well if you guys haven't noticed i haven't really done too many amphibian videos lately
and that's for two different reasons number one i don't know nearly as much
about amphibians so i'm not quite as confident doing the informational ones so when i do them
i have to make sure i really like write down everything to make sure i have it correctly
and the other one is that i don't really have that many because as referring to the first i'm not as
strong when it comes to the knowledge of them and i don't know quite as much and kind of the care is
a little bit different than the norms that i have when it comes to taking care of mostly snakes so
even though all the snakes can be a little bit different depending on the species amphibians are
kind of like a whole different game although it's still in the whole like herbiculture bubble but
we're gonna change it up a little bit and do one on a fairly hardy amphibian species that
we do have a couple of and that is this species spotlight is tiger salamanders
these guys are probably one of the most recognizable salamander species with the exception
of possibly the axolotl because everyone kind of knows about the little feather fin toothless how
to train your dragon little critters right so and i think that's actually half of what they based
him on anyway was the axolotl and then like a big cat or something like that but tiger salamanders
amazing little salamanders great amphibians so these guys are endemic to north america they
do go up into canada i don't know if they make it down into mexico or not i want to say they do like
the northern parts but i could be entirely wrong but i do know they cover all of north america
and specifically all of the united states they're most prominent kind of from like the new york-ish
area maine gets a little cold for them down even into florida and they're like i said they're
mostly concentrated on the east coast but there are kind of pockets basically from coast to coast
in the united states including here in colorado so that being said these guys are great they're
one of the largest species in north america specifically united states um i think the other
one is like i think the pacific giant salamander is the other one that's the contender or one of
the other different subspecies that may or may not have full species listings at this point because
taxonomy is hard they are a type of salmonella that's called a mole salamander or i'm going
to totally butcher this name so i'm just going to throw it up right here and it's pronounced ambi st
ambi ambistomoted i think that's what it's called again i apologize i know that's not correct and if
anyone who does know that please feel free to try to get the enunciation down in the comments below
but they are type of a group of salamanders that are called mole salamanders which basically means
that in their adult stage they're almost entirely terrestrial with the exception of basically just
going back to reproduce and spawn they're found in a bunch of different habitats from
deciduous and pine woodlands and a lot of heavy tree cover even to like kind of open grasslands as
long as there's some bit of water fairly nearby but they will still spend the entire amount of
their adult form outside of the water basically all they really need is just kind of like
loose soil for them to kind of bury under and get away from direct light and predators
that being said they do return to water and they will travel very large distances to get back to
essentially where their kind of spot their birth spawn pawn pool whatever it is they will usually
go back to the same one where they were born four generations that's not always the case but
that is basically what these and many other salamanders and other amphibians in general do and
you know birds and all that other jazz but so they spend all their adult lives on ground they go back
to the spawning point once they do get back to their birthing or spawning pools they you know the
female lays their eggs and the male will lay their spermatophore on top of them they get fertilized
and after about two weeks the eggs hatch it's very fast because a lot of different things eat baby
amphibian eggs and then it takes about three months or so to fully mature and during their
larval stages they're actually in their amphibious stage which looks kind of like an axolotl so you
know with those feathery gills and they still have their full body with their head feet and legs once
they develop those and then they have the feather ones until they get to their mature adult phase
the difference is with essentially so if anyone's ever heard of water dogs water dogs are
essentially referring to the larval stage of tiger salamanders well there's probably a couple other
ones but it's mostly tiger salamanders in areas where they stay in their larval stage a little
bit longer and achieve larger sizes and those get used for a lot of like baits and things like that
when it for like fishermen and things like that and basically what they've kind of found is that
the further north that they are the longer they stay in their you know kind of larval stage those
water dogs so that's why usually kind of the further up in their range and i say further up
you know we're thinking kind of midwest like ohio illinois iowa north of their range they're usually
in their larval stage longer and the further south they get they reach maturity lose their gills and
crawl up on land a lot longer the axolotls are a little different where they stay their entire time
in that axolotl state in that axolotl stage in that larval stage for their entire lives even
through sexual maturity but that being said so if you're ever going to be keeping a tire salamander
in captivity odds are is probably from some are wild caught so like these guys but they can't be
reintroduced because they've come in contact with other captive animals and there's a possibility of
essentially giving out or spreading disease or fungal that is highly contagious such as chytrid
or other fungal infections like that or highly contagious and decimating amphibian populations
across the world so they can't really be reback reintroduced back into the wild because they've
come in contact with other ones it would be very irresponsible to do so so if you do end up having
a tiger salamander wherever you're keeping them here are a few tips they're obviously going to be
the adult stage so as i said before they achieve you know that kind of six to eight inch range
they're very large really kind of hearty salamanders they eat a wide variety of insects
definitely insectivores although they are cannibalistic and you know opportunistic so
basically if if they think they can eat it they will probably try um these guys are a
little chunky um there's a fun little fact about salamanders in general but specifically tiger
salamanders they kind of don't know when they're full they will eat until there have been anecdotal
stories of them bursting open because they are so full and i'm trying to scale back on the amounts
that they got fed because they are kind of chunky so they're on diets you know not not the keto diet
but maybe uh maybe a gluten-free vegan diet no they can't do vegan oh well
sorry guys but that being said they like cooler temps so you know the reason why they're always
underground you don't see in too often unless it's kind of a cooler overcast day if it rains and they
come up or in like gutter wells of windows a lot of people find in those places is because it's
cooler and it's out of the sun basically over 80ish degrees is when you kind of have to start
worrying about them overheating and that's where it gets a little bit dangerous they like it cool
they like it humid not necessarily damp because damp leads to stagnation and fungal infections
and things like that but they do like it fairly moist they like that loose substrate
so in this one it's a mixture of topsoil coconut and peat moss all kind of mixed up and then
in their little under their little hives there's some sphagnum moss too which they do absolutely
take advantage of there's a couple rocks and some fake plant because i like to you know have
a little bit of just kind of something extra for them even if they don't necessarily take advantage
of it as well as the fake plant kind of goes into their water dish that hopefully like if we throw
in crickets or small dubia roaches and they get in there they can figure it out although doobie
roaches are pretty much goners once they get into water honestly they don't really spend a whole lot
of time in the water they are doing it right now because they always freak out whenever i handle
them too much and whenever i put them back when we redo and toss up their uh substrate and redo
their enclosure they have one of them usually the smaller darker one always ends up hitting right
into the water so that's why he's hanging out in there but um right now they're kind of kept in our
basement um but as we are acquiring more snakes and the snake room is kind of spreading into the
room where it's not been as warm they're probably going to be moving up to the gecko room which
i do my utmost to maintain temps between like 73 and 81 because it's better for the asian rat
snakes and most of the gecko species in there as well as a kind of constant humidity so that
way they're probably going to be moving in there which will be a little bit more healthy for them
but hopefully you enjoyed this video um sorry that i don't do too many amphibian videos
like this but tiger salamanders are really cool and i think they're amazing amphibian
species and i can't remember if i did these on the five beginner amphibian video or not but
they definitely are very good beginner amphibian species if that's the route you want to go to over
a lizard or a frog or something like that if you want to get an amphibian tire or something
very hardy large no size to be handled and they can get habituated to handling i don't handle
them too too much maybe that's because you know they're still they're still amphibians they still
have fairly delicate you know absorbent skin so the more you handle them it's not that great
so you know still keep handling to a minimum because they're an amphibian but they're more
tolerant of than a lot of other species to begin with but once again hopefully enjoyed the video
let me know if you have any questions comments down below um always try to be nice play positive
all of that when it comes to critiques because i absolutely mess up to just like everybody else
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you're going to hear me a lot so i apologize if it gets if you if i get a little repetitive with
that but it's very important and people really need to know but hopefully you enjoyed the video
again sorry for repeating myself hope you're having a great day and we'll catch you next time