“We (humans) are trying to get under the skin of other species, trying to understand them on their terms. And the more we succeed, the more we discover a natural landscape dotted with magic wells.” — Frans de Wall. After years of questioning, skepticism and denial, we are finally ready to embrace the beauty of the animal mind. Primates have contributed enormously to the understanding of mental abilities mostly for their “human-like” behaviors or close links to humans which made ethologists keen to study cognition in other animals such as birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes as well as invertebrates such as cephalopods. Although, initially, cognition has been compared on a single scale where humans occupy the top tier and moves downwards to other mammals, the more we started discarding our human standards of understanding capacities in animals, the more the scale was broken into bushes with several branches. Each such branch is unique and is occupied by a group of animals that expresses mental capabilities at their finest level. Salamanders are of interest, and here’s why Amphibians occupy one such branch which is least explored. Among the amphibians, Caudata, including salamanders, still remain a mystery at large. The etymology comes from Greek which means “fire lizard.” Salamanders, which occur in North America, Europe, Asia, northern parts of South America and north Africa, resemble lizards without scales. Around 60% of salamander species are threatened with extinction and are in urgent need of conservation. A California tiger salamander, which is listed as ‘Vulnerable’…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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