Interview Interlude Playlist, Part 5: Mark Mandica

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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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

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? 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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

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 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 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

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, 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 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, 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, 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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, 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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,

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. 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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. 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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. 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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, 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. 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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,

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. 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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, 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

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

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, 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 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 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.

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 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 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

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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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

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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 episodes of the podcast, links to our various social media accounts.

A tap for our store. That's a great way to support the show by buying cool merchandise with our logo on it. And if you want to support the show 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 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