Ensatina
A lungless salamander that breathes through its skin, a textbook 'ring species' whose subspecies loop around California's Central Valley without quite meeting.
Ensatina at a glance
Ensatina eschscholtzii en-suh-TEE-nuh; Ensatina eschscholtzii is en-suh-TEE-nuh esh-SHOLT-zee-eye
- Type
- Amphibian · salamander
- Diet
- Carnivore
- Size
- About 3 to 6 inches long nose to tail-tip, roughly the length of a 3-by-5 index card.
- Lifespan
- Estimated up to 15 years in the wild.
- Conservation
- Least concern
Eats worms, ants, beetles, spiders, millipedes, snails
It hunts at night on the forest floor, flicking out a long sticky tongue to catch worms, ants, beetles, spiders, millipedes, and snails hiding under logs and leaf litter.
Should you worry?
Harmless in the sense that it cannot bite or sting. It does ooze a milky white secretion from its tail when scared, and that secretion can numb lips or skin for a few hours if it gets on your mouth. Look, keep fingers away from your face after handling one, and wash hands with plain water afterward.
Pick one up and it does something almost nothing else you’ll hold that day does: nothing. No panting, no gulping at the air, no visible breath at all, because there isn’t any to see. An ensatina has no lungs. It breathes through its skin and the lining of its mouth and throat, a few inches of plain orange-brown salamander sitting still in your palm, waiting to be put back under its log.
That quiet, ordinary-looking animal is also one of the most argued-over salamanders in biology. Its subspecies form a loop. Starting around Redwood and Olympic, the chain runs north into Washington and British Columbia, then down the far side of the Sierra Nevada, around the southern end of California’s Central Valley, and back up toward the coast. Every neighboring population along that loop can interbreed with the next one, plain brown salamander breeding with plain brown salamander for hundreds of miles. But where the two ends of the loop finally meet again in the mountains of Southern California, the populations look different (bold blotches instead of plain color) and mostly refuse to interbreed, behaving like two separate species even though a continuous chain of interbreeding animals connects them the whole way around. Biologists have been using this one salamander to argue about what actually makes a species a species for decades.
None of that shows on the animal under your local log. It just has a tail built to snap off if something grabs it, wriggling on its own to buy the salamander a few seconds, and a milky, numbing goo it can ooze if that isn’t enough. So handle one briefly if you find one, let it go back into the leaf litter, and leave it to keep being one plain link in a chain that circles half of California.
Did you know?
- It has no lungs. It breathes entirely through its skin and the lining of its mouth and throat, which is why it needs to stay in damp, shaded places and is never found far from moisture.
- Its range runs along the Pacific coast from southwestern British Columbia down through Washington and Oregon into Northern California, then south through the California mountains, forming the geographic ring that made it famous among biologists.
- If grabbed, it can lose its tail on purpose. The tail has a built-in break point, and while the wriggling tail distracts a predator, the salamander gets away.
Common questions
Is an ensatina salamander poisonous?
It is not dangerous to hold, but it can ooze a milky, numbing goo from its tail if it's scared. Keep hands away from your mouth and eyes after touching one, and wash up afterward.
Why don't ensatinas have lungs?
They belong to a whole family of salamanders that breathe through their skin instead. As long as their skin stays damp, they get all the oxygen they need without lungs at all.
What is a ring species?
It's when a chain of related populations forms a loop around a barrier, like California's Central Valley. Every neighbor in the chain can breed with the next one, but by the time the chain wraps back around, the two ends no longer interbreed.
Where would I actually find one?
Under logs, bark, and rocks in damp, shaded forest, usually after rain or at night. It hides during the day to keep its skin from drying out.