.m. Monday, dozens of the amphibians were observed scampering across University Drive north on the north side of the campus, just south of Wascana Lake.
Although motor traffic was light, some of them ended up as road kill.
Brigham said from the description -- brown creatures with light spots, typically four to six inches long -- they would have to be tiger salamanders, the only type found in southern Saskatchewan.
"It's good travelling weather," Brigham said, who added it was good news to hear that tiger salamanders -- which are an endangered species in some jurisdictions -- are thriving this year.
According to a former University of Regina biology student who has studied salamanders for more than a decade, it's perfectly normal for young salamanders to make a run for it during wet August weather.
"What you saw on Monday night was the young-of-the-year moving out of the ponds and moving towards mammal burrows," said Danna Schock, an Edmonton native who's currently finishing her Ph.d at Arizona State University.
"That's) exactly what should have been going on in a downpour in mid-August."
Schock, who wrote papers on salamanders while studying at the U of R, said tiger salamanders like to spend their winters in gopher holes and other small mammal burrows within a few metres of the water where they were born.
Adult salamanders typically have left the water by June.
However, the young ones don't make their move until conditions are just right -- cool and rainy, she said. Biologists believe the triggering event is the drop in barometric pressure that accompanies rain storms.
"When the pressure drops, they develop wanderlust and leave the ponds," she said. "Pretty much like clock work, this happens in mid-August."
Meanwhile, anybody who tries to pick up a migrating salamander should remember that they will bite, Schock said.

"They'll lunge at you," she said. "It's a lot like being attacked by a wet clothes peg."