Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

East­ern North Amer­ica. The red-backed sala­man­der's range ex­tends west to Mis­souri; south to North Car­olina; and north from south­ern Que­bec and the Mar­itime Provinces in Canada to Min­nesota (Co­nant 1975).

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native

Habi­tat

Red-backed sala­man­ders are ter­res­trial, and live in de­cid­u­ous forests through­out their ge­o­graphic range. They are found in the leaf lit­ter on the ground as well as under rocks, logs, or in small bur­rows. They must live in a moist en­vi­ron­ment, as they lack lungs and re­quire moist skin for res­pi­ra­tion. One habi­tat fac­tor af­fect­ing red-backed sala­man­ders is soil pH. P. cinereus, like many other am­phib­ians, is neg­a­tively ef­fected by high lev­els of acid­ity. Red-backed sala­man­ders have been shown to ex­hibit the same pri­mary re­sponse to acidic sub­strate as do am­phib­ian lar­vae ex­posed to acidic water, dis­rup­tion of their sodium bal­ance. The chron­i­cally lethal pH level for P. cinereus is be­tween 3 and 4, and they are rarely found on soils with a pH of 3.7 or lower. (Fris­bie and Wyman 1991, Hard­ing and Hol­man 1992, Horne 1988)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate

• Terrestrial Biomes
• forest

• Wetlands
• marsh
• swamp

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Length: 5.7 to 12.7 cm.

The red-backed sala­man­der has two dif­fer­ent color phases. The "red­back" phase con­sists of a gray or black body with a red or or­ange stripe down the back, ex­tend­ing from the neck onto the tail. The "lead­back" phase lacks the red stripe, with a purely black or grey back in­stead. Its belly is a mot­tled white and gray in both phases, cre­at­ing a salt and pep­per pat­tern. Phys­i­cally, P. Cinereus has 16 to 19 costal grooves, no cir­cu­lar con­stric­tion at the base of its tail, and it has five toes on its hind feet. These phys­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics help to dis­tin­guish the red-backed sala­man­der from other sala­man­ders sim­i­lar in ap­pear­ance. No dis­tinc­tions be­tween males and fe­males are noted. (Hard­ing and Homan 1992, Co­nant 1975)

• Other Physical Features
• ectothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes alike

• Average mass

  0.5 g

  0.02 oz

  AnAge

• Range length

  5.7 to 12.7 cm

  2.24 to 5.00 in

• Average basal metabolic rate

  9.9e-05 W

  AnAge

De­vel­op­ment

Red-backed sala­man­ders lay eggs that de­velop di­rectly into small sala­man­ders. They do not have an aquatic larva stage, such as is found in other sala­man­ders and most am­phib­ians.

• Development - Life Cycle
• metamorphosis

Lifes­pan/Longevity

While there is lit­tle in­for­ma­tion on lifes­pan in red-backed sala­man­ders, other pletho­d­on­tid sala­man­ders can live for up to 32 years. Pletho­don jor­dani has a mean gen­er­a­tion time of 9.8 years, with 77% sur­viv­ing to 10 years old. There is no rea­son to ex­pect that red-backed sala­man­ders can't also reach these ages. (Hair­ston, 1983)

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  25 years

  AnAge

Be­hav­ior

Red-backed sala­man­ders pro­tect their lim­ited food sup­ply by mark­ing out ter­ri­to­ries. This be­hav­ior oc­curs most often when mois­ture lev­els are low and the sala­man­ders have to re­treat under logs or rocks. Both males and fe­males leave scent marks on sub­strate as well as on fecal pel­lets. These chem­i­cal cues pro­vide a great deal of in­for­ma­tion to other sala­man­ders, in­clud­ing bound­aries of the ter­ri­to­r­ial area, size and sta­tus of the res­i­dent, and iden­tity of the res­i­dent. In ad­di­tion to the chem­i­cal in­for­ma­tion, vi­sual cues of size and threat­en­ing dis­plays de­ter­mine what the be­hav­ior re­ac­tions of the in­truder and the res­i­dent will be.

Red-backed sala­man­ders have also shown ex­am­ples of kin se­lec­tion be­hav­ior. When for­ag­ing is very stress­ful due to dry con­di­tions, adults hold­ing ter­ri­to­ries will some­times allow ju­ve­niles ac­cess to their ter­ri­to­ries. Kin can be rec­og­nized through ol­fac­tory com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and this ju­ve­nile ac­cess is gen­er­ally rel­e­gated to kin. (Horne and Jaeger 1988, Jaeger et al. 1995, Si­mons et al. 1997)

• Key Behaviors
• diurnal
• nocturnal
• motile
• sedentary
• solitary
• territorial

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Red-backed Sala­man­ders pro­tect their lim­ited food sup­ply by mark­ing out ter­ri­to­ries. This be­hav­ior oc­curs most often when mois­ture lev­els are low and the sala­man­ders have to hide under logs or rocks. Both males and fe­males leave scent marks on the ground as well as leav­ing their drop­pings. Other sala­man­ders can learn a lot from these clues. They learn each oth­ers ter­ri­to­r­ial bound­aries, the size and im­por­tance of the sala­man­ders that live in the area, and their iden­tity, in­clud­ing whether or not they are re­lated. When find­ing food is very hard due to dry con­di­tions, adults who have their own ter­ri­to­ries will some­times allow young sala­man­ders that are re­lated to them to use their ter­ri­to­ries. In­trud­ers are also warned away by see­ing the size of the sala­man­der and watch­ing it give threat­en­ing dis­plays.

Food Habits

Red-backed sala­man­ders feed on a large va­ri­ety of in­ver­te­brates. These in­clude mites, spi­ders, in­sects, cen­tipedes, mil­li­pedes, bee­tles, snails, ants, earth­worms, flies, and lar­vae. They for­age by thrust­ing out their tongue in a quick, for­ward mo­tion and cap­tur­ing the prey. The phys­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment de­ter­mines food sup­ply and for­ag­ing habits. Dur­ing and shortly after rains is the op­ti­mal for­ag­ing time for P. cinereus. At these times the leaf lit­ter on the for­est floor as well as the for­est veg­e­ta­tion is very moist. The sala­man­ders wan­der through­out the leaf lit­ter dur­ing the day and climb plants and trees at night to find prey, feed­ing on both ground-dwelling and ar­bo­real in­ver­te­brates. As mois­ture de­creases they are lim­ited to the leaf lit­ter, and as that sub­se­quently dries up they even­tu­ally are re­stricted to areas under rocks or logs or in bur­rows that will con­tinue to re­tain mois­ture. The de­crease in mois­ture does not af­fect the avail­abil­ity of prey, but it lim­its the mo­bil­ity of the sala­man­ders due to their mois­ture re­quire­ments. Food lev­els are scarcer under logs or rocks and in bur­rows and the sup­ply is eas­ily ex­haustible. Con­se­quently, red-backed sala­man­ders are pulse feed­ers that eat large amounts when con­di­tions are fa­vor­able and store the extra nour­ish­ment as fat to live off of when con­di­tions be­come poor. (Fraser 1976, Jaeger 1972, Jaeger 1980, Maglia 1996)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • eats non-insect arthropods

Pre­da­tion

Red-backed sala­man­ders make up an im­por­tant food source for a wide va­ri­ety of snakes, birds, and mam­mals. They have the abil­ity to drop all or part of their tail if under at­tack from a preda­tor and can grow a new one af­ter­wards. The tail that grows back is often lighter in color than the orig­i­nal tail.

• Known Predators

  • snakes (Serpentes)
  • blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata)
  • American robins (Turdus migratorius)
  • American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos)
  • raccoons (Procyon lotor)
  • striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis)
  • Virginia opossums (Didelphis virginiana)
  • large frogs (Anura)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Red-backed sala­man­ders play an im­por­tant bi­o­log­i­cal role in both pro­vid­ing food for their preda­tors as well as con­sum­ing large num­bers of in­ver­te­brates.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Red-backed sala­man­ders may help con­trol pest pop­u­la­tions where they occur in high num­bers.

• Positive Impacts
• controls pest population

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Red-backed sala­man­der habi­tat is rather per­va­sive, and they are com­mon in most of their range. In the fu­ture, how­ever, they could be ef­fected by high lev­els of soil acid­ity through hu­man-in­duced fac­tors such as acid rain.

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Craig Howard (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

Block, Steven. 1985. Sala­man­ders of New York. The Con­ser­va­tion­ist, March/April 1985, 39:42-47.

Co­nant, Roger. 1975. A Field Guide to Rep­tiles and Am­phib­ians of East­ern and Cen­tral North Amer­ica. Boston: Houghton Mif­flin Com­pany.

Fraser, Dou­glas F. 1976. Em­pir­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of the hy­poth­e­sis of food com­pe­ti­tion in sala­man­ders of the genus Pletho­don. Ecol­ogy, 57(3):459-471.

Fris­bie, Mal­colm Pratt, and Richard L. Wyman. 1991. The ef­fects of soil pH on sodium bal­ance in the red-backed sala­man­der, Pletho­don cinereus, and three other ter­res­trial sala­man­ders. Phys­i­o­log­i­cal Zo­ol­ogy, 64(4):1050-1068.

Hard­ing, James H., and J. Alan Hol­man. 1992. Michi­gan Frogs, Toads, and Sala­man­ders: A Field Guide and Pocket Ref­er­ence. East Lans­ing: Michi­gan State Uni­ver­sity.

Horne, Eva A., and Robert G. Jaeger. 1988. Ter­ri­to­r­ial pheromones of fe­male red-backed sala­man­ders. Ethol­ogy, 78:143-152.

Jaeger, Robert G. 1972. Food as a lim­ited re­source in com­pe­ti­tion be­tween two species of ter­res­trial sala­man­ders. Ecol­ogy, 53(3):535-546.

Jaeger, Robert G. 1980. Fluc­tu­a­tions in prey avail­abil­ity and food lim­i­ta­tion for a ter­res­trial sala­man­der. Oe­colo­gia, 44:335-341.

Jaeger, Robert G., Jill A. Wick­nick, Martha R. Griffis, and Carl D. An­thony. 1995. So­cioe­col­ogy of a ter­res­trial sala­man­der: Ju­ve­niles enter adult ter­ri­to­ries dur­ing stress­ful for­ag­ing pe­ri­ods. Ecol­ogy, 76(2):533-543.

Maglia, Anne M. 1996. On­togeny and feed­ing ecol­ogy of the red-backed sala­man­der, Pletho­don cinereus. Copeia, 1996(3):576-586.

Si­mons, Richard R., Robert G. Jaeger, and Bruce E. Fel­gen­haur. 1997 Com­peti­tor as­sess­ment and area de­fense by ter­ri­to­r­ial sala­man­ders. Copeia, 1997(1):70-76.

Hair­ston, N. 1983. Growth, sur­vival, and re­pro­duc­tion of Pletho­don jor­dani: trade-offs be­tween se­lec­tive pres­sures.. Copeia, 4: 1024-1035.