Tiger Salamander

The word "salamander" is a name for amphibians that have tails when they are adults. Most animals in the salamander order look like a mixture of frog and lizard. They have the wet, smooth skin of frogs, and a long tail like lizards. Other names for a salamander include olm, axoloti, spring lizard, water dog, mud puppy, hellbender, triton, and congo eel.

The Tiger Salamander has the stripe pattern of their mammalian namesake. The Tiger Salamander is usually brown or greenish or gray in color and has yellow stripes or yellow dots or dark brown splotches throughout its body. Some have no markings at all.

The Tiger Salamander is the largest land-dwelling salamander on earth. They have thick bodies with short snouts, sturdy legs and long tails. They live in burrows (deep holes) up to two feet below the surface. They go out of their burrows at night to hunt for worms, insects, frogs and even other salamanders.

This amphibian is listed as Least Concern in the endangered species list because researchers have a hard time recording numbers for the Tiger Salamander since they spend a lot of time in their burrows underground. However, Least Concern is a a step before Near Threatened, so if people started early enough, the Tiger Salamander MAY be kept off the endangered list altogether! Some threats to the life of the Tiger Salamander include:

1. Predatory fish - The Tiger Salamander cannot live with predatory fish in its environment. Bass, catfish and other such species pose to threat to the Tiger Salamander, who is small enough to be eaten by these fish.

2. Bait - Tiger Salamanders, when caught, are used as bait to catch other fish.

3. Loss of habitat - Deforestation and loss of wetland areas, places where the Tiger Salamander lives. The decrease in the area of these places means that the Tiger Salamander also has less places to live and survive in.

4. Vehicles - As the Tiger Salamander scurries from place to place in search of food, it crosses roads and highways, proof of how people are getting closer to the living places of all animals and their environment. The chances of the amphibians being run over by vehicles increase as more and more people take over the land.

5. Pollution - People not only take the lands from animals, the presence of people alone means more pollution in the ponds and other habitats of the animals. Polluting the area poses a threat to the Tiger Salamander (and other animals in the area) because it can eat or be killed by pollutants in the air and water.

Tiger Salamander Fast Facts

Scientific Name: Ambystoma Tigrinum
Type: Amphibian
Diet: Carnivore
Height: 7 to 14 inches
Weight: 4.4 ounces
Range: North America
Diet: worms, insects, frogs, other salamanders

To make a 3-D paper model of a Salamander, click on the image or here.