March 11, 2025 • 38 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.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My
name is Joe McCormick, my.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Name is Robert Lamb, and today.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
We're bringing you a new interview with Mark Mendica, executive
director of the Amphibian Foundation, based in Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
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 2 (00:47):
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
(01:09):
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
(01:32):
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,
(01:53):
with particular interest in the biomechanics of feeding, prey detection, capture,
and transporting. 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
(02:14):
Amphibian Foundation in twenty sixteen, he managed the amphibian conservation
program at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. Marquez 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
(02:34):
Agnes Scott College, Indicator, Georgia.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
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 they 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,
(02:57):
let's jump right into the conversation. Hi, Mark, welcome back
to the show.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Thank you great to be here.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
So 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
weren't 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 (03:25):
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
(03:45):
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 about sixty volunteers. It's just really mind
blowing and just providing a place for people to come
(04:08):
and contribute to this wonderful group of animals that we're losing.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Yeah, back in twenty 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 (04:31):
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, a 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
(04:54):
then in Florida there are a couple of clusters of
puddles and then that's it. I mean, this is 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.
(05:15):
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.
(05:37):
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 labord 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.
(05:59):
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
(06:19):
really intense.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
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 (06:34):
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.
(06:55):
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 and so
the frosties are abummed because of that. But there are
more nuanced things that are directly impacting the species. Because
(07:15):
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 and 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
(07:39):
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 it's more convenient for humans
to burn, that's not when the frosties are below ground
and out of harm's way. That's when they're up above
(07:59):
ground and they literally get burned. And so that's a
big problem. And then you add in the fact that
this is a species that breeds in ephemeral wetlands, wetlands
that hold water for a short periods of time, but
only when the ponds are dry. They won't breed in
a pond if it's full. They need to lay their
(08:21):
eggs in a dry pond and then the eggs wait
for rains to come and fill the pond and hatch
the eggs. 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
(08:45):
from the field that are going to dry out and
they get brought back to the lab. And the people
that were 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'll 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,
(09:08):
you know, this is what we should be doing right now,
and so it's terrifying.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
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 (09:31):
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
(09:52):
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 savannas. They're called
(10:13):
the flat woods in some areas.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Because the.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Ponds are very shallow, you might not even notice them.
If you know, especially because the flat woods 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. If
(10:38):
you suppress the fire, the 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 3 (10:54):
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 (11:07):
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 kind. And so we
started to notice things that we were interpreting as interest
in breeding behavior, and so we tried putting them together
(11:32):
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 observe
(11:56):
some of the breeding behaviors and they were clearly communicated.
You know, it really is surprising that they didn't breathe
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 were learning very quickly having so
(12:17):
many amazing partners working on this same problem together. When
we were first looking to set up these redundancies, you know,
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 shifted animals out to Omaha.
So Omaha's Henry Dorley Zoo have some frosted flatwood salamanders
(12:41):
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 flat
with salamanders as well, And so we're still looking to
expand into other institututions as well. So if there are
(13:02):
institutions out there that might have the capacity to help
set up a colony of these guys, please reach out.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
To me, because again, right now, captive rereading seems to
be like the main hope for these for the species
moving forward.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Right it's really hard to predict.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
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, and they don't really know
if they're going to have a job, and they're not
(13:40):
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 2 (13:51):
Well, Mark, to stick with the scary stuff for the moment.
We have been talking specifically about the frosted flatwood salamander,
but I was all 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
(14:13):
are 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 4 (14:23):
Absolutely? Absolutely, thank you for that.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
Yeah, there are more amphibians than mammals and birds combined
that are threatened right now.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
You know, it's just and.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
It's the same things that are impacting other types of wildlife.
It's just that with amphibians it's times a thousand, you know,
because 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
(14:55):
that we have put into the environment as well. That
also gets absorbed into the frog's skin, you know. So
like when I was an undergrad, we were seeing frogs
with birth defects, being born with extra limbs or not
enough limbs, you know, in areas where you would normally
expect the amphibians to be okay. That was in the
(15:17):
nineties and it's really only gotten worse since then. I mean,
you'll hear you'll hear that amphibians sometimes described as the canary.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
In the coal mine, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5 (15:29):
And so if that's true, then amphibians are some type
of warning for humans.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Well, they've been warning us for decades, you.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
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 giving us.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
You know, like.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
The the tap water 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 4 (16:02):
And that's the stuff that we like.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
Bathe bathe in all the time, ticket shower. It's lethal
to amphibians, you know. It's just it's hard to think
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
(16:28):
and it doesn't handle these types of perturbations very well,
whether that's pollution or agricultural chemicals, pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
You know that you name it, it's impacting them.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
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 4 (16:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
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
(17:16):
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.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
In the climate.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
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 foundations
(18:00):
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 general and amphibians
and salamanders in particular.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
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 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 made
(18:37):
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 3 (18:51):
I don't want to discuss every all the horrible details necessarily,
but when you mention horrible things you're talking about things
involving say captive salamanders or herbs, or encounters with wild species.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
At that time, I was talking about encounters with wild
species and the things that people do to them in
the wild. Yeah, but a gat 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, about
(19:28):
the social media impact on certain extinctions and they used
the raps fringe limp 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 went
(19:50):
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 as as some of
these other things, but it had a duration. It really
spoke to a certain amount of people, very very profoundly.
(20:10):
And so that that gave me a little bit of
hope too as far as the the awareness, you know,
because having 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
(20:33):
on the edge here of some really bleak stuff.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Now, in terms of like social media awareness of various species,
I'm to understand that since we last spoke, Actle lottels
were introduced into the popular Mindcraft video game, and that
this has helped to fuel greater popularity for for for
actual lottels. I'm curious of the amphibian and herpetology world
(21:02):
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 (21:19):
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 wild. And we call them Acxi lottels here,
(21:42):
but in there and where they live. There are more
than one species of our axe lottel or big big
guilt 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 awareness projects or maybe
(22:05):
even even fundraising. But ultimately I would call it a
net neutral because I haven't seen any evidence of that.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
The Accele lottels you mentioned being extinct in the wild.
I was recently listening to a podcast interview on the
podcast Ologies with an Accele lottl scientist and they had
mentioned that most of the Acx lottels that we have
in the world in captivity are actually more French than Mexican.
(22:34):
At this point, there's like, are They're all descended from
a population that was taken out of Mexico by a
French scientist many many years ago.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
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 Acx lottels, but they might suddenly
met MorphOS which would be a really good clue that
that's not actually an xCE lotte if it metamorphosed, because
(23:06):
xcelettles can't.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Now, given that ax a 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, maybe a tendency
to think, oh, well, if you can raise ax lottos
in captivity, if I can see when when I go,
(23:29):
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 (23:35):
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
(23:58):
a nature preserve in Atlanta and still we get people's
pets here all the time. They just released their pets
on the nature preserve.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
It's really sad.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
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
it's it's kind of all in the same ball of wax.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
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 (24:42):
Yes, yeah, did you you want me to just riff
on that because I can't?
Speaker 4 (24:47):
Yeah, oh yeah, you're going yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
Because you know, 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 year we're
doing cotton mouths. So it's not a native Atlanta snake,
(25:11):
but they're very 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
(25:35):
despised stuff. We've 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
(25:55):
despised and misunderstood 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. That's the only reason
(26:16):
they're together. It's just really kind of like a badge
of honor thing.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
He called them.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
These are the foul and loathsome creatures.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
And so that's crazy, you know, it's really nuts.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
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
for two three hundred years already.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
M 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 killers snake movies over the years.
We even have some killer frog movies. But I was
(27:05):
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 aware of this. 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
(27:27):
that wander into the house.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
They're blowing my mind right now. I try to stay
up on these things. That's great.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
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
(27:57):
of mostly older films, and like in any point point
a herb shows up being a lizard of snake or
what have you, and they have a page about salamanders,
and most of the instances where salamander pops up in
a film, it seems to have the role of being
sort of a mystical encounter or some sort of like
a almost like a supernatural communication or dream imagery. And
(28:20):
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 (28:31):
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 it can it's way too powerful of
an aphrodisiac. So according to what I was reading, like
you would just read with whatever was in the room
(28:53):
with you at the point, if you had any whether
that be a chair or a goat, I don't know.
It's just really fun 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
some people do recreationally do some newt, you know, or
(29:16):
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 3 (29:38):
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 merely preserving the species. Like I'm understand that
actual models feature into a number of different scientific research
programs with some huge potentials for human health down the road.
(30:01):
I mean, I guess it's always the case with any
species that we losing them is not only like a
loss of the planet it is like selfishly potentially a
huge loss for us because who knows what secrets could
be unlocked with them.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Yeah, that's a that's an excellent point.
Speaker 5 (30:19):
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 with bugs. They eat tons of bugs, That's
(30:40):
what they're meant.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
To do, you know.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
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 have great significant pharmaceutical value,
(31:02):
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 compounds in their skin, and
so a lot of it's easy to think that we
(31:25):
are losing species before we've had a chance to even
look at that.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
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 (31:43):
We've really, we've 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 voluntar here opportunities for people that can
afford to volunteer.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
You know.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
It's it's proven to be a stepping stone to 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 4 (32:18):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
And then we've been able to bring that to the
online community as well. Through 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 schools,
(32:42):
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
(33:03):
has been really I'm really grateful for that opportunity.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
And you have the Junior Master of Herpetology program as well.
My child is a graduate of that program.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Yes, yes, and it's really really great.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
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 3 (33:35):
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 (33:45):
I love getting these types of questions and so just uh,
so so I don't forget. Let me just mention the
U r L backyard dot frogs need our help dot
org uh, and that is a link to our frog
But it queues up just the articles I've collected over
the years or written about how to make your yard
(34:06):
more amphibian friendly. There's several articles in there about how
to build a wetland if you're interested. But there's lots
of different things what to do if you get frogs
in your pool. You know, some strong arguments for leaving
leaf litter in certain areas of your yard. You know
that kind of stuff. But it really goes through and
I've been collecting.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
That stuff for like ten or fifteen years by now.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
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, 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 4 (34:47):
Thank you?
Speaker 5 (34:48):
Yeah, we like 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 if.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
They want uh.
Speaker 5 (35:06):
And then you know, we're going to be launching into
our next semester of 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
(35:29):
around the country who come and spend one to three semesters,
Like we just get right into the swamps. So it's
really ideal for certain people. And so that's 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
(35:51):
as we can detect some eggs, we'll bring them back
to head start them here at the Amphibian Foundation, which
means get them through their sensitive larval stage, and then
we release babygopher frogs. That's usually in the middle of
the summer. We're releasing baby gopher frogs nice. It's good stuff.
If you like that kind of thing, it's great.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah, sounds like a hoot.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
Is it is a hoot.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
Guys are welcome to come along for a frog release
if you'd like.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
All right, Mark, well, thanks for coming on the show
and chatting with us.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
Oh, thank you. It was my pleasure to be here.
Thanks guys.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
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 3 (36:53):
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.
You can follow our Weird House Cinema activities on letterboxed.
(37:16):
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
(37:37):
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 1 (37:56):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows. M
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My
name is Joe McCormick, my.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Name is Robert Lamb, and today.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
We're bringing you a new interview with Mark Mendica, executive
director of the Amphibian Foundation, based in Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
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 2 (00:47):
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
(01:09):
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
(01:32):
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,
(01:53):
with particular interest in the biomechanics of feeding, prey detection, capture,
and transporting. 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
(02:14):
Amphibian Foundation in twenty sixteen, he managed the amphibian conservation
program at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. Marquez 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
(02:34):
Agnes Scott College, Indicator, Georgia.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
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 they 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,
(02:57):
let's jump right into the conversation. Hi, Mark, welcome back
to the show.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Thank you great to be here.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
So 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
weren't 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 (03:25):
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
(03:45):
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 about sixty volunteers. It's just really mind
blowing and just providing a place for people to come
(04:08):
and contribute to this wonderful group of animals that we're losing.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Yeah, back in twenty 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 (04:31):
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, a 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
(04:54):
then in Florida there are a couple of clusters of
puddles and then that's it. I mean, this is 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.
(05:15):
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.
(05:37):
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 labord 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.
(05:59):
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
(06:19):
really intense.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
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 (06:34):
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.
(06:55):
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 and so
the frosties are abummed because of that. But there are
more nuanced things that are directly impacting the species. Because
(07:15):
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 and 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
(07:39):
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 it's more convenient for humans
to burn, that's not when the frosties are below ground
and out of harm's way. That's when they're up above
(07:59):
ground and they literally get burned. And so that's a
big problem. And then you add in the fact that
this is a species that breeds in ephemeral wetlands, wetlands
that hold water for a short periods of time, but
only when the ponds are dry. They won't breed in
a pond if it's full. They need to lay their
(08:21):
eggs in a dry pond and then the eggs wait
for rains to come and fill the pond and hatch
the eggs. 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
(08:45):
from the field that are going to dry out and
they get brought back to the lab. And the people
that were 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'll 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,
(09:08):
you know, this is what we should be doing right now,
and so it's terrifying.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
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 (09:31):
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
(09:52):
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 savannas. They're called
(10:13):
the flat woods in some areas.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Because the.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Ponds are very shallow, you might not even notice them.
If you know, especially because the flat woods 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. If
(10:38):
you suppress the fire, the 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 3 (10:54):
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 (11:07):
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 kind. And so we
started to notice things that we were interpreting as interest
in breeding behavior, and so we tried putting them together
(11:32):
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 observe
(11:56):
some of the breeding behaviors and they were clearly communicated.
You know, it really is surprising that they didn't breathe
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 were learning very quickly having so
(12:17):
many amazing partners working on this same problem together. When
we were first looking to set up these redundancies, you know,
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 shifted animals out to Omaha.
So Omaha's Henry Dorley Zoo have some frosted flatwood salamanders
(12:41):
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 flat
with salamanders as well, And so we're still looking to
expand into other institututions as well. So if there are
(13:02):
institutions out there that might have the capacity to help
set up a colony of these guys, please reach out.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
To me, because again, right now, captive rereading seems to
be like the main hope for these for the species
moving forward.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Right it's really hard to predict.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
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, and they don't really know
if they're going to have a job, and they're not
(13:40):
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 2 (13:51):
Well, Mark, to stick with the scary stuff for the moment.
We have been talking specifically about the frosted flatwood salamander,
but I was all 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
(14:13):
are 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 4 (14:23):
Absolutely? Absolutely, thank you for that.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
Yeah, there are more amphibians than mammals and birds combined
that are threatened right now.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
You know, it's just and.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
It's the same things that are impacting other types of wildlife.
It's just that with amphibians it's times a thousand, you know,
because 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
(14:55):
that we have put into the environment as well. That
also gets absorbed into the frog's skin, you know. So
like when I was an undergrad, we were seeing frogs
with birth defects, being born with extra limbs or not
enough limbs, you know, in areas where you would normally
expect the amphibians to be okay. That was in the
(15:17):
nineties and it's really only gotten worse since then. I mean,
you'll hear you'll hear that amphibians sometimes described as the canary.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
In the coal mine, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5 (15:29):
And so if that's true, then amphibians are some type
of warning for humans.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Well, they've been warning us for decades, you.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
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 giving us.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
You know, like.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
The the tap water 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 4 (16:02):
And that's the stuff that we like.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
Bathe bathe in all the time, ticket shower. It's lethal
to amphibians, you know. It's just it's hard to think
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
(16:28):
and it doesn't handle these types of perturbations very well,
whether that's pollution or agricultural chemicals, pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
You know that you name it, it's impacting them.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
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 4 (16:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
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
(17:16):
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.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
In the climate.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
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 foundations
(18:00):
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 general and amphibians
and salamanders in particular.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
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 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 made
(18:37):
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 3 (18:51):
I don't want to discuss every all the horrible details necessarily,
but when you mention horrible things you're talking about things
involving say captive salamanders or herbs, or encounters with wild species.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
At that time, I was talking about encounters with wild
species and the things that people do to them in
the wild. Yeah, but a gat 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, about
(19:28):
the social media impact on certain extinctions and they used
the raps fringe limp 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 went
(19:50):
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 as as some of
these other things, but it had a duration. It really
spoke to a certain amount of people, very very profoundly.
(20:10):
And so that that gave me a little bit of
hope too as far as the the awareness, you know,
because having 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
(20:33):
on the edge here of some really bleak stuff.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Now, in terms of like social media awareness of various species,
I'm to understand that since we last spoke, Actle lottels
were introduced into the popular Mindcraft video game, and that
this has helped to fuel greater popularity for for for
actual lottels. I'm curious of the amphibian and herpetology world
(21:02):
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 (21:19):
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 wild. And we call them Acxi lottels here,
(21:42):
but in there and where they live. There are more
than one species of our axe lottel or big big
guilt 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 awareness projects or maybe
(22:05):
even even fundraising. But ultimately I would call it a
net neutral because I haven't seen any evidence of that.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
The Accele lottels you mentioned being extinct in the wild.
I was recently listening to a podcast interview on the
podcast Ologies with an Accele lottl scientist and they had
mentioned that most of the Acx lottels that we have
in the world in captivity are actually more French than Mexican.
(22:34):
At this point, there's like, are They're all descended from
a population that was taken out of Mexico by a
French scientist many many years ago.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
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 Acx lottels, but they might suddenly
met MorphOS which would be a really good clue that
that's not actually an xCE lotte if it metamorphosed, because
(23:06):
xcelettles can't.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Now, given that ax a 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, maybe a tendency
to think, oh, well, if you can raise ax lottos
in captivity, if I can see when when I go,
(23:29):
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 (23:35):
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
(23:58):
a nature preserve in Atlanta and still we get people's
pets here all the time. They just released their pets
on the nature preserve.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
It's really sad.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
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
it's it's kind of all in the same ball of wax.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
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 (24:42):
Yes, yeah, did you you want me to just riff
on that because I can't?
Speaker 4 (24:47):
Yeah, oh yeah, you're going yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
Because you know, 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 year we're
doing cotton mouths. So it's not a native Atlanta snake,
(25:11):
but they're very 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
(25:35):
despised stuff. We've 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
(25:55):
despised and misunderstood 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. That's the only reason
(26:16):
they're together. It's just really kind of like a badge
of honor thing.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
He called them.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
These are the foul and loathsome creatures.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
And so that's crazy, you know, it's really nuts.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
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
for two three hundred years already.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
M 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 killers snake movies over the years.
We even have some killer frog movies. But I was
(27:05):
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 aware of this. 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
(27:27):
that wander into the house.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
They're blowing my mind right now. I try to stay
up on these things. That's great.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
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
(27:57):
of mostly older films, and like in any point point
a herb shows up being a lizard of snake or
what have you, and they have a page about salamanders,
and most of the instances where salamander pops up in
a film, it seems to have the role of being
sort of a mystical encounter or some sort of like
a almost like a supernatural communication or dream imagery. And
(28:20):
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 (28:31):
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 it can it's way too powerful of
an aphrodisiac. So according to what I was reading, like
you would just read with whatever was in the room
(28:53):
with you at the point, if you had any whether
that be a chair or a goat, I don't know.
It's just really fun 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
some people do recreationally do some newt, you know, or
(29:16):
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 3 (29:38):
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 merely preserving the species. Like I'm understand that
actual models feature into a number of different scientific research
programs with some huge potentials for human health down the road.
(30:01):
I mean, I guess it's always the case with any
species that we losing them is not only like a
loss of the planet it is like selfishly potentially a
huge loss for us because who knows what secrets could
be unlocked with them.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Yeah, that's a that's an excellent point.
Speaker 5 (30:19):
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 with bugs. They eat tons of bugs, That's
(30:40):
what they're meant.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
To do, you know.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
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 have great significant pharmaceutical value,
(31:02):
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 compounds in their skin, and
so a lot of it's easy to think that we
(31:25):
are losing species before we've had a chance to even
look at that.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
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 (31:43):
We've really, we've 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 voluntar here opportunities for people that can
afford to volunteer.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
You know.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
It's it's proven to be a stepping stone to 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 4 (32:18):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
And then we've been able to bring that to the
online community as well. Through 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 schools,
(32:42):
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
(33:03):
has been really I'm really grateful for that opportunity.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
And you have the Junior Master of Herpetology program as well.
My child is a graduate of that program.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Yes, yes, and it's really really great.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
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 3 (33:35):
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 (33:45):
I love getting these types of questions and so just uh,
so so I don't forget. Let me just mention the
U r L backyard dot frogs need our help dot
org uh, and that is a link to our frog
But it queues up just the articles I've collected over
the years or written about how to make your yard
(34:06):
more amphibian friendly. There's several articles in there about how
to build a wetland if you're interested. But there's lots
of different things what to do if you get frogs
in your pool. You know, some strong arguments for leaving
leaf litter in certain areas of your yard. You know
that kind of stuff. But it really goes through and
I've been collecting.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
That stuff for like ten or fifteen years by now.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
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, 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 4 (34:47):
Thank you?
Speaker 5 (34:48):
Yeah, we like 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 if.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
They want uh.
Speaker 5 (35:06):
And then you know, we're going to be launching into
our next semester of 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
(35:29):
around the country who come and spend one to three semesters,
Like we just get right into the swamps. So it's
really ideal for certain people. And so that's 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
(35:51):
as we can detect some eggs, we'll bring them back
to head start them here at the Amphibian Foundation, which
means get them through their sensitive larval stage, and then
we release babygopher frogs. That's usually in the middle of
the summer. We're releasing baby gopher frogs nice. It's good stuff.
If you like that kind of thing, it's great.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah, sounds like a hoot.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
Is it is a hoot.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
Guys are welcome to come along for a frog release
if you'd like.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
All right, Mark, well, thanks for coming on the show
and chatting with us.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
Oh, thank you. It was my pleasure to be here.
Thanks guys.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
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 3 (36:53):
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.
You can follow our Weird House Cinema activities on letterboxed.
(37:16):
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
(37:37):
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 1 (37:56):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows. M
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