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Caudata Cognition

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Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior

Synonyms

Amphibia; Behavior; Migration; Newt; Salamander; Sensory systems; Territoriality

Definition

Mental processing of environmental and social information and sensory input in salamanders.

Introduction

There are approximately 8,000 species of known amphibians, about 500 of which are salamanders (Frost 2019). Amphibians arose about 360 million years ago with the oldest salamander fossil dating to the Miocene (Petranka 1998). Members of the class Amphibia are ectothermic tetrapods, lack scales, and have heavily glandular skin. Salamanders are unique from frogs and caecilians, most obviously, by always having a tail and forelimbs; a few salamander species lack hind limbs. Many species have biphasic life cycles where they spend the first portion of their lives in water and their adult life on land; however, there are some species that are solely terrestrial and solely aquatic (Petranka 1998). Modes of respiration include gills, lungs, and gas exchange through the skin (i.e., cutaneous...

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Correspondence to Savannah M. Berry .

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Berry, S.M., Mendelson, J.R. (2019). Caudata Cognition. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1011-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1011-1

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