Mudpuppies

Mudpuppies - Salamanders That Bark?

What lives in the water its entire life, barks like a dog and has feathery red gills? If you guessed some sort of fish, you guessed wrong. It’s a mudpuppy. It doesn’t really bark but that is how it got its name. People thought this slippery fellow made a barking noise. Mudpuppies can make a grunting sound when picked up or handled roughly but it is the air being pushed out of them not a bark.

Most salamanders start out in the water, develop legs and move onto land. Not the mudpuppy. He likes it in the water. He spends his whole life there, swimming and hiding in the bottoms of lakes and rivers. The mudpuppy’s lungs never get strong enough for him to use just them to breathe oxygen. He has 3 pairs of gills, which look like frilly red earmuffs, attached to the side of his heads.

The mudpuppy is very good at hiding. Because he is the same color as wood and rocks, reddish-brown, brown or different colors of gray, with brownish splotches, he is hard to find. And if you do find him, watch out! He is hard to hold onto. He has no scales and is very slimy.

This member of the Waterdog family likes to eat small fish, crustaceans, worms, insects and snails. He loves to munch on crayfish. Because a mudpuppy is nocturnal, he does most of his munching at night. His eyesight is poor so he uses his nose to sniff out dinner.

When it comes time to breed, the mother turns upside down and lays her eggs so that they attach to the underside of a rock. Then she stays there and protects the eggs from predators. . She can lay between fifty and one hundred eggs at one time. That’s a lot of baby mudpuppies.

It takes the young mudpuppies a long time to grow up. It may be six years before he is fully-grown. While he is still immature, he can look like other types of salamanders. But you can tell if it is a true mudpuppy by looking at his feet. He will only have four toes, not five like the rest.

You can find mudpuppies, in rivers, lakes, and ponds, throughout the United States. But if you catch one be sure and put him back when you are done visiting with him.

Bibliography :

Michigan Department of Natural Resources

Georgia Wildlife -http://museum.nhm.uga.edu/gawildlife/amphibians/caudate/proteidae/nmaculosus.html

Canadian Museum of Nature - www.nature.ca

Iowa Herpetology - www.herpnet.com /Iowa-herpetology/

Encyclopedia of Animals

University of Massachusetts - Biology www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/mudpup2.html

Livingunderworld.org

Expert Sources:

Jessica Miller - Senior Editor at Livingunderworld.org. Holds a degree in Biology.

Jeff LeClere - expert in herpetology www.herpnet.net email REPTILIA74@aol.com