10 Interesting Fun Facts About Salamanders
Some things you may not have known about salamanders. Interesting facts suitable for kids.
Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All ten extant salamander families are grouped together under the order Urodela.
Salamanders live in or near water, or find shelter on moist ground and are typically found in brooks, creeks, ponds, and other moist locations such as under rocks. Some species are aquatic throughout life, others take to the water periodically, and a few are completely terrestrial as adults. They lay shell-less eggs in water.
SALAMANDER FACTS
1. Salamanders are capable of regenerating lost limbs within in a few weeks, including tails and toes, allowing them to survive attacks from predators.
2. The name Salamander comes from the Greek word for Fire Lizard. This name came about when salamanders came running out of the logs they had been hiding in when those logs were thrown on a fire.
3. Salamanders are nocturnal.
4. Some salamander species can be poisonous and some even have teeth.
5. Some salamanders have tongues up to 10 times as long as their bodies.
6. The largest salamander in the world in the Chinese Giant Salamander. It can grow to a length of 5 feet.
7. The Americas are home to more species of salamander than the entire rest of the world combined!
8. The earliest salamander species lived before the dinosaurs. Triassurus sixtelae lived 230 million years ago during the Triassic period. A fossil from one of these Triassic-era stem salamanders discovered in Kyrgyzstan in 2020 is the oldest salamander ever found.
9. Salamanders don’t need to eat all that often. Some will have only a few meals each year. Amazingly, there is a salamander that lives in caves in southern Europe that can go 10 years without a meal!! This salamander, called “Olm” or “Human fish” (Proteus anguinus) is light colored and can live for 100 years!
10. There is a salamander that lives on the high Russian plain at 64 degrees latitude–almost to the Arctic Circle. This amazing salamander, called the Siberian newt (Salamandrella keyserlingii) has the largest range of any salamander in the world and is capable of surviving after being frozen in the tundra ice for several years!
