Amphibian News!

January 13, 2025: Amphibians are well known to lay their eggs in all sorts of interesting places: from large ponds, rivers, and streams to tiny tree holes and snail shells. Choosing a smaller, isolated place to grow up, like small water pools in tree hollows or bamboo stumps, can keep you relatively safe from competition and predators. But what do you do when you have to poop? Ito and Okada (2024) reared the Taiwanese tree frog (Kurixalus eiffingeri), in the lab and found they do not poop as tadpoles. Instead, these tadpoles keep their feces in their guts until metamorphosis when they leave their small pools of water. Additionally, K. eiffingeri is more tolerant of ammonia than three other species tested in the study. This sanitation strategy might be more widespread, but remains to be tested in other frogs and animals that are restricted to small bodies of water. (MWomack)

January 6, 2025: The fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal) is believed to have invaded Europe from Asia via the amphibian pet trade and has severely damaged the salamander populations there. While several studies have shown that members of the genus Salamandra are highly susceptible to Bsal, few studies have surveyed for the disease broadly. A study by Böning et al (2024) sampled Alpine salamanders (Salamandra atra and S. lanzai) in the mountains of the Alps in Europe. Ecological modelling shows that the Alps and Dinarides mountains, where Alpine salamanders occur, are generally suitable for Bsal, but this study found no evidence of Bsal. They analyzed skin swabs of 818 individuals of Alpine salamanders and co-occurring amphibians at 40 sites between 2017 to 2022. In addition, the study also includes data previously collected from 319 individuals from 13 additional sites, all of them found no Bsal infections. Their study suggests that the salamander plague so far is absent from the geographic ranges of Alpine salamanders. Thus, there is still a chance to implement surveillance and conservation strategies that could help thwart the effects of Bsal on native salamanders in the European Alps and Dinarides mountains. (VV)