Whit Gibbons, Herpetologist and Author
Q. Salamanders come in many colors and are widespread yet they seem to be one of the least appreciated groups of animals. Most of my friends have never even seen one. What interesting facts could I tell them about salamanders?
Valentine’s Day is almost upon us, bringing to mind the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” If he had written that today instead of 1835, he would probably have mentioned “a young woman’s fancy” as well. And had he been an ecologist rather than poet laureate of Britain, he might have noted that as days grow longer and nights get shorter, courtship and romantic engagement in the Northern Hemisphere become prevalent throughout the animal kingdom. Some performances are already underway.
Q. You once wrote that blue pigment is not known to exist in any terrestrial or freshwater animals with backbones. I found a blue bullfrog in a marsh in Virginia. It was mostly blue with some gray blotches; it did not have green anywhere on its body. How do you explain the appearance of a frog like this?
Q. You recently explained how alligators survive cold winters. What about turtles, which even live in cold northern states and Canada. How do they do it?
I have received the following questions about winter behavior of alligators. Q. Do alligators up north hibernate? Can they breathe underwater? A. Alligators do not live “up north,” do not technically hibernate and cannot breathe under water. The most northern localities of … Continued
Over the eons, millions of species have gone extinct naturally. Today, species headed toward extinction are generally helped along their way because of human activities. Enter the tuatara, an odd exception to the rule. Unlike most pending extinctions around the world, when the last tuatara is gone, humans will not be to blame. Most tuataras disappeared long before our time.
The following questions relate to the most popular bird on dinner tables for three major holidays.
Q. I have heard that wild turkeys are declining throughout the country. Is this serious? If so, who is addressing the problem?
I recently heard Bill Hopkins, professor of fish and wildlife conservation at Virginia Tech University, give a talk about hellbenders, giant salamanders that can reach a length of more than 2 feet. They live in cold-water trout streams in several eastern states, historically ranging from southern New York, west into Missouri and Arkansas and south to northern Georgia and Alabama. Sadly, hellbenders have disappeared from more than half of the streams where they once thrived, a cause for grave concern. Hopkins’s research demonstrates how these extraordinary salamanders serve as indicators of water quality, thus functioning as sentinels of the environmental health of a stream.