Section 02

Salamanders

This is the world’s centre of salamander diversity, and the reason is respiratory. Lungless plethodontids exchange gases across wet skin, which binds each animal to the moisture of one slope and turns a dry saddle into a wall. Entries here name ranges, elevation bands and forest types, and stop there.

• 02.1LunglessPlethodontids breathe through skin, which requires permanently damp ground, ties them to a slope and is why a single ridge can hold a species found nowhere else.
• 02.2One ridge onlyEndemism at the scale of a mountain, and how the boundaries between close relatives are worked out.
• 02.3The hellbenderCryptobranchus alleganiensis, a giant aquatic salamander that needs water clean enough to have become rare.