Photo © 2005 Jim Jung and licensors. All rights reserved.

Zig-Zag Salamanders

When daytime ground temperatures reach 55° F* start looking for Zig-Zag Salamanders beneath rocks and logs. These are tiny creatures less than four inches long (usually closer to three) and remain close to the surface for only a few weeks each year. Their temperature requirements are rather stringent and small changes in temperature will drive them underground seeking temperatures more to their liking.

Look for them after springtime periods of warm (for Spring) rainy weather on steep, rock-covered hillsides below permanent seeps. Large amounts of fractured and creviced rock extending several feet below the soil line are required for this species. I've found them on both sandstone and limestone substrates but more on that in last paragraph...

These diminutive amphibians are members of the lungless salamander family. Having dispensed with lungs these creatures instead use their smooth, moist skins and throats to gather oxygen - a fairly simple task when you're smaller than a grasshopper. They prowl under the leaf litter and among the rocks searching for small spiders, tiny beetles, sylphids and even more obscure orders of small arthropods which they happily digest and process into salamander protein.

Since these creatures spend most of their time deep underground very little is known about them and unhappily no seems to be trying to find out more, at least at present. We do know that unlike most salamanders this species lays it's eggs on land - usually glued to the ceiling of an underground rock cleft. Here they pass through the larval stage completely in the egg - guarded by the female the whole time - and emerge in late summer as miniature adults.

As mentioned earlier, in southern Illinois I've found two forms of this creature: one, the standard textbook example of the Zig-Zag that occurs over a sandstone substrate in fairly dry conditions; and the second, restricted to the limestone based Pine Hills region, that resembles the Southern Redback Salamander (illustrated)(Plethodon serratus) found just across the river. From what I've read they seem to be having similar problems with identifying the Missouri and Arkansas Ozark and Ouichita populations. Answers should prove to be interesting but they're probably a long time coming ... stay tuned...

* - ground temperature four inches below the surface

** - In our area, the relationships of the many different - but obviously closely related - forms these creatures take are obscure; since they seem to be in the act of speciating. So rather than assign a species or subspecies name to any given form the term "species complex" is used as a way to both cover our ignorance and acknowledge its existence. This group of animals needs a lot of work.

Offsite Link:

• More photos at the University of the Ozarks Fall 2001 Zig-Zag Salamader page

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