Meeting Abstract
Salamanders are common prey items for many species of vertebrates. Not surprising, salamanders have an arsenal of behavioral strategies with which to elude their predators. One of the more impressive and energetically expensive antipredator strategies reported is tail autotomy. In the California slender salamander, Batrachoseps attenuatus (Eschscholtz, 1833), the tail is nearly twice as long as the trunk. A previous study on B. attenuatus revealed that tail autotomy inhibits reproduction in some individuals and limits the reproductive output for individuals that do reproduce when their tails are partially regenerated. As Maiorana pointed out in 1977, loss of a feature that has other critical demands such as fat storage and locomotion is perplexing. Inspired by the reported antipredator behaviors (i.e. the “watch-spring”) for the recently described B. robustus and other Batrachoseps species, we used high-speed video to examine antipredator strategies for 7 individuals of B. attenuatus. A 9-inch metal spoonula was used to induce antipredator behavior by tapping an individual salamander on the tail. We recorded these small, gracile, and cryptic-looking plethodons performing impressive aerial acrobatics to move away from the stimulus. One of these behaviors was what we interpret as the “watch-spring” behavior where an individual coils its body and then uses its axial skeleton to launch its body up to 6 cm off the substrate. These dynamic behaviors suggest that as a species, B. attenuatus has a diverse and presumably effective behavioral repertoire for evading predators and that tail autotomy may be a last resort.
