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