ARBOREAL SALAMANDER. Aneides lugubris lugubris (Hallowell)
length 6 inches or less. Head wedge-shaped, with bulging muscles above
and behind eye; teeth on margin of upper jaw prominent; thirteen cross
wise furrows (costal grooves) in skin on side of body between fore and
hind leg; skin everywhere smooth and soft. Upper surface dark brown,
usually with small round spots of yellow; under surface plain
commonly in Transition Zone near McCarthy ranch, 3 miles east of
Coulterville. Lives near or on damp ground within or under logs, under
stones, and in old wood rats' nests. Usually solitary.
The Arboreal Salamander, in the Yosemite region, was
found by us only on or close to the surface of the ground. Elsewhere in
its range the species is known to inhabit damp cavities in oak trees. In
the Sierras we found it at but the one locality mentioned above, chiefly
beneath logs and stones in pastures and woodlands. Two adults were found
in the interior of a charred and slightly decayed yellow pine log which
was lying on a sun-baked manzanita-covered hillside at the margin of the
yellow pine forest; one of the animals was found in the nest of a wood
rat; and another was discovered in a gopher burrow in the ground beneath
a wood rat's house.
This species, like the Mount Lyell and Slender
salamanders, is without either lungs or gills in the adult condition.
The animal is provided with a moist skin which serves importantly for
the interchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in respiration. Hence the
animal keeps to humid situations, where its soft skin can be kept from
So far as known the Arboreal Salamander is active
only at night and spends the day hidden in some retreat of the sort
mentioned above. During the night the atmosphere is more humid; hence
the animals can venture abroad then without danger of desiccation.
The breeding season of this species is in late July
and August. A female salamander collected on June 3 contained eggs
which were well formed.
The stomach contents of such of these animals as were
examined contained remains of terrestrial beetles and large
antsthe sort of food materials which is ground-dwelling,
night-foraging amphibian might be expected to take.