Red Back Salamander
Salamandra cinerea Green, 1818
The red back (or redback or red-backed) salamander (Plethodon cinereus) is a small, hardy woodland salamander. It inhabits wooded slopes in Eastern North America; west to Missouri; south to North Carolina; and north from southern Quebec and the Maritime Provinces in Canada to Minnesota. It is also known as the Northern redback salamander to distinguish it from the Southern redback salamander (Plethodon serratus). The red-backed salamander is found mostly in two color variations: the nominate red variety, 'redback', as well as a darker phase known as the 'leadback' which lacks most or all of the red pigmentation found in the red phase. However, one can also find a variety of other color variations (e.g., stripe of yellow, orange, white, or an uncommon erythristic morph, which is completely reddish-orange).
Read more about Red Back Salamander: Reproduction and Biomass, Captivity
Famous quotes containing the word red:
“What journeyings on foot and on horseback through the wilderness, to preach the gospel to these minks and muskrats! who first, no doubt, listened with their red ears out of a natural hospitality and courtesy, and afterward from curiosity or even interest, till at length there “were praying Indians,” and, as the General Court wrote to Cromwell, the “work is brought to this perfection that some of the Indians themselves can pray and prophesy in a comfortable manner.””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)