Salamander species discovered in new habitat in Riverview

A new scientific study explains how a town in the Greater Moncton area surprisingly became home to a rare discovery.

Mount Allison University scientists recently found a previously unknown population of the four-toed salamander in Riverview in 2023.

The species, which is usually found exclusively in a type of bog in Fundy National Park, is showing that it might be more resilient than previously thought. 

Josh Christiansen, a researcher at Mount Allison and the lead author of the publication about the discovery, said the salamanders are small, about seven centimetres, and are a rusty brown colour.

“But what’s really striking is on their belly. They actually have a salt and pepper pattern that is unique to each individual salamander,” Christiansen said in an interview with CBC Radio’s Shift.

The species is what’s considered a habitat specialist. Christiansen said “they require sort of ideal conditions to allow them to breathe,” as they breathe through their skin and tissue in their mouth.

“And so this means that they have to live in conditions that are moist and not too hot or not too cold, otherwise they won’t be able to have gas exchange and oxygen exchange across those membranes,” he said.

They usually have to live in forests with lots of ground cover, such as leaf litter and fallen logs. 

“And this allows them to kind of have these little microhabitats underneath these cover objects that kind of make this perfect environment for them to live in,” Christiansen said.

They also require bogs with sphagnum moss.

“So what this means is that they don’t love open water, especially open water that has fish in it because the fish will eat their babies,” he said.

‘Absolutely flabbergasted’

In North America, the species has a wide range, but, because of the specialized habitat they require, Fundy National Park was the only place they had been documented in New Brunswick, Christiansen said.

“When we found these guys in Riverview, we weren’t looking for them. We were actually looking for a different kind of species,” he said.

After posting a photo, Christiansen said other scientists reached out and were “absolutely flabbergasted” at the discovery.

“And so it kind of turned into this super cool and exciting little story where we all went out together in the forest one day to check out the site and we found some more,” he said.

Urban habitat

Due to the unknown nature of how well this newly discovered population is doing, Christiansen said he and other scientists are not publicly disclosing the exact location of the find. 

But he described the location as near urban development and roads. 

“But because there is a bog that is maintained at this site, these little guys just have carved out this little patch for themselves in this little patch of forest,” Christiansen said. 

He said he hopes to find more locations where the species might be, but protection is important too.

“I would love for the location where we found the salamanders to have more protection put in place for these little guys to make sure that the bog isn’t disturbed or the forest isn’t disturbed anymore than the than it is in an urban area, right?”