Bowdoin professor and Maine Audubon trustee Nat Wheelwright takes a look at how the Red-backed Salamander compares to moose in the northeastern forest:
If you took all the moose or deer in a northeastern forest and put them on a scale, they wouldn’t weigh as much as the superabundant but often overlooked red-backed salamander. (Hard to believe, I know, but check out the study “Salamander Populations and Biomass in the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, New Hampshire” published in the scientific journal Copeia in 1975!)
If you want to make your own natural history observations, The Naturalist’s Notebook by Nathaniel T. Wheelwright and Bernd Heinrich (Storey Publishing, 2017) provides guidance and a systematic format, with 100% of royalties going to conservation and environmental education.
Watch all Nat’s Nature Moments videos.
