Southern Torrent in a Seep

Explanation: This inaptly-named amphibian has a story to tell about names and life.

First, this is a Southern Torrent Salamander. It belongs to a family of only four species ... all torrent salamanders ... that range along the north and central Pacific Coast of the United States. Collectively, they are found in the Cascade Mountains, Olympic Mountains, Coast Range, and Klamath Mountains.

The alternate name for the group of torrent salamanders is Cascade salamanders ... the first misnomer in this story, as three of the four species range well outside the Cascade Mountains.

Torrent salamanders typically occur in cold water seeps with slowly dripping deep moss cover, in saturated forest litter and duff ... not in "torrents." A second misnomer.

But this one is indeed identified as the Southern Torrent Salamander, as I discovered it in a moss-covered seep deep in the Klamath Mountains of northwestern California, and it is the most southerly-distributed of the four species.

The species is listed as "least concern" by IUCN, and is not listed as a federally threatened species by US Fish and Wildlife Service ... although they are very sensitive to increased aridity, as they have highly reduced lungs and breathe through their skin, relying on constant moisture for oxygen exchange.

They also always seemed, to my searches, to be thinly distributed and sparse everywhere I looked.

Their seep habitats are uncommon and are scattered and isolated throughout their range, and many have likely been disrupted or eliminated over the years from urbanization, timber harvesting, and other activities.

But more chronic might be increased aridity from climate change in their range, drying up the forests, increasing catastrophic canopy forest fires, and desiccating their delicate seep habitats.

And I can only hope that their current designation as "least concern" is not a misnomer ...

EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week