Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe mccormaican. Today
we're gonna be having a little bit of amphibian talk.
That's right, We're gonna be chatting with Mark Bandka, the
(00:23):
executive director of the Amphibian Foundation. Uh The Amphibian Foundation
is an Atlanta area based nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting individuals, communities,
and organizations in order to create and implement lasting solutions
to the global amphibian extinction crisis. Uh So, it was
just a great opportunity for us to reach out to
(00:44):
a local expert in their field to discuss the wonderful
world of amphibians, especially salamanders. Right, so we talked frogs, tadpoles,
especially salamanders, some death defying winter weather adventures. So I
think we talked some wolverine towards the end. Yeah, there
will be cannibal morphs. So if you're getting all geared
up for Halloween, don't worry. There will be some. There
(01:06):
will be some some Halloween worthy content in this episode,
and you'll just learn a great deal about Amphibian Biology. Um,
just a little more info here before we get rolling.
If you if you want to check out more about
the Amphibian Foundation, you can go to Amphibian Foundation dot org.
You can also follow them on Twitter. Their handle is
Amphibian found on Instagram, It's Amphibian Foundation and it's Amphibian
(01:31):
found on Facebook as well. And Mark is also on
Twitter himself. You can follow him Mark Mandica. That's m
A r K M A N D I C A.
So I'd say let's get right into our chat with Mark. Hey, Mark,
thanks so much for coming on the show. I was
wondering if before we get into any questions or Amphibian
(01:53):
talk today, could you just introduce yourself to our listeners,
tell them who you are and what you do. Absolutely.
My name is Mark Mandika. I am the executive director
of the Amphibian Foundation here in Atlanta. Excellent. Well, thanks
for taking time out of your day to come chat
with us. I was already familiar with with with some
of what what you guys were up to in the
(02:13):
Atlanta area through some of your Salamander strolls and other
educative outreach programs. Uh uh, you know in the Atlanta
area but but then I started looking into it more
and learning a little bit more about the Amphibian Foundation,
I realized this was a really great fit for stuff
to blow your mind. All right, Well, actually, can you
tell us just a little bit about what you do
(02:33):
at the Amphibian Foundation. Absolutely? Uh. The Amphibian Foundation is
a nonprofit. We just had our second anniversary, and we
focus on novel conservation research plans for endangered species, both
here in the Southeast United States and globally. UM. We
(02:55):
also have an educational component that we use for several reasons.
One is it's our main way to support the foundation
through these programs. But we firmly believe that we need
to raise the next generation of conservationists and that's our
main target through our outreach program is getting people excited
about amphibians and excited about saving them because they're in
(03:18):
a lot of trouble. And when you say you work
on a novel conservation solutions, give me an example of
what you mean by that. Does that mean like non
non standard approaches to yes? Um. So, for example, our
highest priority research program is on the frosted flatwood salamander,
which is um significantly imperiled. There's one tiny puddle left
(03:42):
in the state of Georgia with this species in it.
They're already extinct from South Carolina. Something needs to be
done immediately and quickly. So we've developed UM twenty artificial
wetlands where we can monitor them very closely and make
sure that these salamanders have everything they need. It's the
(04:04):
only captive colony of the species on the planet, so
it's really important that we're successful. UM. We've developed these
UM miniature ecosystems which have never been developed before, so
they're brand new. We're very optimistic, but that's what I
mean by novel. We had to figure out something that
we needed to do immediately because the species is considered
(04:26):
at imminent risk of extinction UM, so it's imperative that
we're successful, and we felt like this was our best
shot at having them breathe successfully in captivity while our
partners restore habitat UM so that we can have someplace
to release them back into the wild UM. So that
that's kind of what I mean by novel. So with
(04:49):
that species in particular, would you say that your main
goal is to like build up the populations to where
they can get a foothold in their environment or would
it be more of a research focus to like under
and what you can do to let them thrive again.
We want to do research, but right now we're really
just trying to keep the species alive. We're trying to
(05:11):
figure out how to breed them, which has never been
done before UM. So we've been charged with figuring out
how to breed them, and once we've cracked that, we
are going to basically export this recipe to other institutions
with some of our captive produced offspring, so that we
can really start generating large numbers of frosted flatwood salamanders
(05:34):
every year and have big numbers to release back into
restored habitat. Do you know what has driven them to
this point to begin with? Does I have to do
with habitaty good idea. So, frosted flatwood salamanders are long
leaf pine endemics, So long leaf pine is the coastal
plain of Georgia, but that's been reduced to three of
(05:54):
its historic range, so that whole habitat is almost gone. Obviously,
any species that are reliant on that habitat are not
doing well. To further that, UM, flatwood salamanders are dependent
on wildfire, and that has been suppressed by and large
even in the remaining long leaf pine habitat. Flatwood salamanders
(06:15):
need that fire. So if you suppress it, or if
you do controlled burns at non natural times, which is
also very common, that really negatively affects the salamanders. So
we're trying to identify long leaf pine with land managers
that are willing to either let wildfires through there or
do controlled burns at the natural cycles. Does that make sense?
(06:38):
But I wonder do you know why they need the fire,
what role that plays? I do? Uh, they need open
pine savannas, which was very common and is maintained naturally
by wildfire every year or two, that's how often that
long leaf pine would burn naturally. So if once you
suppress the fire, then the trees bviously start to grow in,
(07:01):
they close the canopy, and that's no longer suitable for
flatwood salamanders. Now, this is just part of a larger
ongoing mass extinction of amphibians. Um is now is the
mass extinction of amphibians? Is this something that goes beyond
the rate of extinctions and other species? Is this something
special or how is it linked to you know, the
(07:24):
the typical habitat loss climate change based extinctions we're seeing elsewhere, right,
excellent question. The the animals that I am familiar with
are are mostly vertebrates. I'm sure this is also a
trend with the invertebrates, but they're all suffering due to
habitat loss and shifting climates. But amphibians are so intensely
(07:49):
sensitive to the environment. There are more declining amphibians than
mammals and birds combined, so they're just disappearing at a
pro fund rate right now. That if you looked at
the IUCN Red List website, they have forty of the
world's amphibians are in catastrophic decline or already extinct, so
(08:12):
that's almost half. It's just a huge number. That's why
we started the Amphibian Foundation. Is there a generalizable answer
um about what makes amphibians particularly vulnerable to these changes
in habitats and the climate. Yes, there have been some
identified factors um. And then what's in and this has
(08:36):
been since the eighties since these causes have been identified
in what's being explored now is how they are working
synergistically to be even more expedient to killing amphibians. But
their skin. It's really about their skin, so you'll never
see a frog drink, for example. They absorb everything through
their skin. Anything that we've put into the environment is
(08:59):
going to be absorbed up into that amphibian. So um.
There's been lots of research done on pesticides and herbicides
and their effects on amphibians that are often sub lethal,
but they'll grow extra limbs. It will effeminize male frogs.
You know, there are lots of estrogen mimicking compounds that
we don't even think about. We just spread it on
(09:20):
our lawns. Um, and that will turn amphibians female when
they're intended to be male. So that's kind of spooky. UM,
and you can see how that would affect the reproductive
output for a population. I've read a lot about UM.
I guess I didn't know what the cause was, but
(09:41):
general interruptions and the reproductive cycles for amphibians. I think
I was reading about maybe the Eastern hellbender. Is that
one that's had reproductive problems, Yes, and that has other
very very specific problems to the hellbenders. One of our
favorite amphibians, and it's Georgia native, so I'm quite fond
of it. But they need pristine streams. I mean, how
(10:05):
many pristine streams do you think there are left? You know,
very very few. So they have zero tolerance for sedimentation
or pollution that you often find in Georgia streams these days.
And are there temperature dynamics in their their breeding that
come into play as well, Yes, So that is being
investigated now to trying to predict the responses of salamanders
(10:28):
to climate change. Um, it seems like some are going
to be more dependent on others. Hellbenders specifically need very
cold water and that's also going to become a scarcity
as things heat up. It's also worth mentioning that the
Georgia colloquialism is snot otter for hell So I always
(10:49):
like to say that whenever there's an opportunity. Well, I've heard,
if I'm remembering right, I've heard them sort of vilified
by fishermen or something like they do they have a
do a pretty good bite. Yeah, yeah, they're and they're
the largest North American amphibians, so they get quite quite large.
So when when we're talking about potentially losing so many
(11:11):
of these amphibian species, and particularly salamander species, like, can
you explain the role they play in the larger ecosystem,
so we can get a sense our listeners can get
a sense of some of the um, the spiraling, you know,
ramifications of losing these species. So this is a talking
point I often give, and I didn't want to miss
(11:31):
anything because, um, honestly, sometimes I'm engaging the public and
people that are like, who cares if the amphibians are disappearing?
But they do a lot of remarkable jobs for us
behind the scenes. You know, Um, we don't think about
how many there are in the ecosystem because you really
have to go out at night in the rain to
(11:52):
witness amphibians. Um, but right off the top, my go
to answer is that a thousand amphibians eat five million
insects a year roughly, which is a tremendous number of insects,
and a lot of them specialize in eating mosquitoes. There.
I think that buys them their ticket to safety right there, right,
(12:15):
I mean, so if you think about that alone, um,
that's usually the first thing I say. But um, they
are there are so many animals that are dependent on
them for food. So if you think about it ecologically,
you know, tadpoles are are vegetarians. Their primary consumers eating
vegetable matter. Then they metamorphosed into carnivores, so they are
(12:38):
turning that sun energy into usable energy that lots of
other predators eat everything, loves to eat everything that's a
carnivore loves to eat amphibians either their eggs or their
tadpoles or the adults. So they are right in the
middle of the food chain and really important to the
ecology of any system. So to back up a little bit,
(12:59):
how did you wind up working with amphibians. I've always
loved amphibians, so, but I grew up in New Jersey
and never saw an amphibian growing up. The part of
New Jersey where I grew up probably been a hundred
and fifty years since there's been an amphibian there, so
I'm really developed. Um, But I just always loved frogs,
(13:20):
and so my birthdays when I was little, I'd always
get rubber frogs and frog pjas. I'm moving all the
way up, So I've always had that passion. But when
I was an undergrad in an entirely different field, I
thought I would take herpetology past fail because I was
not a science person. Um, and I did, and it
(13:42):
just completely changed my life. So I was pretty late
in life. I was thirty and never heard the term
herpetology before. And it blew my mind that you could
devote your time to investigating these fascinating animals. And it's
really my life is divided to before I took that
class and after and since then, I've been really focused
(14:03):
on amphibians and I had a lot of great opportunities
early on. What really cinched it for me is that
I was eager to do field work and I got
an opportunity to do to study too ephemeral seasonal temporary
wetlands in a remote part of Massachusetts for two years.
(14:23):
And in Massachusetts it gets really cold there. Um, so
my study started in March where the ground is still frozen,
there's still snow, and I witnessed a salamander migration, a
spotted salamander migration over the ice and snow in March,
where hundreds of animals were marching over the snow. I
(14:46):
was freezing, and these things they can't even generate their
own body heat, but they were just in mass you know,
two so driven to breed and I just couldn't. It
blew my mind. You know, and watching them there. Some
of the animals were as cold as nineteen degrees and
they didn't care. You know, that's pretty amazing. But just
(15:06):
hundreds of animals. This is a species that's gorgeous, but
they're active for one or two weeks a year, so
your chances of seeing one of these are so slim
to see hundreds, and it's really it's even to this day,
it just carries me because it's such a beautiful species
that I got to witness. That's an amazing image. So
(15:28):
as as far as them surviving in the cold, I
don't know if I'm remembering this right, but I've got
a friend too long ago she worked with salamander research
and she told me about I think she said that
the salamanders they used in research could be frozen, frozen
solid and then thaw it out alive. Is that sometimes
the case? Or am I misremembering that? You are not
(15:51):
misremembering that. It's pretty well documented mostly in frogs. Freeze
tolerance is um being able to free and then thought
and really have no negative effect of that. There are
several species here in Georgia that can do that. Not salamanders,
though that I'm aware of, the frog. A few frogs
here in Georgia can freeze, but the salamanders that I
(16:14):
was just describing are not freeze tolerant, the spotted salamanders,
but they can super cool. So that's being able to
go below freezing point and not freeze is a fluid
mechanics term called super cooling. Super cool. Obvious thing to
say about it, but it's really a neat phenomenon as well.
So that's how they could be nineteen degrees fahrenheit and
(16:36):
keep moving exactly because that, you know, you would think
that the water in their body would freeze, but it
does not. There's a limit to that, but nineteen degrees
clearly is not that limit. Well, I want to hear
more about salamanders in general. What's amazing about salamanders? Tell us? Well,
if if I haven't convinced anyone yet, um my, what
(17:00):
my favorite things about them are Amphibians in general is
how they feed, how they can move their tongues. When
you slow it down with a high speed video camera,
you can really see them do amazing things. Um before
you've seen it before. Um. When I'm also a science illustrator,
(17:20):
and um, when I was an underground I had the
opportunity to illustrate an article on this insane frog that
can change the direction of its tongue after it launches it,
so pray is moving. When you slow a frog feeding
video down, you usually see them close their eyes before
their tongue comes out, so it's like a hail mary.
(17:43):
That's a ballistic tongue protraction. There are others frogs and
salamanders that have a hydrostatic tongue, uh control of their
hydrostatic tongue, and some of them can pichet like eighty degrees,
you know, and so you can swing out to the
(18:03):
I'm using visual in an audio medium, but it's pretty
amazing to watch these animals can like just whip their
tongue out in mid um mid strokes. So salamanders, when
you guys might not know, the fastest tongue known to
science as a salamander, and they are named for it.
That are the politic glossans, which means bullet tongue. And
(18:24):
if you're lucky enough to see um regular speed footage
of them feeding, you just see things disappear, that's all
you see and stuff. Yeah um, And then they can
obviously slow that down so you can see what's happening there.
The the longest tongue is also a salamander. So I'm
a nerd, but I find that fascinating because you think
about tongue feeding for a long tongue, you might think
(18:49):
of a chameleon or famous for their long tongue and inaccuracy,
but the salamanders have them beat and they're just really
really cool. Oh yeah, that that is because with the chamleons,
they seem to get a lot more time in the documentaries,
they get a lot more of the like the BBC
Planet Earth footage. You are correct, and they are fascinating
(19:11):
in their own right, but you've got to give the
longest tongue to the salamander. You know, often when I
think about other animals, I think about what must be
the relationship between their brain and central nervous system and
the kind of body they have and how they use it,
and we we just don't have anything like that we
can identify with like that kind of tongue movement, but
(19:33):
also the speed of it, I don't know, it's it's
fascinating to imagine what's happening in the animal's brain if
it's making a lightning fast flick of the tongue to
catch something, but then also maybe uh angling or moving
its tongue after it has been launched in those species
that can do that. Um. In some ways, I'm kind
(19:54):
of grateful that we don't have to flick our tongue
at living prey. Um, but they're probably lee is not
a lot going on, it's just can I fit that
in my mouth? And if so boom so that species
that I was mentioning with the longest tongue, those tongue
muscles and that tongue architecture is anchored to their hips
(20:14):
start at the hips and that's how they're able to
protract it very long. So UM, when you're mentioning those
incredible slow motion salamander feeding videos, I am. I think
that you're talking about a friend of mine, Steve Deband,
has done that research, so I think that might be. Yeah,
he's he gets masterful videos with the high speed camera
(20:36):
and he's the one who has done those uh anchoring
from the hips research studies as well. But I would
just say, if it's of interest to any listeners to
look up Steve Deband's YouTube channel and see those videos
because they are so sensational Alright, We're gonna jump in
real quick and take a break, but we'll be right back,
(20:58):
thank you. All right, we're back now. Some salamander research
that that I've really enjoyed reading about in the past
has has concerned the life cycles of salamanders, is specifically
the tiger salamander. Could you take a moment to tell
our listeners a little bit about cannibal morphs. Now you're
really getting into my realm. Okay, so cannibal morphs as well.
(21:22):
It's fascinating. Plus it's called cannibal morphs animals that are
obligated to live in a in a wetland that's going
to dry out in two or three months. Um. There
are a lot of animals that will only breed in
those types of wetlands and those are my specialty. Um,
they do fascinating things. So that to kind of guarantee
(21:45):
that they'll be able to get in and out of
that wetland and metamorphos in time before it tries out.
So there's that clock is ticking. Um. Tiger salamanders have
a lot of unique adaptations. Uh, if if the resources
are low, if the water is drying out faster than
they think, they have time is running out, they can
(22:08):
trigger a cannibal morph, where the largest larvae will grow
an extra row of teeth in larger massiter or jaw
clowing musculature, so that they can start chomping their brothers
and sisters and that's awesome. But they also secrete hormones
to prohibit that behavior in any of their cohort So
(22:31):
they're the top dog and they're going to stay the
top dog. But if you remove that from the wetland,
the next largest one will become cannibal morph, which is
really fascinating. So what you're left with is just one
monster tiger salamander. So what happens when all the cannibalism
is done? What happens to that cannibal more um, as
(22:53):
far as I know, it just becomes a very fit
adult salamander. So it's uh. I don't know of any
research that has compared cannibal morph adults to regular adults,
but I imagine that at that point they'd be comparable,
meaning that the goal is to just get to metamorphosis safely.
And is that is the tiger salamander a Georgia salamander.
(23:16):
It is um. There are several subspecies and there in
many states throughout the whole country, but here in Georgia
they've recently been added to the state Wildlife Action Plan,
so we're just starting to get concerned about them here
in the state. As far as as diversity goes, what
(23:36):
what is salamander diversity in the state of Georgia like
and and how is that compared to other regions of
the United States or or even the world. Georgia is
an excellent place to become fascinated with salamanders UM for
two main reasons. One is, geologically, Georgia is divided into
five different ecoregions, and each one of those has different
(24:00):
salamander diversity, so you can really witness a lot of
different diversity UM with a very committed day or two
day trip. But as you get to northeastern Georgia, that's
where UM one of the main hot spots for global
salamander biodiversity starts. So if you get to Raven County
(24:20):
and go north, you'll start entering the one of the
hot spots for global salamandid diversity, not only in numbers
of species, but just in abundance. So just every log
will have multiple salamanders or several species underneath. It's a
great place to carefully go log flipping. Well, that makes
(24:40):
me think, Um, obviously every region is going to be different,
and every specie is going to be different. But if
people want to see cool amphibians in the wild, where
are some good places and times for them to look?
What should they do to see these animals in the wild.
And obviously we won't encourage messing with them in the wild.
But you see them, see them, yes, because we all
(25:02):
want to leave no trace when we go see these amphibians. UM.
My favorites are winter and spring breeders. So I would
encourage people, um to go in the winter in early
spring to witness these migrations. Um. That's often a good time,
and you can get some clues by our frog friends. Okay,
(25:26):
so if you're in the US, we have some very
loud spring frogs. We have spring peepers, they're so loud.
We have wood frogs, we have um chorus frocks. Those
are three species that can at least give you a
good hint where you might find some salamanders migrating. UM.
(25:47):
So that's probably where I would start. So listen for
words loudest. It's just the easiest way, unless you know,
you can drive very slowly on the roads at night
and then you might be able to see some because
they are migrating. These are salamanders that have to migrate.
And people think of migration is will the beasts are
(26:10):
birds or something, But salamanders migrate. They just breed in
those wetlands, they don't live in them. So when I
think about frogs making noise, that makes me think about
something that's come up with a lot of other species
we've talked about, you know, birds and insects like crickets,
that uh, part of the habitat that they occupy that
we don't often think about is a is a sonic territory,
(26:32):
not just a physical territory. Uh. And that, for example,
with birds or crickets, noise pollution can really interfere with
their way of life. Would the same thing be true
for amphibians. That's an excellent question, and uh, I wish
it would. The research that I've read really shows no
(26:52):
clear indication. And I think the main reason is that
for the most part, the female frogs here. So you know,
the calls you're hearing are males. The advertisement calls the
males wooing females. The female ear is tuned to that call,
so they don't really hear the calls of other species.
So what sounds like a crazy caffey of different species
(27:15):
that I wentland. The female frogs are hearing them the
calls from their species and and don't respond to calls
from other species and don't really respond unfortunately to noise pollution. Well,
I guess it's very fortunate. It's extremely fortunate. But I
guess when I when I was saying that, the context
is that, um, this area where the research was conducted
(27:38):
was was hoping to be able to put some controls
on noise pollution. UM, and it's it doesn't interfere with
the frogs at all. My family and I recently went
on one of the salamader strolls to the foundation organizes,
and I was just really impressed because it was it
was within the city of Atlanta, and granted, Atlanta is
a pretty green city compared to the many their large
(28:01):
urban areas, but uh, you know, we just went to
this area, this little wetland area that's just in the
middle of everything, and there were so many salamanders that
the adults and children alike were able to to to
turn over and examine. Yeah, that's one of my favorite
little places inside of the city, and that particular nature preserve,
(28:25):
the Clyde Shepherd Nature Preserve, has been particularly committed to
removing invasive plant species. Um. So we've been working with
them for a number of years. And um, if you
saw spotted salamanders that day, I can't remember if we
saw an adult or not, but um. We had been
(28:46):
restoring that species to that nature preserve for probably the
last four years. But we finally have evidence that they
are now reproducing on their own. UM, which is very
exciting for the You know told you earlier how much
I love that species. But they would not have been
able to persist if the managers didn't remove all those
(29:09):
invasive plant species there, because they really challenged the amphibians
in ways that they can't. It's no longer suitable for them.
Once there's English ivy there is, it's very very hard
for them for for what like chemical reasons or the
way it alters the terrain or yes, the terrain. Um.
(29:30):
So they're uh, salamanders are adorable, but they're not the
most coordinated, you know, the animals. So if you make
it really challenging. And if you can imagine what a
dense mat of English ivy on the ground is like
for a little animal that's used to not having English ivy,
it can be too much. They were seen there, but
(29:52):
not in over twenty years, so he knew that at
one time that was a suitable habitat. But then you know,
the English ivy become and it changes everything for them.
Now we do mentioned earlier, you know, we don't want
to mess with the salamanders. But but if one is
observing salamanders in the wild, what are some some good
rules to employ in interacting with them reviewing them? Um? Yeah,
(30:16):
thank you. One common way to encounter them is when
they're crossing the road, um. And that is most undoubtedly
them in some type of breeding activity. So you don't
want to interfere too much with them. But if you
want to encourage them or help them cross the road,
that is not shunned because the chances of them successfully
(30:39):
encountering a car slim, you know. So we always move
them in the direction that they're heading. Um. If you
put them in the way way they were coming from,
then they're going to have to cross the road again. UM.
I always make sure that I don't have any salts
on my hands or rinse my hands off, and that's
that's a pretty safe way um to be. To be
(31:02):
um safe around salamanders is if you're unless you've got
the gear and gloves and everything. Because there are so
many problems for amphibians now that we at the Amphibian
Foundation and other amphibian conservationists and biologists, we have to
take many more precautions than just rinsing the salts off
our hands. We have to disinfect in between every wetland
(31:25):
all of our gear because of emergent infectious disease which
is becoming more and more prevalent and is wiping out
salamanders globally. But that's not something that the average person
has to be concerned with making sure because we always
have salt on our hands. So rinse your hands. If
you're going to handle a salamander, be very gentle and
(31:47):
don't move it too far because these things have home
ranges that they've they've honed their whole lives. So another
fascinating thing about salamanders for me is that um butt
and I percent of many species of salamanders returned to
that same little puddle they were born in, so they
have really significant site fidelity where they there they metamorphosed
(32:11):
and a tiny ephemeral wetland. The animals will returned there
for the rest of their lives to breed. It's very
important that those wetlands stay intact, you know. If that
wetland is paved, or if a road is put in
between the wetland and their upland habitat, then they're just
going to cross it, you know. So it's something that
(32:32):
not a lot of people think about. And when you
say they returned to a puddle, you mean literally a puddle.
I as my term for an ephemeral wetland, because some
of them are as small as a dining room table,
you know, and that is a suitable wetland for these salamanders.
Some of them are significantly larger than that. But if
(32:52):
they dry out after a few months every year, to me,
it's just a big puddle. They're often just a foot
or two deep, you know, they don't really get very deep.
And so, yeah, you mentioned a minute ago infectious diseases
affecting amphibians, So what what kind of major disease threats
are amphibians facing today? UM. There there are many UM.
(33:17):
Some of them have been documented for longer periods of time.
When I started in the nineties, UM I was monitoring
the population of wood frocks, another Massachusetts native that does
get down into Georgia. But one day all the tadpoles
were dead. So if you can imagine, you know, they're
(33:38):
fine day before, and then the next day they were dead.
And that was a ronavirus. It's a Now it's a
very well known virus that can be transmitted by us.
You know, you can get it on your boots and
track it from one and went into the next. And
then it's a novel to that. The species in there,
(33:59):
they haven't encountered a before. They have no resistance. They die.
So more recently into two thousands, UM it was a
more identifying funcal infection. Kittrid fungus is the most well
known lethal infection, probably recently been described as of Asian origin.
(34:22):
Asian amphibians have it and it doesn't bother them. You know,
they're they've evolved with it. But when we inadvertently move
it from one place to another, those amphibians have never
seen it before and it's lethal. So it's has the
potential and has killed amphibians and pristine environments you know
(34:43):
where you would think that the amphibians would be doing
quite well. Panama for example, Remote Panama, where of the
amphibians have been wiped out from kittrid fungus. It's devastating um.
More recently, there's a new strain of kittured angus that
this effects salamanders specifically, it's nicknamed B sal um. The
(35:07):
name is actually much longer. It's another kittred fungus uh,
and it can kill of the salamanders it affects. It's
been moved from Asia to Europe where it's wiping out
fire salamanders, which is a beautiful and very famous type
of salamander. And if a salamander gets infected with that fungus,
(35:27):
it will die. What does the infection look like? How like?
How does that attack it? The first kittred I was
telling you about, you cannot see it, so amphabian will
look fine, but it's not fine, and it basically prohibits
gas exchange across the skin. The frog will suffocate. Um.
B sal is visible with lesions on the skin, so
(35:50):
you can see, but it's still it's affecting the skin
of the animal. The fungus feeds on the skin changes
the dynamics of the skin. And again the skin that
seems like it's that's where they get it because they're
so sensitive. That's why we rinse our hands before we
touch them, because the salt is they're so sensitive to it.
I would have to guess though, that with the evolutionary
(36:13):
trade offs, with all these vulnerabilities about their skin, there
must be amazing things about their skin as well. There
must be good reasons for them to have skin like that. Yeah,
you're you are correct, and you know they do a
fair amount of their respiration right through their skin. So
and there are a whole bunch of salamanders right here
in Georgia that don't even have lungs. They just do
(36:36):
all of their respirations skin just bypass that whole lung thing.
So um, I've seen them. Even those salamanders just be underwater.
They're able to exchange the gas right through their skin.
So I'm not sure how much of an advantage that is,
but they can get by without lungs, which is pretty neat.
You know, they just seem very very sensitive and are
(36:59):
always tied to the water, so you mentioned earlier there
was a role of amphibians and control of insect populations,
specifically mosquito populations. Do you want to say anymore about
the role of amphibians and preventing the spread of mosquito
born disease and other diseases. Absolutely, So what we're talking
(37:20):
about earlier was a direct relationship where the salamander larvae
are consuming mosquitoes so um or mosquito larvae controlling them
directly like that. But there are more and mounting evidence
about tadpoles, which you know are vegetarians, but they are
competing with with mosquito larvae, and they're making wetlands less
(37:45):
suitable for mosquito larvae. So a healthy wetland with healthy
amphibian population is less suitable for mosquitoes, less mosquito numbers,
less chances of mosquito born diseases. So, and there's even
some more evidence that it's just not suitable at all
for mosquitoes with a real healthy population of of tadpoles.
(38:08):
So you think of tadpoles as pretty innocuous, but there's
also more evidence about what happens to a wetland when
the tadpoles are removed. So in these populations where kittred fungus,
for example, is wiping out the tadpoles, these streams are
becoming choked and clogged with algae that would normally be
controlled and the nick it's more stagnant, and you can
(38:30):
imagine there are more mosquitoes. Do you think generally amphibians
and mosquitoes are sort of looking for the same kind
of thing when they're choosing wetland environments to breed in,
perhaps in the larval stage it's possible. Yeah, alright, time
to take a quick break and then we'll be right
back with more of our talk with Marc Mandica than
(38:52):
and we're back. So earlier we were talking about the
cannibal morphs, but you mentioned that there are there are
ways that breeding in ephemeral wetlands produces amazing results in
in phenotypic expression in the amphibian. So what what are
these other ways? Well? Thank you, um so Well, First,
(39:18):
Darwin he theorized that animals that were um exposed to
the same dynamic UH systems repeatedly would to be able
to shift their phenotype between these things depending on what
they were it was ecologically called for, So, for example,
these ephemeral wetlands which are so dynamic that can dry
(39:42):
out in flood and freeze solid. The animals have developed
phenotypic plasticity where they, out of necessity, have to be
able to fluctuate. The cannibal morph is an extreme example.
UM but also UM many species when they detect a
predator in the wetland with them, dragonfly larvae, something that
(40:05):
likes to eat tadpoles, they can just grow bigger tails,
they can swim faster once they've detected prey, and I
find that fascinating too. Um. And there are toads, spadefoot toads,
which are vegetarian but can turn cannibal morph. So that's
even more right. I mean, it's like insane because they
(40:28):
have these little scraper beaks to eat algae, but then
can grow teeth and jamas. Like they have a built
in contingency to change what kind of animal they are
depending on their environment. Yeah, and then I find that fascinating,
you know, because it's all just about getting out of
that wetland in time. There are other species which have
(40:49):
involved temporarily to breed slightly off or slightly ahead of
the majority of amphibians, so that their larvae are just
a little bit bigger, so when everyone else comes to them,
they can just start eating them. And I just find
that fascinating too. That's our marbled salamander, and that's another
native Metro Atlanta species that we've detected through our surveys here,
(41:12):
and they're beautiful. I would encourage anyone to google marbled
salamander because they're so beautiful. Now, when we talk to
people who are obsessed with certain kinds of animals, we
often end up asking them, do you have a favorite
uh prehistoric example, do you do you have a favorite
prehistoric amphibian? Yes, I think you wish was still around,
(41:33):
or maybe we shouldn't wish was still around. I think
we'd be all right tell us well, you know, I
also love to talk about how there were frogs and
salamanders hopping and crawling at the feet of the dinosaurs,
so they were here before the dinosaurs, and some of
them ate the dinosaurs. So we'll just think about that.
(41:57):
Um beasel buffo. I'm not sure if that's my favorite,
but just because it translates into devil toad used to
eat baby dinosaurs, so it's just really awesome. But um,
that was a really big one, wasn't It was a
big frog, but it resembled an extant frog, the horned frog,
So they look they looked very similar to a frog
(42:19):
we still have today, just much larger. Um. Do you
know how big? I think they were only maybe a
foot or a foot and a half tall. That's pretty
big for a frog. Yeah. Um. But we have these
other amphibians from an extinct lineage. There's Diplocollis, which you've
ever seen is uh as a boomerang head. They're really
(42:42):
really cool looking, you know. And then there's erie Ops,
which was more like a crocodilian ecologically, so I would
hang in the shallows and just ambush prey and was
about the cross between a salamander and a pit bull
maybe because they're six ft long and highly aggressive with
(43:03):
massive skulls that could inflict a very serious bite. Wow.
I love prehistoric amphibians do. So you mentioned was it
Diploica call us with the boomerang. Do we know what
that structure was for or is that a mystery? It
is a mystery, but I think what I've read theorized
was that it was a hydrogen hydrodynamic property. So it's
(43:26):
a fully aquatic amphibian, So I used it to navigate
the water. That's pretty impressive though, yeah, because it was
it was skeletal. It's the skull is a big boomerang. Well,
so you mentioned this giant prehistoric salamander with the with
the big skull and the big bite. I I think
(43:46):
I've heard that. Well, we mentioned the hellbenders earlier. Like salamanders,
can they they some of them can give a good bite, right, yes, Um,
usually for a human it means nothing though, But like
tiger salamanders we've mentioned several times now because they're awesome.
They're highly aggressive. So we have a pet salamador, my
(44:07):
little boy does, and he just he wiggles his finger
right in front of his mouth and it just jumps
up and latches on. But it's not doesn't hurt at all. Um,
they don't have much bite force. But then there are
other salamanders. There's a native amphiuma, which is an aquatic
coastal plain species which I've been bitten by and it
hurts a lot, very very strong, strong bite. So I
(44:33):
guess it just depends on what species you're talking about.
What kind of prey animal would that bite before Um,
I've seen them take small mammals, I've seen them take fish,
So I think that they're just meant to not like
they won't let go. Whatever they bite is going to
stay in their mouth. Terrifying. It does sound more and
(44:58):
more like with the alamanders. We and I guess of
amphibians in general, when we we see them, say it's
zoos or other or whereas pats uh, we see him
in the tank and they're they're very stationary, they're not
moving much. It's easy to to just think of them
as this stationary species that's not active or aggressive. Yeah,
(45:19):
and you're not wrong, You're you're probably you're probably acknowledging
ninety plus percent of what they do, but it's that
other portion, you know. Um, So yeah, we're we're learning
now that salamanders, even though they're active for one to
two weeks a year, they can be very active during
(45:40):
that time, and they can travel large distances. You know,
for a salamander, um, you know, up to five football
fields in length, for example, And you know that's for
something that's as tiny and clumsy as a salamander. That's
quite a distance. And frogs can easily travel three times
(46:00):
that amount. You know. So, UM, it might also be
worth mentioning that there is a third group of amphibians
that we just haven't mentioned yet today, So it'd be
worth mentioning the sicilians, which is the third type of amphibian.
There's frogs and toads, salamanders and newts, and then these limbless,
(46:20):
burrowing sicilians, which are largely a mystery because they live underground.
They come up when it floods, you don't see them.
They're pan tropical, they're on basically every continent as long
as it's warm enough, and they're fascinating, you know, but
they and they also bite very hard, but it's only
a problem if you're a worm or some other type
(46:42):
of prey. But I off I like to mention them
whenever possible. Because a few years ago the two d
species of sicilian was discovered, it's kind of a big
deal for the amphibian nerds. Um. Now I think there
are as many as two hundred and seven, so it's
really climbing up there. But it's a really interesting group
(47:05):
of amphibians that we like to teach the kids about
and we cover in our biology classes as well. Yes,
subterranean vertebrates in general, seems like there's a lot of
a lot of outstanding questions and new things to learn
about them. There's always weird new stuff about like the
naked mole rat and all that. Yeah, um, so I
gotta give these things a look up. Look them up.
(47:27):
So it's not spelled like someone from Sicily though, it's
c A E C I L I A N Sicilian.
All right, I'm ashamed I didn't know. Oh well, I
can talk about them more if you'd like. But they
they come in really bright colors as well. Some of
them are solid bright bright yellow. They live underground. While
(47:49):
they bright yellow, there's other ones with blue with white
rings all the way around them. And then a recent
paper came out last year, Um, Siphonops is that genus? This,
this sicilian can secrete mucus from its face to loube
up the ground so it can basically swim in the
(48:09):
dirt while excreting toxin at the tail end so nothing
can follow it. That is is just amazing, right, is
mind blowingly cool. This This gets back to something where
we always touch on in the show, is that you know,
you think of fictional monsters, you know from comic books
(48:31):
or films or or books. And no matter how creative
we think we've been in creating some sort of exotic creature, um,
it's it's it's almost always matched or exceeded by the
natural world. And then the salamanders and amphibians in general
seem to be prime examples of this. Yeah, and there
(48:51):
I like to refer to them as the slimy underdogs.
You know, it's very poorly understood, not often considered. Um,
you know, um no resentment here. When you talk about
animal conservation, you usually see a picture of the panda
and there they are very cute. But you know, there's
a whole world out there that needs our attention, and
(49:13):
that's why we have the Amphibian Foundation. Well, speaking of which,
you know, at this point in the episode of Hopefully,
you know, people who didn't really understand what amphibians were
all about and why they were important and why they
were amazing, they have a different view now. And people
who are already on board are are just more excited. Uh.
But if people out there want to help protect salamanders
(49:35):
and other amphibians, what what can they do? What should
they be doing? And uh, and I realized that you
have a have local expertise and in their their global
answers to this as well. So perhaps if you could
start globally and then maybe speak to our more local
listeners as well. Absolutely, uh, And there are lots of
(49:57):
things that people can do if they're interested UM. At
this point, there are many community science programs. It depends
on how much time you have, but if you would
like to monitor amphibians in your area, generally speaking, monitoring
programs are frog call surveys UM, and they're always looking
(50:18):
for people to participate in those surveys. There are regional
programs UM that exist worldwide, you know, and there are
global networks. The Amphibian Survival Alliance comes to mind him
Amphibian ARC as another partner of ours, is a global
network UM that are about putting species who need attention
(50:42):
in connecting them with people who would like to provide
that attention UM, so that those will be uh the
first steps I would take UM. And then we have
a growing list of resources on our blog for how
to make your proper more amphibian friendly, you know. And
that's a it's been a delight to put this together
(51:05):
and also having people interested in those types of things
because you know they generally involve doing less yard work.
You know you want to do less, you want to
let it go a little bit at least final, let
it get rough around the edges. Yeah, leaf litter is
gold to an amphibian. You know, if you're getting ready
(51:26):
your leaves, then it's it's a lot less suitable for them,
So you can use that as an excuse to leave
your leaves in place. UM often and amphibian conservation programs
are significantly underfunded too, so I would mention that is
something that if you have rasources for UH contributing to
(51:50):
amphibian conservation in that way, UM, contact your local amphibian
conservation programs and I'm sure that they'll be in need
of funding. UM. And those are those are the main
ones that I can think of. And you mentioned the blog.
Can you share the web address with everyone to get
to the resources for UM making your yard more amphibian
(52:12):
friendly or even constructing an amphibian pond. UM that has
been in such high demand that we created a direct link,
which is backyard dot frogs Need our Help dot org
and in the Amphibian Foundation itself. The website is Amphibian
Foundation dot org. Now as we come to a close here,
we understand you have a music background, that you you
(52:34):
are a musician, and correct me if I'm wrong. I
might be this secondhand information. But did you tour China
in an American funk band? Um? Why yes, I did?
Please tell us about that. Uh? Sure. I was fortunate
enough to play in the very first American rock band
(52:54):
to play in China. So it's kind of a big deal, right.
That was in UH and it was part of a
cultural exchange program that went kind of bonkers because the
way I understood it was the year before the guitar
was legalized in China, so they were just starting to
(53:15):
open up to certain things. Um, we wanted to come
over there with our instruments, and basically what happened was
a five city tour for the whole summer. UM. So
I was UM pretty young, and UH was basically treated
like the Beatles once we got there because they had
(53:35):
never seen an American rock band before. Um. It was
one of the greatest experiences of my life and it
was very very warm reception. We were the Misguided Youth,
so that was our our name, and UM it was
really really wonderful. Yeah, it was great, thanks for asking.
(53:57):
I should mention that my contemporary music is all very
salamander related, not conceptually musically, but I go under the
name mud Puppy, which is one of my favorite Neotenic salamanders.
And um and you know, so that's that. That was
it more of a rock and roll, more funk, like
what is your your sound? Funk? Funk? Uh, it's funk
(54:19):
and I guess at this point it always will be um.
And we have a recording studio which is Neotenic Studios,
which is another very salamander nerd name, which means the
retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood. Seems to fit me well. Yeah,
so so speaking funk, speaking of of amphibians, what is
(54:42):
the most uh funk amphibian? Which is the funkiest of
the amphibians. If I had to say, um, I would
go with this crazy frog that I've only seen on
Nature documentaries, the hairy frog. So it's a hairy frog.
So that cool and a little bit gross, right, because
(55:03):
it has literally hairy well it can't be literal hair,
but it looks like hair. It's really these long tubercles
that look like hair. Um. And what makes them even
crazier is that um, as a defense, they can break
their own fingers, and they do often break their own
(55:24):
fingers to make the tips really sharp, and then those
sharpened bones come out of their skin and they can
use that as an attack. Now that you're saying this, Robert,
have you written about these frogs before. I think I did,
coming back to the monster thing, it was. I think
the comparison was stuff like Wolverine. You know, you like
(55:45):
at Wolverine and you think, oh, that's so inventive, that's
so cool. Um, but but nature came up with that. Yep,
yep and yep. So that's exactly right. All right. So
I'm glad that you guys have been lowering them a
little bit on your own too, because that is pretty
pretty funky. Yeah yeah, well, thanks so much for joining
(56:07):
us to yea delighted to be here today. Thank you.
All right, So there you have it. Thanks again to
Mark Bndka for coming on the show here actually being
here in the studio with us to discuss amphibians and
especially the salamanders. Yeah, this was a lot of fun.
(56:28):
We really appreciate him joining us, and we hope all
of you will take something away from today's episode, maybe
maybe get involved a little bit with Amphibians in your
area because it sounds like there's a lot to do,
that's right, And hey, if you want to know more
about Amphibi, the Amphibian Foundation, or you want to support
the Amphibian Foundation again, that's Amphibian Foundation dot org. On
Twitter and Facebook is Amphibian found and on Instagram as
(56:51):
Amphibian Foundation, and you can also just look look around
and find out what you're you know, more localized Amphibian
group happens to be. Support them. And if you want
to follow us, head on over to stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. That's where we'll find all the
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A tap for our store. That's a great way to
support the show by buying cool merchandise with our logo
(57:14):
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in other ways, just simply rate and review us wherever
you have the power to do so. Big thanks as
always to our audio producers Alex Williams and Tarry Harrison.
If you would like to get in touch with us
directly with feedback about this episode or any other uh
to suggest a topic, for a future episode, or just
to say hi send some greetings. You can email us
(57:34):
at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com.
In this episode, Mark talked a little bit about his music,
and so we're closing out the episode here with a
track that Mark provided us with. It is called stick
in the Mud refunct on Go