IV.

Diet

Most salamanders are carnivorous—that is, they eat other animals rather than plants. Adult salamanders that live in water prey on the larvae of frogs, known as tadpoles, and various invertebrates, including snails and worms. Some also eat small fish. These salamanders locate prey by smell and ingest it by opening their mouths in the water and sucking in their prey.

Terrestrial salamanders rely on vision to find food. Most are solitary, sit-and-wait opportunists that eat soft-bodied invertebrates, including insects, slugs, and worms. When one of these prey animals unwittingly comes within reach, the salamander rolls its fleshy, sticky tongue out of its mouth to snatch it up. Some tropical salamanders have projectile tongues that they can extrude from their mouths for distances equal to 40 to 80 percent of their total body length to snap up unsuspecting prey.

Many salamanders are nocturnal—that is, they do most of their hunting in the cool, dark hours of night and remain inactive during the day. Those that are active during daylight retreat to the cool depths of bushes and other ground cover during the hottest period of the day. Some groups are active only during certain seasons. When conditions are too cold or too dry for them to muster the energy necessary to find food, these salamanders enter a resting state similar to hibernation. The siren spends much of its time burrowed in the muddy bottom of seasonal ponds and ditches that dry up in the heat of the summer. When the mud and sand starts to dry, the mucous coating on its skin hardens to form a protective cocoon, which enables the siren to survive out of water for many weeks.