April 4, 2026 • 39 mins
In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe chat with Mark Mandica, executive director of the Amphibian Foundation. Mark returns to the show to discuss the plight of amphibians and current conservation efforts for critically endangered species. (originally published 3/11/2025)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb. Today's Saturday, so we have a vault
episode for you. This is an interview episode that Joe
and I conducted last year. It originally published three eleven,
twenty twenty five, and it is our latest interview with
Mark Mandinka, executive director of the Amphibian Foundation here in Atlanta.
(00:30):
Mark returns to the show here to discuss the plight
of amphibian's in current conservation efforts at the time for
critically endangered species.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Again.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
This one originally published three eleven, twenty twenty five. We're
gonna have to have him back on the show in
the future to catch up on what's been going on.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My
name is Joe McCormick, my name is Robert Lamb, and
today we're bringing you a new interview with Mark Mendica,
executive director of the Amphibian Foundation based in Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Mark has been on the show a couple of times before,
highlighting the work that the Amphibian Foundation does to help
critically endangered amphibian species and to educate the public about herpetology.
But it's been several years and the Amphibian Foundation recently
celebrated its tenth year, so we figured it was high
time to check back in with Mark.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
We'll start with a bit of biographical information. Mark Mandica
is the co founder and executive director of the Amphibian Foundation,
a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study and conservation of amphibians.
His work puts him on the front line in efforts
to conserve declining native and tropical amphibians. He received his
bs from UMass where his thesis focused on the ephemeral
(01:54):
wetland ecology of amphibians. He then went on to the
American Museum of Natural History in New York, where he
worked as a curatorial assistant before moving to South Florida
for graduate school at U Miami. Mark's masters explored the
amphibian community ecology in the Everglades, photoreception related activity patterns
in South Florida buffinids, as well as the prey detection
(02:17):
and feeding mechanics of aquatic pipid frogs. Mark is also
a professional scientific illustrator and is published in textbooks as
well as the Journal Science Nature, Journal of experimental biology, zoology,
American zoologist, and many others. Originally, Mark's academic interests were
broadly based on the form, function, and evolution of amphibians,
(02:39):
with particular interest in the biomechanics of feeding, prey, detection, capture,
and transport. During the course of his studies, however, it
became increasingly difficult to simply find amphibians at study sites,
and as a result, he has joined fellow scientists and
naturalists to address the global amphibian decline crisis. Before founding
the Amphibiani Foundation in twenty sixteen, he managed the amphibian
(03:02):
conservation program at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. Mark has now
dedicated the majority of his time towards conservation efforts aimed
at reversing amphibian declines in the Southeast US and abroad,
and teaching amphibian biology, ecology, and conservation at the Amphibian
Foundation and Agnes Scott College Indicator, Georgia.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Now, before we jump into the interview proper, I do
want to encourage you to visit their website. It is
Amphibianfoundation dot org. There's tons of information there about all
the various programs that are involved in and you can
follow them on multiple social media platforms as well. For instance,
they are Amphibian Foundation on Instagram. All right, without further ado,
(03:43):
let's jump right into the conversation. Thank you, Hi, Mark,
welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Thank you great to be here so.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Longtime listeners will remember you and the work you do
with the Amphibian Foundation from the past couple of times
you've been on the show. But for those who were
along for the ride back, then can you give us
a refresher on what the Amphibian Foundation is, what its
mission is, and how it came into being.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Absolutely, you know, I can't even believe it. Next year
it'll be ten years since we started the Amphibian Foundation
here in Atlanta, primarily to address the imminent extinction of
a particular species of salamander, the frosted flatwood salamander. But
since then the program has grown quite a bit and
(04:31):
we've added additional species. We fund these conservation actions through
our own educational programs, and so we've really built quite
a community. It's really blown my mind. We have thirty
staff members now in about sixty volunteers. It's just really
mind blowing and just providing a place for people to
(04:52):
come and contribute to this wonderful group of animals that
we're losing.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, back in eighteen, I believe we chatted a bit
about the plight of the frosted flatwood salamander. Can you
remind us a little bit about what the frosties are
all about? And more importantly, how are they doing? How
is the conservation effort going? Six years later?
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Thank you for that, because I usually describe it as
this species is quietly going extinct. Most people have never
even heard of this species of frosted flatwood salamander, but
it really was once quite a common species throughout the
entire southeast, and now it's gone from South Carolina and
it's almost gone. In Georgia, there's one wetland left, and
(05:40):
then in Florida there are a couple of clusters of puddles,
and then that's it. I mean, this is a species
that we're considering at imminent risk of extinction. And it's
very mysterious as well. Because it's underground for fifty weeks
of the year, it's very challenging to find and study.
(06:00):
And so we were in twenty sixteen given permission from
the government to build a captive survival Assurance colony. That's
when you know it's getting really bleak. When you feel
like the best chance of thwarting extinction is to actually
remove animals from the wild and protect them a very
bad sign. And that's where we were at with the frosties.
(06:23):
You know, there's been little glimmers of hope. We were
successfully able to breed that species for the first time,
and so we have actual baby laborad frosted flatwood salamanders
and once we did that, we were able to transfer
baby salamanders to four other institutions, so we have partners
now all working with this species. That's all very positive.
(06:45):
We have yet to be able to breed them again
at any facility, so we're still working on that. And
in the wild, the species continues to crash, and that's
the part that's really scary because it might be that
this captive program is what saves the species, and that's
that's really intense.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Do we know if the main drivers of the collapse
in the wild populations are due to habitat loss or
to other factors or what we do?
Speaker 5 (07:19):
I think they are a long leaf pine endemic species,
and so that ecosystem was more or less removed, you know,
I think there's like between three and seven percent left
of that habitat. So really any species that is endemic
to that type of habitat is in trouble right now.
(07:40):
And that includes like gopher tortoises and indigo snakes, you know,
and there are a lot of the red cockaded woodpecker
gets a lot of attention, you know, And so the
frosties are abummed because of that. But there are more
nuanced things that are directly impacting the species because it's
(08:01):
a it's a salamander that is completely dependent on fire,
which is really interesting to think about a salamander that
can't live without fire and fire suppression.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
And h and and.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
In other ways that humans have altered fire regimes are
still impacting the frosties, even on the lands where they're
theoretically protected. They've they've evolved over millions of years to
co occur with fire, so they know when to be
out of the fire's way. And so when humans either
suppress the fire so the habitat changes, or burn when
(08:38):
it's more convenient for humans to burn, that's not when
the frosties are.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Below ground and out of harm's way.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
That's when they're up above ground and they literally get burned,
and so that's a that's a big problem. So and
and then you add in the fact that this is
a species that breeds in ephemeral wetlands, wetlands that hold
water for sure periods of time, but only when the
ponds are dry. They won't breed in a pond if
(09:05):
it's full. They need to lay their eggs in a
dry pond and then the eggs wait for rains to
come and fill the pond and.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Hatch the eggs.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
That's worked for them for millions of years, but it's
not working for them in recent years because of shifting
climates and drought, and the eggs are often just drying
out and dying in the field. And so that's most
of our program is from collecting these eggs from the
field that are going to dry out and they get
brought back to the lab. And the people that we're
(09:36):
collecting these eggs for us are our federal partners that
many of which are losing their jobs right now, are
waiting to find out if they still have a job.
And it's added this layer of chaos because it's we're
right in the middle of the breeding season, like right now,
you know, this is what we should be doing right now,
and so it's terrifying.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Well Mark, we may have covered this one of the
previous times you were on the show, but it might
be worth getting into it again. It's fascinating. You mentioned
how the salamanders rely on fire for their life cycle.
Could you give a little more detail on that. In
what way do they rely on fire? How does that
fit into what they do?
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Sure, the long leaf pine ecosystem is historically maintained by fire,
and the animals that live in that environment have adapted
to it, you know, And so we're talking about burn
cycles of every one to three years. That's how frequently
(10:37):
their area would burn, usually during the spring and summer.
Usually fires caused by lightning strike would ignite, and only
the plants that can survive that much of a pummeling
persist and that keeps them the habitat wide open. These are,
you know, there are long leaf pine savannahs. They're called
(10:58):
the flat woods in some area.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Is because the ponds are very shallow.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
You might not even notice them, if you know, especially
because the flatwoods breed in dry ponds, you might not
even recognize that. A few inches of a depression somewhere
are actually a really important wetland and it needs to burn.
The bottoms of the ponds need to burn out, otherwise
the habitat changes.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
If you suppress the fire, the.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
Long leaf pine will get outgrown by other trees, and
other types of vegetation will eventually come in and replace it,
and then it's no longer suitable for the salamanders. And
so that's the main struggle with them.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
And then in captivity is the sort of the main
challenges to getting them to breed? Do they seem to do?
These challenges seem to relate to just making sure that
the environmental conditions are just right that they'll want to
breed with each other.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
Yeah, it is a mystery. First, we were just trying
to figure out how to keep these things alive because
that had never been done before, and they didn't come
with an instruction manual of any any kind. And so
we started to notice things that we were interpreting as
interest in breeding behavior, and so we tried putting them
(12:17):
together in different assortments and different arrangements and tried to
queue in on what we thought was, you know, giving
them the signals. And so we got it right a
couple of years ago, but we haven't been able to
recreate that magic this year. Because we had groups set
up in multiple institutions with cameras, we were able to
(12:41):
observe some of the breeding behaviors and they were clearly communicating.
You know, it really is surprising that they didn't breed
this year. But I think basically that we are having
a lot of There are a lot of young animals,
and probably next year will be even more likely to
have success. But we we're learning very quickly having so
(13:02):
many amazing partners working on this same problem together. When
we were first looking to set up these redundancies, we
reached out to, you know, anyone we thought might be
interested in. Some of these amazing, world class zoos got involved,
so we actually shipped animals.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Out to Omaha.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
So Omaha's Henry Dorley Zoo have some frosted flatwood salamanders
in North Carolina Zoo as well, and then the Brevard
Zoo in Florida, and then an actual federal fish archery,
the Warm Springs National Fish Archery has some frosted flatwood
salamanders as well, and so we're still looking to expand
(13:44):
into other institutions as well. So if there are institutions
out there that might have the capacity to help set
up a colony of these guys, please reach out.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
To me, because again, right now, captive breeding seems to
be like the main hope for these for the species
moving forward.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Right it's really hard to predict. You know, if you
would have asked me that question a month ago or
two months ago, I would have given you a different
answer than right now. But when I'm talking to our partners,
the ones that I can still get on the phone,
you know, they're saying, we know the gun is to
our head, we're waiting for someone to pull the trigger.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
And they don't really know if they're going to have
a job.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
And they're not optimistic that the Endangered Species Act is
going to remain intact either, And so there's a lot
that it's changing very fundamentally right now in ways that
are scaring me.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
Well, Mark, to stick with the scary stuff for the moment.
We have been talking specifically about the frosted flatwood salamander,
but I was also looking at some research published just
the past couple of years in Nature before we came
in to talk today. It was based on assessments from
a number of conservation groups, saying that currently amphibians are
(14:59):
the most threatened class of all the world's vertebrates. Do
we know what are the main causes for this or
what do we think are the most likely causes?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Absolutely? Absolutely, thank you for that.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
Yeah, there are more amphibians than mammals and birds combined
that are threatened right now.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
You know, it's just and it's.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
It's the same things that are impacting other types of
wild wildlife. It's just that with amphibians it's times a thousand,
you know, because it's it's really comes down to their skin.
And for example, you'll never see a frog drink, you won't.
They just absorb everything right through their skin, and that
includes anything that we have put into the environment as
(15:43):
well that also gets absorbed into the frog's skin.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
You know.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
So like when I was an undergrad, we were seeing
frogs with birth defects, being being born with extra limbs
or not enough limbs, you know, in areas where you
would normally expect amphibians to be. Okay, that was in
the nineties and it's it's really only gotten worse since then.
I mean, you'll hear you'll hear that amphibians sometimes described
(16:12):
as the canary in the coal mine, you know what
I mean, And so they if that's true, then amphibians
are some type of warning for humans. Well, they've been
warning us for decades, you know, deformities, die offs, massive
die offs. It's just like it's really hard to imagine
how much more of a warning the amphibians could be
(16:33):
giving us.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
You know, like.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
The the tap order you know, would kill all of
the amphibians. Here at the Amphibian Foundation, we have to
filter it so significantly and put it through all these
processes just to make it safe.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
And that's the stuff that we like bathe bathe in
all the time, ticket shower. It's lethal to amphibians, you know.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
It's just it's it's it's hard to think that that
we're not connected to this somehow, but it's like their
amphibians are so sensitive due to that, you know, and
diseases that we can move around and invertently can really
be devastating because amphibian skin is so sensitive about and
it doesn't handle these types of perturbations very well, whether
(17:18):
that's pollution or agricultural chemicals, pharmaceuticals. You know that you
name it, it's impacting them.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
I think I was also reading that there's some thinking
that amphibians are especially vulnerable to warm it to increasing temperatures,
maybe more so than other classes of vertebrates are.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
Absolutely, I mean they're so intimately tied to the water.
Going back to the flatwood salamander, how risky is it
to breed in a dry pond? That's their strategy, you know,
but it's over millions of years. You know, they obviously
wouldn't always work out for them, but more often than
it wouldn't, it would work out. And now that that
is shifting and the ponds are holding water at different
(18:01):
times of the year than they have historically, that's very different.
That's not something that amphibians can catch up to quickly enough,
so they're very sensitive to even these small shifts in
the climate.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Now we've been talking about the environmental challenges for amphibians,
and also some of these other top down governmental and
political challenges as well on the other end of the spectrum.
You know, this brings to mind education and the public awareness,
and I know another huge part of the Amphibian Foundation's
(18:45):
mission is educational, both in terms of teaching future herpetologists
and raising awareness of critical species. Have you observed an
uptick in the public's enthusiasm for herbs in generals and
salamanders in particular.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
Oh, that's a great question, and I think I think
it's kind of mixed, because I think the Internet probably
has been really good for amphibians and reptiles, but then
you'll you also see a lot of people doing horrible
things to them, you know, So it's like it's a
double edged sword, I guess, you know, so it's really
(19:22):
made up markets for some pretty horrible things. But ultimately,
I do think that there are there's more awareness of
what's happening, and it certainly is easier for us to
get our message out to the community.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I don't want to discuss every all the horrible details necessarily,
but when you when you mention horrible things, you're talking
about things involving say, captive salamanders or herbs or encounters
with wild species.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
At that time, I was talking about encounters with wild species,
you know, and and the things that people do to
them in the wild. Yeah, but a gig go either way.
There's a study that just got shared with me. Someone
was measuring the social media response This was a group
out of Ireland, I believe it could have been Scotland
(20:13):
about the social media impact on certain extinctions, and they
used the RABS fringe limb tree frog that went extinct
here in Atlanta as an example of the comparing because
unfortunately there are several species that have gone extinct, and
so it was measuring the impact and that when Toughie
(20:35):
went extinct in Atlanta in twenty sixteen, that was a
movement that was talked about for longer periods of time,
maybe by not as many people as some of these
other things, but it had a duration. It really spoke
to a certain amount of people, very very profoundly, and
(20:56):
so that gave me a little bit of hope too
as far as the awareness, you know, because having worked
through an actual extinction once already, I just know that
that feeling of such profound loss that you know, it
really drives a lot of the work that we're currently
still doing where we're teetering right on the edge here
(21:19):
of some really bleak stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Now, in terms of like social media awareness of various species,
I'm to understand that since we last spoke, acxle Lottels
were introduced into the popular Mindcraft video game, and that
this has helped to fuel greater popularity for actual lottels.
(21:44):
I'm curious if the amphibian and herpetology world have observed,
like any impact from their rising popularity, Like people find
them cute, they're like stuffed animals off them, and I
guess maybe more people are trying to obtain them as pets.
Does this have just kind of a neutral impact or
is it a positive or negative effect?
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Do you think it's really hard to measure, especially since
that species is extinct in the wild. You know, like
it's doing really well in the pet trade and in captivity,
But I'm not I'm curious how many of the enthusiasts
are also aware of how bad it is for that
species in the in the wild and and we call
(22:26):
them Acxi lottels here, but in there and where they live,
there are more than one species of our ax A
lottel or big big guild neotenic salamanders, and those those
species are still there, but a lot of them are
in big trouble. So I would personally like to see
a lot of this attention going towards those types of
(22:48):
awareness projects or maybe even fundraising. But Ultimately, I would
call it a net neutral because I haven't seen any
evidence of that.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
The ax a lot as you mentioned being extinct in
the wild. I was recently listening to a podcast interview
on the podcast Ologies with an acce lottle scientist, and
they had mentioned that most of the ax lottels that
we have in the world in captivity are actually more
French than Mexican. At this point, there's like, are they're
(23:23):
all descended from a population that was taken out of
Mexico by a French scientist many, many years ago.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
Wow, this is news to me. Fascinating. Okay, so they're
more French than Mexican. I know that there's a bunch
that have also been mixed with other Ambistoma species and
that they present as axe lottels, But they might suddenly metamorphose,
which would be a really good clue that that's not
actually an accele lottl if it metamorphosed, because the axcelettles can't.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Now, given that axe lottels seem to be relatively successful
in captivity, does this pose a hurdle to educating folks
about like the dangers and the challenges involved with these
other species we've been talking about, you know, maybe a
tendency to think, oh well, if you can raise ax
lottels in captivity. I can see when when I go,
(24:14):
you know, to this facility in town and then I
see them on the internet. They must be doing fine.
We must have we must have it figured out.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
Yeah, yeah, that would be a bad message to send.
I think it's really the whole thing is really challenging,
and we we try to like stay away from the
pet trade angle and most things, and it's it's pretty discouraging,
you know, and I would love to see it move
towards more type sustainable types of things. We were on
(24:43):
a nature preserve in Atlanta and we still we get
people's pets here all the time. They just release their
pets on the nature preserve. Kind of it's really sad.
And you know, we're talking about like turtles mostly, you know,
and that's not good for the native turtles that are
just trying to make a living, you know. And so
I don't know, I know that's not totally related, but
(25:06):
it's it's kind of all in the same ball of wax.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Now, one of your outreach programs over the years has
been the biology of the Despised. I know we talked
about this, and I think your last appearance on the
podcast a lot of this involving snakes, venomous snakes, but
also snakes that are mistaken for venomous snakes, as well
as things like snapping turtles.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
Yes, yeah, did you you want me to just riff
on that because I can't?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah? Oh yeah, you're going yeah, because you know that.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
That is something that I remember talking with you guys
about and I really appreciated that, and it's something that
we've continued to expand upon. So this this weekend is
our annual Biology of the Despised event at the Atlanta
Science Festival, and so this this year we're doing cotton mouths.
So it's not a native Atlanta snake, but they're very
(25:57):
hated here in Atlanta, even though they don't live here,
and so we're highlighting them. But we're also building our
first course that's going to go beyond the amphibian and
reptile tax. We're going to go out and it's just
going to be a full Biology of the Despised and
highlighting invertebrates. You know, there's lots of despised stuff we've
(26:21):
been reaching casting a net far and wide about that.
Maybe I'll reach out to you guys too to see
if you have any suggestions for how we could expand
because we're just trying to cast the widest net possible
and really give people an opportunity to showcase the species
that they work with that are also despised and misunderstood
(26:42):
and maligned. And you know, it's just all stemming from
the fact that my field her petology was erected by
a Swedish botanist just because he hated those groups. That's
what amphibians and reptiles have in common, is that that
dude hated them.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
That's the only reason they're together.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
It's just really kind of like a badge of honor
thing he called them. These are the foul and loathsome creatures,
and so that's crazy, you know, it's really nuts, because
you know, amphibians and fish are more closely aligned. You
might put reptiles and birds together, who knows, you know,
But it's just really funny that that field has remained
(27:24):
for two three hundred years already.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Yeah, I think it's it's always interesting to look at
how media, particularly horror movies, depicts these various creatures you know. Yeah,
the creatures that are despised or are maligned like they're
often showing up as a centralized threat in some sort
of horror film, be it a shark or certainly, we've
seen so many killer snake movies over the years. We
didn't have some killer frog movies there. But I was
(27:50):
just realizing the other day it was like, I don't
think I've ever seen a killer salamander movie. Oh yeah,
I had to do some digging around. It looks I
was not where. There's something came out in twenty twenty
three called The Tank that features a giant salamander live
creature like lives in somebody's basement, meets cops. I was reading,
or you know, eats people that you know that wander
(28:13):
into the house.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
They're blowing my mind right now. I try to stay
up on these things. That's great.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
And then the recent Fallout vouching for it or I'm
not vouching for it. I have not seen it. The
recent Fallout television series is good. I can vouch for that,
and it does have a big sylum mat salamander creature
like a mutated salamander, oh tries to eat people. But
aside from those, you know, I even I looked at
the California Herp's website, which has a great like database
(28:42):
of mostly older films, and like at any point a
herb shows up being a lizard, a snake, or what
have you, And they have a page about salamanders, and
most of the instances where a salamander pops up in
a film, it seems to have the role of being
sort of a mystical and calendar or some sort of
like almost like a supernatural communication or dream imagery. And
(29:05):
I wonder what that says about our relationship thus far
with salamanders. You know, it's like almost like seeing a
fairy or a ghost.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
Well, that's a great point, you're it's making me think
of this article I wrote read about this. I think
it was like some Croatian brandy that's made with the
salamander venom that I can it's way too powerful of
an aphrodisiac.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
So according to what I was reading, like you would.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
Just read with whatever was in the room with you
at the point, if you had any whether that be
a chair or a goat, I don't know. You know,
it's just really funny because like you think of that
a lot. It's like eye of newt or whatever or
some of these really, I mean, newts have some of
the most toxic compounds known to science in them, and
(29:57):
some people do recreationally do some newt, you know, or
toads or something like that. But it's it's interesting because
I agree that, like when you think about it, that
there's more mysteriousness there with the salamanders than maybe with
the frogs.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Now coming back a little bit to conservation topics with
with with salamanders and newts and so forth, I mean,
there are also a lot of research angles that go
beyond just mere merely preserving the species. Like I'm und
understand that act A models feature into a number of
different scientific research programs with some huge potentials for human
(30:45):
health down the road. I mean, I guess it's it's
always the case with with with any species that we
we losing them is not only like a loss for
the planet, it is like selfishly potentially a huge loss
for us, because who knows what secrets could be unlocked
with them.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Yeah, that's a great that's an excellent point, and a
lot of the talks that I give, especially if I'm
not preaching to the choir. I do a lot of
audiences that are already sold on amphibians, but when I'm
reaching out to a new audience, you know, trying to
make a case for amphibians, and so I always start
(31:22):
with bugs. They eat tons of bugs, That's what they're
meant to do, you know. They some of them specialize
in mosquitoes. And then I run through all the reasons
why you should think amphibians are worth saving. And then
the last argument I make is the pharmaceutical value, or
the research value, or the impact on human health. And
there are so many compounds in the amphibian skin that
(31:44):
have great significant pharmaceutical value, blocking viral transmission with one
hundred percent effectiveness, relieving pain more effectively than morphine without
any addiction consequences. There's a lot of stuff in there.
And then at least two of the things I just
mentioned are from critically endangered species that we know from
(32:05):
compounds in their skin, and so a lot of it's
easy to think that we are losing species before we've
had a chance to even look at that.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Now, for any young or not so young people out there,
they're interested in amphibians and herpetology in general, what steps
could they or should they be taking if they're interested
in seriously pursuing it.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
We've really really focused a lot on providing an entry
way for people into the field, you know, and we're
based in Atlanta, so for folks that are in the area,
it might be a little easier because we have so
many volunteer opportunities for people that can afford to volunteer.
You know, it's it's proven to be a stepping stone
(32:52):
too well maybe if you wanted to go to school
for it or get some training in some capacities like that.
Part of this job has been extremely rewarding.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
And then we've been able to bring that to the
online community as well. Through our educational programs. We offered
what was meaningless several years ago, a certificate and master
you're a master herpetologist at that point if you complete
the course successfully. But now it's not meaningless. Now it
actually has helped people to get into graduate school, to
(33:27):
help people to get jobs at zoos and at agencies,
you know. So then that feels really good to see
that we're providing a way a mechanism because we really
need all hands on deck. There's there's plenty of work
to be done. We need as many people as possible
jazzed about these things and wanting to help, and so
just being able to contribute to that in any way
(33:48):
has been really I'm really grateful for that opportunity.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
And you have the Junior Master of Herpetology program as well.
My child is a graduate of that program.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yes, yes, and it's really really great.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
And so you know a lot of people, young young
learners want to take our adult classes, and we don't
let them unless they've already been certified as a Junior
Master herpetologist and already proven themselves. That's the only way
into those programs. And it's just been really great to
watch this community grow.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Now, how about the how about the rest of the
folks out there? Like what can the average person do
to help out amphibians and other herbs, say in their
backyard in their local area.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
I love getting these types of questions, and so just
uh so I don't forget. Let me just mention the
url backyard dot frogs need our help dot org and
that is a link to our frog blog. But it
queues up just the articles I've collected over the years
were written about how to make your yard more Amphibian friendly.
(34:53):
There's several articles in there about how to build a
wetland if you're interested, but there's lots of different things.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Oh, what to do if you get frogs.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
In your pool, you know, some strong arguments for leaving
leaf litter in certain areas of your yard.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
You know that kind of stuff.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
But it really goes through and I've been collecting that
stuff for like ten or fifteen years by now.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Awesome. Right now, we've already mentioned the Atlanta Science Festival,
which when this episode comes out, that will be ongoing.
So if you are in the Atlanta area or planned
to be in the Atlanta area during its a couple
of weeks run, you know, look that up. But what
else is on the horizon for the Amphibian Foundation here?
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Thank you? Yeah, we like.
Speaker 5 (35:34):
The Atlanta Science Festival is a big deal for us.
We do about usually do four events each Science Festival,
and the last day of the festival is the Expo
in Piedmont Park, and we'll be there so people can
come and see us if they want. And then you know,
we're going to be launching into our next semester of
(35:56):
our Conservation Research Bridge program, so that's our gap year
program where we have students come from all over the
country to work hands on you know, like I mentioned,
this is an all hands on deck situation. But what
we do is very unique and so it really resonates
very strongly with a small number of people around the
country who come and spend one to three semesters. Like
(36:19):
we just get right into the swamps. So it's really
ideal for certain people, and so that's going to get
us occupied right right now. We're also surveying for gopher
frog eggs, which is George's rarest frog, and so they
should be breeding any moment now. As soon as we
can detect some eggs, we'll bring them back to head
(36:39):
start them here at the Amphibian Foundation, which means get
them through their sensitive larval stage, and then we release
baby gopher frogs. That's usually in the middle of the summer.
We're releasing baby gopher frogs.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Nice, it's good stuff. If you like that kind of thing.
It's great.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Yeah, sounds like a hoot.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
It is. It is a hoot.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
Guys are welcome to come along for a frog release
if you'd like.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
All right, Mark, Well, thanks for coming on the show
and chatting with us.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
Oh, thank you. It was my pleasure to be here.
Thanks guys, Thank.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
You all right. Well, thanks again to Mark Mandika for
taking time to chat with us here on Stuff to
Blow Your Mind. If you want to learn more about
the Amphibian Foundation, subscribe to the Amphibian Foundation newsletter, or
learn about ways to help them out, such as donation
or volunteering, go to Amphibianfoundation dot org.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on
Tuesdays and Thursdays. In the Stuff to Blow Your Mind
podcast feed. On Wednesdays we have a short form episode,
and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to
just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Now you can follow our weird Cinema activities on letterboxed.
(38:02):
Our user name there is weird House. If you want
to follow Stuff to Blow your Mind proper well, there
are several different ways to do that on social media,
but we are also on Instagram STBYM podcast and that's
a great place to follow us and keep up with
what we are up to. Thanks as always to the
excellent JJ Possway for producing the show. And if you
(38:22):
want to reach out to us, if you want to
suggest topics for the future, if you want to suggest
interview guests, and so forth, you can reach us via
email at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Ratt
Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb. Today's Saturday, so we have a vault
episode for you. This is an interview episode that Joe
and I conducted last year. It originally published three eleven,
twenty twenty five, and it is our latest interview with
Mark Mandinka, executive director of the Amphibian Foundation here in Atlanta.
(00:30):
Mark returns to the show here to discuss the plight
of amphibian's in current conservation efforts at the time for
critically endangered species.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Again.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
This one originally published three eleven, twenty twenty five. We're
gonna have to have him back on the show in
the future to catch up on what's been going on.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My
name is Joe McCormick, my name is Robert Lamb, and
today we're bringing you a new interview with Mark Mendica,
executive director of the Amphibian Foundation based in Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Mark has been on the show a couple of times before,
highlighting the work that the Amphibian Foundation does to help
critically endangered amphibian species and to educate the public about herpetology.
But it's been several years and the Amphibian Foundation recently
celebrated its tenth year, so we figured it was high
time to check back in with Mark.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
We'll start with a bit of biographical information. Mark Mandica
is the co founder and executive director of the Amphibian Foundation,
a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study and conservation of amphibians.
His work puts him on the front line in efforts
to conserve declining native and tropical amphibians. He received his
bs from UMass where his thesis focused on the ephemeral
(01:54):
wetland ecology of amphibians. He then went on to the
American Museum of Natural History in New York, where he
worked as a curatorial assistant before moving to South Florida
for graduate school at U Miami. Mark's masters explored the
amphibian community ecology in the Everglades, photoreception related activity patterns
in South Florida buffinids, as well as the prey detection
(02:17):
and feeding mechanics of aquatic pipid frogs. Mark is also
a professional scientific illustrator and is published in textbooks as
well as the Journal Science Nature, Journal of experimental biology, zoology,
American zoologist, and many others. Originally, Mark's academic interests were
broadly based on the form, function, and evolution of amphibians,
(02:39):
with particular interest in the biomechanics of feeding, prey, detection, capture,
and transport. During the course of his studies, however, it
became increasingly difficult to simply find amphibians at study sites,
and as a result, he has joined fellow scientists and
naturalists to address the global amphibian decline crisis. Before founding
the Amphibiani Foundation in twenty sixteen, he managed the amphibian
(03:02):
conservation program at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. Mark has now
dedicated the majority of his time towards conservation efforts aimed
at reversing amphibian declines in the Southeast US and abroad,
and teaching amphibian biology, ecology, and conservation at the Amphibian
Foundation and Agnes Scott College Indicator, Georgia.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Now, before we jump into the interview proper, I do
want to encourage you to visit their website. It is
Amphibianfoundation dot org. There's tons of information there about all
the various programs that are involved in and you can
follow them on multiple social media platforms as well. For instance,
they are Amphibian Foundation on Instagram. All right, without further ado,
(03:43):
let's jump right into the conversation. Thank you, Hi, Mark,
welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Thank you great to be here so.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Longtime listeners will remember you and the work you do
with the Amphibian Foundation from the past couple of times
you've been on the show. But for those who were
along for the ride back, then can you give us
a refresher on what the Amphibian Foundation is, what its
mission is, and how it came into being.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Absolutely, you know, I can't even believe it. Next year
it'll be ten years since we started the Amphibian Foundation
here in Atlanta, primarily to address the imminent extinction of
a particular species of salamander, the frosted flatwood salamander. But
since then the program has grown quite a bit and
(04:31):
we've added additional species. We fund these conservation actions through
our own educational programs, and so we've really built quite
a community. It's really blown my mind. We have thirty
staff members now in about sixty volunteers. It's just really
mind blowing and just providing a place for people to
(04:52):
come and contribute to this wonderful group of animals that
we're losing.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, back in eighteen, I believe we chatted a bit
about the plight of the frosted flatwood salamander. Can you
remind us a little bit about what the frosties are
all about? And more importantly, how are they doing? How
is the conservation effort going? Six years later?
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Thank you for that, because I usually describe it as
this species is quietly going extinct. Most people have never
even heard of this species of frosted flatwood salamander, but
it really was once quite a common species throughout the
entire southeast, and now it's gone from South Carolina and
it's almost gone. In Georgia, there's one wetland left, and
(05:40):
then in Florida there are a couple of clusters of puddles,
and then that's it. I mean, this is a species
that we're considering at imminent risk of extinction. And it's
very mysterious as well. Because it's underground for fifty weeks
of the year, it's very challenging to find and study.
(06:00):
And so we were in twenty sixteen given permission from
the government to build a captive survival Assurance colony. That's
when you know it's getting really bleak. When you feel
like the best chance of thwarting extinction is to actually
remove animals from the wild and protect them a very
bad sign. And that's where we were at with the frosties.
(06:23):
You know, there's been little glimmers of hope. We were
successfully able to breed that species for the first time,
and so we have actual baby laborad frosted flatwood salamanders
and once we did that, we were able to transfer
baby salamanders to four other institutions, so we have partners
now all working with this species. That's all very positive.
(06:45):
We have yet to be able to breed them again
at any facility, so we're still working on that. And
in the wild, the species continues to crash, and that's
the part that's really scary because it might be that
this captive program is what saves the species, and that's
that's really intense.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Do we know if the main drivers of the collapse
in the wild populations are due to habitat loss or
to other factors or what we do?
Speaker 5 (07:19):
I think they are a long leaf pine endemic species,
and so that ecosystem was more or less removed, you know,
I think there's like between three and seven percent left
of that habitat. So really any species that is endemic
to that type of habitat is in trouble right now.
(07:40):
And that includes like gopher tortoises and indigo snakes, you know,
and there are a lot of the red cockaded woodpecker
gets a lot of attention, you know, And so the
frosties are abummed because of that. But there are more
nuanced things that are directly impacting the species because it's
(08:01):
a it's a salamander that is completely dependent on fire,
which is really interesting to think about a salamander that
can't live without fire and fire suppression.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
And h and and.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
In other ways that humans have altered fire regimes are
still impacting the frosties, even on the lands where they're
theoretically protected. They've they've evolved over millions of years to
co occur with fire, so they know when to be
out of the fire's way. And so when humans either
suppress the fire so the habitat changes, or burn when
(08:38):
it's more convenient for humans to burn, that's not when
the frosties are.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Below ground and out of harm's way.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
That's when they're up above ground and they literally get burned,
and so that's a that's a big problem. So and
and then you add in the fact that this is
a species that breeds in ephemeral wetlands, wetlands that hold
water for sure periods of time, but only when the
ponds are dry. They won't breed in a pond if
(09:05):
it's full. They need to lay their eggs in a
dry pond and then the eggs wait for rains to
come and fill the pond and.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Hatch the eggs.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
That's worked for them for millions of years, but it's
not working for them in recent years because of shifting
climates and drought, and the eggs are often just drying
out and dying in the field. And so that's most
of our program is from collecting these eggs from the
field that are going to dry out and they get
brought back to the lab. And the people that we're
(09:36):
collecting these eggs for us are our federal partners that
many of which are losing their jobs right now, are
waiting to find out if they still have a job.
And it's added this layer of chaos because it's we're
right in the middle of the breeding season, like right now,
you know, this is what we should be doing right now,
and so it's terrifying.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Well Mark, we may have covered this one of the
previous times you were on the show, but it might
be worth getting into it again. It's fascinating. You mentioned
how the salamanders rely on fire for their life cycle.
Could you give a little more detail on that. In
what way do they rely on fire? How does that
fit into what they do?
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Sure, the long leaf pine ecosystem is historically maintained by fire,
and the animals that live in that environment have adapted
to it, you know, And so we're talking about burn
cycles of every one to three years. That's how frequently
(10:37):
their area would burn, usually during the spring and summer.
Usually fires caused by lightning strike would ignite, and only
the plants that can survive that much of a pummeling
persist and that keeps them the habitat wide open. These are,
you know, there are long leaf pine savannahs. They're called
(10:58):
the flat woods in some area.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Is because the ponds are very shallow.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
You might not even notice them, if you know, especially
because the flatwoods breed in dry ponds, you might not
even recognize that. A few inches of a depression somewhere
are actually a really important wetland and it needs to burn.
The bottoms of the ponds need to burn out, otherwise
the habitat changes.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
If you suppress the fire, the.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
Long leaf pine will get outgrown by other trees, and
other types of vegetation will eventually come in and replace it,
and then it's no longer suitable for the salamanders. And
so that's the main struggle with them.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
And then in captivity is the sort of the main
challenges to getting them to breed? Do they seem to do?
These challenges seem to relate to just making sure that
the environmental conditions are just right that they'll want to
breed with each other.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
Yeah, it is a mystery. First, we were just trying
to figure out how to keep these things alive because
that had never been done before, and they didn't come
with an instruction manual of any any kind. And so
we started to notice things that we were interpreting as
interest in breeding behavior, and so we tried putting them
(12:17):
together in different assortments and different arrangements and tried to
queue in on what we thought was, you know, giving
them the signals. And so we got it right a
couple of years ago, but we haven't been able to
recreate that magic this year. Because we had groups set
up in multiple institutions with cameras, we were able to
(12:41):
observe some of the breeding behaviors and they were clearly communicating.
You know, it really is surprising that they didn't breed
this year. But I think basically that we are having
a lot of There are a lot of young animals,
and probably next year will be even more likely to
have success. But we we're learning very quickly having so
(13:02):
many amazing partners working on this same problem together. When
we were first looking to set up these redundancies, we
reached out to, you know, anyone we thought might be
interested in. Some of these amazing, world class zoos got involved,
so we actually shipped animals.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Out to Omaha.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
So Omaha's Henry Dorley Zoo have some frosted flatwood salamanders
in North Carolina Zoo as well, and then the Brevard
Zoo in Florida, and then an actual federal fish archery,
the Warm Springs National Fish Archery has some frosted flatwood
salamanders as well, and so we're still looking to expand
(13:44):
into other institutions as well. So if there are institutions
out there that might have the capacity to help set
up a colony of these guys, please reach out.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
To me, because again, right now, captive breeding seems to
be like the main hope for these for the species
moving forward.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Right it's really hard to predict. You know, if you
would have asked me that question a month ago or
two months ago, I would have given you a different
answer than right now. But when I'm talking to our partners,
the ones that I can still get on the phone,
you know, they're saying, we know the gun is to
our head, we're waiting for someone to pull the trigger.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
And they don't really know if they're going to have
a job.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
And they're not optimistic that the Endangered Species Act is
going to remain intact either, And so there's a lot
that it's changing very fundamentally right now in ways that
are scaring me.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
Well, Mark, to stick with the scary stuff for the moment.
We have been talking specifically about the frosted flatwood salamander,
but I was also looking at some research published just
the past couple of years in Nature before we came
in to talk today. It was based on assessments from
a number of conservation groups, saying that currently amphibians are
(14:59):
the most threatened class of all the world's vertebrates. Do
we know what are the main causes for this or
what do we think are the most likely causes?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Absolutely? Absolutely, thank you for that.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
Yeah, there are more amphibians than mammals and birds combined
that are threatened right now.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
You know, it's just and it's.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
It's the same things that are impacting other types of
wild wildlife. It's just that with amphibians it's times a thousand,
you know, because it's it's really comes down to their skin.
And for example, you'll never see a frog drink, you won't.
They just absorb everything right through their skin, and that
includes anything that we have put into the environment as
(15:43):
well that also gets absorbed into the frog's skin.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
You know.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
So like when I was an undergrad, we were seeing
frogs with birth defects, being being born with extra limbs
or not enough limbs, you know, in areas where you
would normally expect amphibians to be. Okay, that was in
the nineties and it's it's really only gotten worse since then.
I mean, you'll hear you'll hear that amphibians sometimes described
(16:12):
as the canary in the coal mine, you know what
I mean, And so they if that's true, then amphibians
are some type of warning for humans. Well, they've been
warning us for decades, you know, deformities, die offs, massive
die offs. It's just like it's really hard to imagine
how much more of a warning the amphibians could be
(16:33):
giving us.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
You know, like.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
The the tap order you know, would kill all of
the amphibians. Here at the Amphibian Foundation, we have to
filter it so significantly and put it through all these
processes just to make it safe.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
And that's the stuff that we like bathe bathe in
all the time, ticket shower. It's lethal to amphibians, you know.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
It's just it's it's it's hard to think that that
we're not connected to this somehow, but it's like their
amphibians are so sensitive due to that, you know, and
diseases that we can move around and invertently can really
be devastating because amphibian skin is so sensitive about and
it doesn't handle these types of perturbations very well, whether
(17:18):
that's pollution or agricultural chemicals, pharmaceuticals. You know that you
name it, it's impacting them.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
I think I was also reading that there's some thinking
that amphibians are especially vulnerable to warm it to increasing temperatures,
maybe more so than other classes of vertebrates are.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
Absolutely, I mean they're so intimately tied to the water.
Going back to the flatwood salamander, how risky is it
to breed in a dry pond? That's their strategy, you know,
but it's over millions of years. You know, they obviously
wouldn't always work out for them, but more often than
it wouldn't, it would work out. And now that that
is shifting and the ponds are holding water at different
(18:01):
times of the year than they have historically, that's very different.
That's not something that amphibians can catch up to quickly enough,
so they're very sensitive to even these small shifts in
the climate.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Now we've been talking about the environmental challenges for amphibians,
and also some of these other top down governmental and
political challenges as well on the other end of the spectrum.
You know, this brings to mind education and the public awareness,
and I know another huge part of the Amphibian Foundation's
(18:45):
mission is educational, both in terms of teaching future herpetologists
and raising awareness of critical species. Have you observed an
uptick in the public's enthusiasm for herbs in generals and
salamanders in particular.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
Oh, that's a great question, and I think I think
it's kind of mixed, because I think the Internet probably
has been really good for amphibians and reptiles, but then
you'll you also see a lot of people doing horrible
things to them, you know, So it's like it's a
double edged sword, I guess, you know, so it's really
(19:22):
made up markets for some pretty horrible things. But ultimately,
I do think that there are there's more awareness of
what's happening, and it certainly is easier for us to
get our message out to the community.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I don't want to discuss every all the horrible details necessarily,
but when you when you mention horrible things, you're talking
about things involving say, captive salamanders or herbs or encounters
with wild species.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
At that time, I was talking about encounters with wild species,
you know, and and the things that people do to
them in the wild. Yeah, but a gig go either way.
There's a study that just got shared with me. Someone
was measuring the social media response This was a group
out of Ireland, I believe it could have been Scotland
(20:13):
about the social media impact on certain extinctions, and they
used the RABS fringe limb tree frog that went extinct
here in Atlanta as an example of the comparing because
unfortunately there are several species that have gone extinct, and
so it was measuring the impact and that when Toughie
(20:35):
went extinct in Atlanta in twenty sixteen, that was a
movement that was talked about for longer periods of time,
maybe by not as many people as some of these
other things, but it had a duration. It really spoke
to a certain amount of people, very very profoundly, and
(20:56):
so that gave me a little bit of hope too
as far as the awareness, you know, because having worked
through an actual extinction once already, I just know that
that feeling of such profound loss that you know, it
really drives a lot of the work that we're currently
still doing where we're teetering right on the edge here
(21:19):
of some really bleak stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Now, in terms of like social media awareness of various species,
I'm to understand that since we last spoke, acxle Lottels
were introduced into the popular Mindcraft video game, and that
this has helped to fuel greater popularity for actual lottels.
(21:44):
I'm curious if the amphibian and herpetology world have observed,
like any impact from their rising popularity, Like people find
them cute, they're like stuffed animals off them, and I
guess maybe more people are trying to obtain them as pets.
Does this have just kind of a neutral impact or
is it a positive or negative effect?
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Do you think it's really hard to measure, especially since
that species is extinct in the wild. You know, like
it's doing really well in the pet trade and in captivity,
But I'm not I'm curious how many of the enthusiasts
are also aware of how bad it is for that
species in the in the wild and and we call
(22:26):
them Acxi lottels here, but in there and where they live,
there are more than one species of our ax A
lottel or big big guild neotenic salamanders, and those those
species are still there, but a lot of them are
in big trouble. So I would personally like to see
a lot of this attention going towards those types of
(22:48):
awareness projects or maybe even fundraising. But Ultimately, I would
call it a net neutral because I haven't seen any
evidence of that.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
The ax a lot as you mentioned being extinct in
the wild. I was recently listening to a podcast interview
on the podcast Ologies with an acce lottle scientist, and
they had mentioned that most of the ax lottels that
we have in the world in captivity are actually more
French than Mexican. At this point, there's like, are they're
(23:23):
all descended from a population that was taken out of
Mexico by a French scientist many, many years ago.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
Wow, this is news to me. Fascinating. Okay, so they're
more French than Mexican. I know that there's a bunch
that have also been mixed with other Ambistoma species and
that they present as axe lottels, But they might suddenly metamorphose,
which would be a really good clue that that's not
actually an accele lottl if it metamorphosed, because the axcelettles can't.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Now, given that axe lottels seem to be relatively successful
in captivity, does this pose a hurdle to educating folks
about like the dangers and the challenges involved with these
other species we've been talking about, you know, maybe a
tendency to think, oh well, if you can raise ax
lottels in captivity. I can see when when I go,
(24:14):
you know, to this facility in town and then I
see them on the internet. They must be doing fine.
We must have we must have it figured out.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
Yeah, yeah, that would be a bad message to send.
I think it's really the whole thing is really challenging,
and we we try to like stay away from the
pet trade angle and most things, and it's it's pretty discouraging,
you know, and I would love to see it move
towards more type sustainable types of things. We were on
(24:43):
a nature preserve in Atlanta and we still we get
people's pets here all the time. They just release their
pets on the nature preserve. Kind of it's really sad.
And you know, we're talking about like turtles mostly, you know,
and that's not good for the native turtles that are
just trying to make a living, you know. And so
I don't know, I know that's not totally related, but
(25:06):
it's it's kind of all in the same ball of wax.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Now, one of your outreach programs over the years has
been the biology of the Despised. I know we talked
about this, and I think your last appearance on the
podcast a lot of this involving snakes, venomous snakes, but
also snakes that are mistaken for venomous snakes, as well
as things like snapping turtles.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
Yes, yeah, did you you want me to just riff
on that because I can't?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah? Oh yeah, you're going yeah, because you know that.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
That is something that I remember talking with you guys
about and I really appreciated that, and it's something that
we've continued to expand upon. So this this weekend is
our annual Biology of the Despised event at the Atlanta
Science Festival, and so this this year we're doing cotton mouths.
So it's not a native Atlanta snake, but they're very
(25:57):
hated here in Atlanta, even though they don't live here,
and so we're highlighting them. But we're also building our
first course that's going to go beyond the amphibian and
reptile tax. We're going to go out and it's just
going to be a full Biology of the Despised and
highlighting invertebrates. You know, there's lots of despised stuff we've
(26:21):
been reaching casting a net far and wide about that.
Maybe I'll reach out to you guys too to see
if you have any suggestions for how we could expand
because we're just trying to cast the widest net possible
and really give people an opportunity to showcase the species
that they work with that are also despised and misunderstood
(26:42):
and maligned. And you know, it's just all stemming from
the fact that my field her petology was erected by
a Swedish botanist just because he hated those groups. That's
what amphibians and reptiles have in common, is that that
dude hated them.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
That's the only reason they're together.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
It's just really kind of like a badge of honor
thing he called them. These are the foul and loathsome creatures,
and so that's crazy, you know, it's really nuts, because
you know, amphibians and fish are more closely aligned. You
might put reptiles and birds together, who knows, you know,
But it's just really funny that that field has remained
(27:24):
for two three hundred years already.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Yeah, I think it's it's always interesting to look at
how media, particularly horror movies, depicts these various creatures you know. Yeah,
the creatures that are despised or are maligned like they're
often showing up as a centralized threat in some sort
of horror film, be it a shark or certainly, we've
seen so many killer snake movies over the years. We
didn't have some killer frog movies there. But I was
(27:50):
just realizing the other day it was like, I don't
think I've ever seen a killer salamander movie. Oh yeah,
I had to do some digging around. It looks I
was not where. There's something came out in twenty twenty
three called The Tank that features a giant salamander live
creature like lives in somebody's basement, meets cops. I was reading,
or you know, eats people that you know that wander
(28:13):
into the house.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
They're blowing my mind right now. I try to stay
up on these things. That's great.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
And then the recent Fallout vouching for it or I'm
not vouching for it. I have not seen it. The
recent Fallout television series is good. I can vouch for that,
and it does have a big sylum mat salamander creature
like a mutated salamander, oh tries to eat people. But
aside from those, you know, I even I looked at
the California Herp's website, which has a great like database
(28:42):
of mostly older films, and like at any point a
herb shows up being a lizard, a snake, or what
have you, And they have a page about salamanders, and
most of the instances where a salamander pops up in
a film, it seems to have the role of being
sort of a mystical and calendar or some sort of
like almost like a supernatural communication or dream imagery. And
(29:05):
I wonder what that says about our relationship thus far
with salamanders. You know, it's like almost like seeing a
fairy or a ghost.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
Well, that's a great point, you're it's making me think
of this article I wrote read about this. I think
it was like some Croatian brandy that's made with the
salamander venom that I can it's way too powerful of
an aphrodisiac.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
So according to what I was reading, like you would.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
Just read with whatever was in the room with you
at the point, if you had any whether that be
a chair or a goat, I don't know. You know,
it's just really funny because like you think of that
a lot. It's like eye of newt or whatever or
some of these really, I mean, newts have some of
the most toxic compounds known to science in them, and
(29:57):
some people do recreationally do some newt, you know, or
toads or something like that. But it's it's interesting because
I agree that, like when you think about it, that
there's more mysteriousness there with the salamanders than maybe with
the frogs.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Now coming back a little bit to conservation topics with
with with salamanders and newts and so forth, I mean,
there are also a lot of research angles that go
beyond just mere merely preserving the species. Like I'm und
understand that act A models feature into a number of
different scientific research programs with some huge potentials for human
(30:45):
health down the road. I mean, I guess it's it's
always the case with with with any species that we
we losing them is not only like a loss for
the planet, it is like selfishly potentially a huge loss
for us, because who knows what secrets could be unlocked
with them.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Yeah, that's a great that's an excellent point, and a
lot of the talks that I give, especially if I'm
not preaching to the choir. I do a lot of
audiences that are already sold on amphibians, but when I'm
reaching out to a new audience, you know, trying to
make a case for amphibians, and so I always start
(31:22):
with bugs. They eat tons of bugs, That's what they're
meant to do, you know. They some of them specialize
in mosquitoes. And then I run through all the reasons
why you should think amphibians are worth saving. And then
the last argument I make is the pharmaceutical value, or
the research value, or the impact on human health. And
there are so many compounds in the amphibian skin that
(31:44):
have great significant pharmaceutical value, blocking viral transmission with one
hundred percent effectiveness, relieving pain more effectively than morphine without
any addiction consequences. There's a lot of stuff in there.
And then at least two of the things I just
mentioned are from critically endangered species that we know from
(32:05):
compounds in their skin, and so a lot of it's
easy to think that we are losing species before we've
had a chance to even look at that.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Now, for any young or not so young people out there,
they're interested in amphibians and herpetology in general, what steps
could they or should they be taking if they're interested
in seriously pursuing it.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
We've really really focused a lot on providing an entry
way for people into the field, you know, and we're
based in Atlanta, so for folks that are in the area,
it might be a little easier because we have so
many volunteer opportunities for people that can afford to volunteer.
You know, it's it's proven to be a stepping stone
(32:52):
too well maybe if you wanted to go to school
for it or get some training in some capacities like that.
Part of this job has been extremely rewarding.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
And then we've been able to bring that to the
online community as well. Through our educational programs. We offered
what was meaningless several years ago, a certificate and master
you're a master herpetologist at that point if you complete
the course successfully. But now it's not meaningless. Now it
actually has helped people to get into graduate school, to
(33:27):
help people to get jobs at zoos and at agencies,
you know. So then that feels really good to see
that we're providing a way a mechanism because we really
need all hands on deck. There's there's plenty of work
to be done. We need as many people as possible
jazzed about these things and wanting to help, and so
just being able to contribute to that in any way
(33:48):
has been really I'm really grateful for that opportunity.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
And you have the Junior Master of Herpetology program as well.
My child is a graduate of that program.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yes, yes, and it's really really great.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
And so you know a lot of people, young young
learners want to take our adult classes, and we don't
let them unless they've already been certified as a Junior
Master herpetologist and already proven themselves. That's the only way
into those programs. And it's just been really great to
watch this community grow.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Now, how about the how about the rest of the
folks out there? Like what can the average person do
to help out amphibians and other herbs, say in their
backyard in their local area.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
I love getting these types of questions, and so just
uh so I don't forget. Let me just mention the
url backyard dot frogs need our help dot org and
that is a link to our frog blog. But it
queues up just the articles I've collected over the years
were written about how to make your yard more Amphibian friendly.
(34:53):
There's several articles in there about how to build a
wetland if you're interested, but there's lots of different things.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Oh, what to do if you get frogs.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
In your pool, you know, some strong arguments for leaving
leaf litter in certain areas of your yard.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
You know that kind of stuff.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
But it really goes through and I've been collecting that
stuff for like ten or fifteen years by now.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Awesome. Right now, we've already mentioned the Atlanta Science Festival,
which when this episode comes out, that will be ongoing.
So if you are in the Atlanta area or planned
to be in the Atlanta area during its a couple
of weeks run, you know, look that up. But what
else is on the horizon for the Amphibian Foundation here?
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Thank you? Yeah, we like.
Speaker 5 (35:34):
The Atlanta Science Festival is a big deal for us.
We do about usually do four events each Science Festival,
and the last day of the festival is the Expo
in Piedmont Park, and we'll be there so people can
come and see us if they want. And then you know,
we're going to be launching into our next semester of
(35:56):
our Conservation Research Bridge program, so that's our gap year
program where we have students come from all over the
country to work hands on you know, like I mentioned,
this is an all hands on deck situation. But what
we do is very unique and so it really resonates
very strongly with a small number of people around the
country who come and spend one to three semesters. Like
(36:19):
we just get right into the swamps. So it's really
ideal for certain people, and so that's going to get
us occupied right right now. We're also surveying for gopher
frog eggs, which is George's rarest frog, and so they
should be breeding any moment now. As soon as we
can detect some eggs, we'll bring them back to head
(36:39):
start them here at the Amphibian Foundation, which means get
them through their sensitive larval stage, and then we release
baby gopher frogs. That's usually in the middle of the summer.
We're releasing baby gopher frogs.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Nice, it's good stuff. If you like that kind of thing.
It's great.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Yeah, sounds like a hoot.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
It is. It is a hoot.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
Guys are welcome to come along for a frog release
if you'd like.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
All right, Mark, Well, thanks for coming on the show
and chatting with us.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
Oh, thank you. It was my pleasure to be here.
Thanks guys, Thank.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
You all right. Well, thanks again to Mark Mandika for
taking time to chat with us here on Stuff to
Blow Your Mind. If you want to learn more about
the Amphibian Foundation, subscribe to the Amphibian Foundation newsletter, or
learn about ways to help them out, such as donation
or volunteering, go to Amphibianfoundation dot org.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on
Tuesdays and Thursdays. In the Stuff to Blow Your Mind
podcast feed. On Wednesdays we have a short form episode,
and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to
just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Now you can follow our weird Cinema activities on letterboxed.
(38:02):
Our user name there is weird House. If you want
to follow Stuff to Blow your Mind proper well, there
are several different ways to do that on social media,
but we are also on Instagram STBYM podcast and that's
a great place to follow us and keep up with
what we are up to. Thanks as always to the
excellent JJ Possway for producing the show. And if you
(38:22):
want to reach out to us, if you want to
suggest topics for the future, if you want to suggest
interview guests, and so forth, you can reach us via
email at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Ratt
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!