5 chapters
16 minute read
Selected Chapters
5 chapters
Food and Foraging Behavior
Food and Foraging Behavior
We identified the contents of stomachs from 16 salamanders collected in 1956 and 1957; the items found in them are listed in Table 1. It is not likely that this list is complete for prey species because A. hardii eats a variety of food and probably takes prey almost indiscriminately if it is of appropriate size. The kind of food most frequently eaten was ants; they comprised almost 40 per cent of the total items. Nevertheless, less than half the stomachs contained ants; this may mean that salama
5 minute read
Parasites
Parasites
Thirty of the adult Aneides collected were examined for parasites; most were parasitized by two species of nematodes, Oswaldocruzia sp. and Thelandros sp. The former is found in the anterior part of the small intestine and occasionally in the stomach, and the latter occurs in the rectum. There were no gross intestinal pathological changes in the salamanders resulting from parasitism. In fact, no pathological or structural abnormalities were noted in any of the salamanders examined. We believe th
2 minute read
Characteristics of Breeding
Characteristics of Breeding
Tables 3 and 4 show the distribution of sexes for two subsections of our sample. The ratio of males to females in the total sample was nearly 1:1. There were differences in ratios between the three general localities: the two northerly sites had fewer females than males, when compared with the Cloudcroft samples. This is true for the samples of adults, but not for the juveniles, where in each instance the females predominated. We cannot absolutely explain these differences in ratios. Possibly th
6 minute read
Summary
Summary
The montane relict plethodontid Aneides hardii was studied in the field and laboratory in 1956-1958. Food items detected in a small sample of stomachs are listed tabularly. Two roundworms were found to parasitize the guts of the salamanders; the parasitism looks to be benign. Subterranean winter inactivity is thought to be an integral part of the salamanders' lives, and is suggested in part by the life cycles of the worms. Summer activity appears to occur at the ground surface in logs and talus,
39 minute read
Literature Cited
Literature Cited
Transmitted May 11, 1959. Changed "vestigal" to "vestigial" on page 578: vestigal-winged flies. Changed "inmature" to "immature" in Table 2: nematodes that were inmature. Changed "auomatically" to "automatically" on page 582: not auomatically invalid. Changed "Syzmanski" to "Szymanski" in Literature Cited on page 585....
57 minute read