fire salamander mp3

The Wildlife Wonders Podcast has reached over 100 followers and announced the winners of their giveaway. They are now discussing the fire salamander, an amphibian found in Europe. The fire salamander is poisonous and has bright colors to warn predators. They live in cool and moist areas and are active at night. They can spray poison from glands to protect themselves. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Wildlife Wonders Podcast. I'm your host, the one, the only, Seriana, back at it again with another episode on another week. We have come to the end of our cycle. It has been great. Once again, we have learned about so many great animals, but like usual in the cycle, we are at the amphibians, but before I go forth with the episode, I do want to make a special shout out. We have gotten past 100 followers. I believe we're at like 107 now. I can remember off the top of my head, you know, not that anyone's counting, but we did have a giveaway on our Instagram page and we now have a Facebook page, Wildlife Wonders with an S podcast on Instagram, all one word, and then on Facebook is Wildlife Wonders Podcast. We did have a giveaway going there and we finished the giveaway and I want to announce the winners. The winner of the giveaway was S.S Shocking on Instagram. He's a page that talks all about oysters, amazing guy. If you haven't already seen, he has a podcast called the Oyster Ninja Podcast and I was a guest on his podcast, so go check that out on his page, on his YouTube as well, but that was the winner of the giveaway. We did have a follow up winner that this person is constantly participating, constantly engaging with the page, checking in, listening on the podcast. So I want to give a shout out to Penny.Ventures with an S, P-E-N-N-Y.V-E-N-T-U-R-E-S Ventures on Instagram. You can follow her. She does food and travel content. Also shout out to her. The winner of the giveaway did get a free ticket, one free ticket to the zoo or aquarium of their choice and then the follow up winner got a free mug with the animal on it of their choice. It was a color changing mug. So shout out to those two people and thank you to everyone else that participated in the giveaway. There will be more soon as long as we keep getting followers, you guys. Keep running the numbers up, but also beyond the number count of the followers, I appreciate each and every one of you that tune in every week, that listen to the podcast when a new episode drops, that listen to the old episodes, that share the podcast, like the content. Even if you don't do any of that and you message me and say, hey, I like this, this, this about your podcast. I'm not a big fan of this. You're giving me feedback and I appreciate it. So shout out to y'all because without y'all, there would be no podcast. Well, there would be a podcast, but there would be no listeners. See how that goes? So without further ado, thank you once again, follow Wildlife Wonders with an S, podcast on Instagram and on the Facebook page, but we're going to get right into it. So this week we are talking about the fire salamander. Y'all, first of all, this is an amphibian, amphibian, they're both on land and in water. If you want to learn more about the difference between the classes, go back to episode one and I break it all down between amphibians, reptiles, mammals, all that stuff there on that episode, episode one, but we are talking about the fire salamander. The name, scientific name for it is salamandra, salamandra, salamandra, it's pretty cool, but that's the scientific name. Pretty easy to remember. They are found all over Europe and the most part they are usually found in cool and wet forests in hilly regions. They only live above a certain altitude and under a certain altitude. They're very picky salamanders, obviously, but they live on the forest floor among the leaf litter and the moss. They usually prefer deciduous forests, which means a forest where the trees shed their leaves. The more leaves that are shed, the more places they have to hide and be under. They are also usually found near a source of water, which is common among salamanders. Usually salamanders lay their eggs in the water and just amphibians in general lay their eggs in the water, so that's why they're usually by a water. That's where their eggs are laid. That's where they develop. Now, I'll tell you a little different something about these salamanders that make them stand out from the other salamanders, but in the forest, these salamanders eat other invertebrates. They eat insects, spiders, worms. They can also take down other amphibians. I'm not promoting y'all go get one as a pet, but as pets, they usually eat crickets, mealworms, and similar foods to what they eat in the wild, but of course, you're not going to get exactly what you get in the wild. It has to be a little different. Now, these things are so cool. I can't wait to tell y'all the cool facts about them, but they are 6 to 12 inches long. On average, they're about the size of a pencil, if that puts in reference how long that is. They're not super big, but just because they're not big, don't mean they're not powerful. They are usually bright yellow or orange. They can also be red. If you are on the Instagram page, you saw a picture that I posted, which is one version of the fire salamander, but they can also be mostly bright yellow or orange as well. It's on top of their black skin. It is very vibrant. You guys, with most animals, especially when it comes to amphibians and reptiles, usually the more vibrant the color, it's a sign of them being dangerous, just so y'all know. Not always, but if you see something really bright colored when it's an amphibian or reptile, probably don't mess with it. They are bright colored. They are poisonous. That's what most bright colors mean. They are poisonous. They are also nocturnal, which means they're awake and active mostly during the nighttime. The poison glands is on their heads and it's on their backs. It's a double whammy. Don't touch it either way. I wasn't able to find how much it affects humans, but let me tell y'all what it does to other animals. It's usually around the areas where the yellow or the color is on their body. They secrete something called alkaloids, the mandarin, but they also secrete other toxins. What it does, it irritates the mucous membrane and the nervous system of their victims. Y'all, it's going straight to the head, y'all. It's going straight to the head. It causes muscle convulsions and paralysis. It did affect their circulation in the breathing and in large doses, it will kill the prey. They also have glands that release toxins that can kill or sicken any animal that even touches it. Y'all, these are some bad a salamanders. Even if you don't eat it, it's more dangerous, of course, to eat it, but if you even touch it or try to mess with it, it's like, nah, it's not going down like that. The toxin is going to your brain and you're going to get something. You're going to learn not to mess with me. It's like the little kid on the playground, y'all. It might be small, but don't mess with it. Behavior, they spend most of their life in cool and moist areas under rocks and logs. They avoid extreme heat or cold, but who out here likes to be out in the burning heat? They explore their habitat when it's cool and damp. Basically, as soon as the temperature drops to where they want it, they'll come out, they move around, go get prey, go mate, whatever they need to do, and then go back home. They wait until it gets cool enough. They can protect themselves against predators. The poison keeps going. It has multiple uses. They can spray the poison, y'all. It's not just if you touch it. It's not just if you eat it. They can spray it if they feel threatened. They will spray the poisonous liquid glands from behind its eyes, right into the eyes or mouth of an animal it sees as a threat. Drop the mic. It doesn't get any better than that. If it even feels like, I don't like you in my space, it's going to take you out. You don't even have to say anything. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. 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It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. It's going to take you out. For most salamanders, what happens is the eggs develop internally. Then the female goes and lays it in the water just when they're about to hatch. And then when they hatch, they stay in the water. It goes under metamorphosis, and then they lose their gills, and they be able to live and breathe on land like the usual amphibian method. At that point, the babies come out. They come on land, go on water when they need to. Now the difference is with the fire salamander, I told you they are bad. They can give birth to live young. This is not always common among amphibians. So some fire salamander subspecies can give birth to the live young. They usually hatch. Instead of hatching the eggs outside in the female or laying the eggs, like usual, what happens is they hatch inside the female, and then they develop inside the female's body. They are then, like with regular live birth, like humans, they give birth to it, and they come out. So I thought that was really, really cool. That's not all the fire salamanders, but there are subspecies that do live birth. Now they do have predators. Everything, mostly everything has a predator on this earth. Their main predators are grass snakes. If the birds of prey can get them, so like hawks and eagles, but they have to have built up a tolerance to the toxins in order to consume them, which I feel like the only way you can build up a tolerance is eating a lot of them. So I'm not really sure how that works exactly, but if they do have a tolerance to the toxins, then sometimes they will eat these salamanders as well. Now typically they live anywhere from 6 to 14 years. The maximum that has been heard of in the wild, I believe it's 30 years, but in some rare cases they have been known to live up to 50 years. In captivity they usually live anywhere from 6 to 14 years, but on average about 10 years as pets. And you've got to think different. They get more care. You don't have to worry about predators, but there are other factors, like how the person takes care of them, where they get vet visits, the proper nutrition, lighting, all that stuff. Conservation status-wise, they're the least concern, but fun fact, one of the biggest threats to them are a deadly fungus called basal or sal. I'm sorry all my plant people out there if I'm saying this wrong, or my science people. But what happens is it makes it impossible for affected salamanders to absorb oxygen through their skin or to eat. It kills thousands of native salamanders in Europe. This was discovered in 2013, but it's thought to be brought to Europe by people importing newts to sell as pets. So it sounds almost like an invasive species that people introduced. So let's just say the predators are really humans. But at the end of the day, it is a huge threat to them, just a little bit fungus. And the main reason is with fire salamanders, they breathe oxygen through their skin. So that's why they are very much at risk for environmental toxins, deadly stuff in the air to affect them because of that. And, yeah. Oh, my gosh, you guys. We're at the end with the fast facts. I say fast facts. Sometimes I say fun facts. Whatever you want to call them. Fun facts. I have three of them for you today. I feel like I've already given you so many cool facts about them. I don't know how to blow your minds, but I can. Let me try. So the first one, if a predator grabs a fire salamander by one of its toes or the tail or leg, the limb can break off and the salamander can grow a new one. So it can regenerate a new limb, tail, leg, or the toes. I don't know if that would work with their head. But they can regenerate limbs. Another thing is that the – so their name, the fire salamander, comes from the fact that people once believed it was born in a fire. Let me tell you how that happens. So basically what happens is people will get logs from the fire through the forest and they throw the logs and they're about to start the fire. And then when they start the fire, all the salamanders run out of the fire. One plus one equals two. In this case, the fire – not the fire. The salamanders use the logs as homes. You move the logs and then you set it on fire. They're like, oh, crap, let's run. That's how they all came out. But because of that, they got their name, fire salamanders. And the last one of the evening is – or of the episode is that one of Europe's – it is one of Europe's largest salamanders. Mind you, they're only 6 to 12 inches, so they're not huge, but there's something out there. But anyway, thanks for listening. We've come to the end of the episode. If you loved this episode or this animal, let me know by messaging me on the Wildlife Wonders podcast page on Facebook or Wildlife Wonders with an S podcast on Instagram. Let me know what you thought about this episode. I don't know if there's a way to also message me on Buzzsprout, but if you can, you can do that there too. Like always, have a wonderful day. Thank you for supporting. You will find this podcast wherever you find all your major podcasts, Spotify, Apple Music, Google, and more. And until next time, bye.