Siberian salamander immortal queen amphibian. Siberian salamander

Siberian salamanders are newts belonging to the salamander family. They live over a vast territory. The northern part of the range reaches Yakutia and the Urals. They were found in the tundra, almost in the Arctic Ocean.

The southern part of the range affects northern Japan, China, Korea and Mongolia. In the west, Siberian salamanders live from the Volga region to the Arkhangelsk region. They are also found in the Urals, in the Trans-Urals, on Far East, in Siberia, Kazakhstan, Kamchatka, Chukotka and the Kuril Islands.

Description of Siberian salamanders

The maximum body length of the Siberian salamander reaches 72 millimeters, and taking into account the tail, it reaches 162 millimeters.

The tail is usually shorter than the body, but sometimes it can be longer. There are 12-14 transverse grooves on the sides of the body. Normally, these newts should have 4 toes on their paws, but some individuals have three or five toes. Such individuals are often identified as a separate species.

The color of the upper body and sides is brown with various transitions from smoky to golden. The belly is light. Some individuals have dark speckles on their bodies. Although several forms of these newts living in China and Russia have been described, they have not received recognition, so at the moment There are no subspecies of Siberian salamanders.

The Siberian salamander is the only amphibian well adapted to life in the permafrost zone.

Habitats of Siberian salamanders

Most often, Siberian salamanders choose low-lying areas and valleys with rivers, small lakes and swamps as habitats. They are found in various forests: birch, coniferous, mixed, alder and broad-leaved. They are also found in towns, cities, parks, along railways and the like.

Siberian salamanders are ecologically plastic, meaning they can live in different conditions. So in Kamchatka they live on the Uzon volcano, on Sakhalin in hills overgrown with bamboo, in Mongolia in the steppes next to rivers, and on the Kuril Islands in bomb craters flooded with water.

They mainly prefer shrubby or wooded areas, but are also found in open areas.

Lifestyle of Siberian salamanders

Adults lead hidden life, and are active at dusk or at night; during the day they hide in various shelters. The larvae are active around the clock.

When the snow begins to melt, salamanders appear on the surface; this occurs at different latitudes from March to June. A special feature of this type of newt is its ability to tolerate low temperatures; they do not lose activity at 0 degrees. Therefore, they can even live at the North Pole.

During experiments during which an artificial wintering area was created, the salamanders did not die even at temperatures of minus 35-40 degrees. They have even been found in permafrost. One adult was pulled out of a block of ice and came to life; she was 90 years old. That is, in a state of suspended animation, their organisms can long time function.

The larvae feed on mollusks, crustaceans and aquatic insects. Adults that live on land eat insects, earthworms, mollusks and other invertebrates.

Siberian salamanders leave for the winter in August-November, which depends on the latitude of their habitat. weather conditions. They overwinter under fallen leaves, in empty stumps, dead wood and soil. They can occur singly or in groups. Winter hibernation in salamanders lasts 5-8 months.

Reproduction of Siberian salamanders

Within a couple of days after wintering, salamanders begin to reproduce. They spawn for 2 to 4 weeks. Females lay eggs in shallow water, choosing areas with vegetation that are well warmed by the sun.

These newts are characterized by peculiar courtship behavior. The male grabs a twig in the water and begins to make lateral movements, bending his tail in a wave, so he attracts the attention of the female.

The Siberian salamander's clutch looks like spiral bags that are connected together. Egg sacs are attached to the stems or branches of plants in shallow water. Over time, the bags swell and noticeably increase in size. Females bring different quantities eggs - in some cases there can be 14 eggs in a clutch, and sometimes their number reaches 170 pieces. The color of the eggs is dark gray.

The duration of the embryo development process depends on the water temperature. The larvae can begin to hatch in 2-4 weeks, but most often the development process takes 2-3 months. They have well-formed feathery gills, a fin fold, and a paddle-shaped fin appears between the fingers. In progress further development the blades and balancers disappear. Metamorphosis takes 2-3 days. After metamorphosis, Siberian salamanders reach a length of 20-60 millimeters and weigh from 100 to 900 mg.

The maximum life expectancy in nature for Siberian salamanders is 13 years.

Number of Siberian salamanders and their conservation status

These newts are quite normal look, and in some places their numbers are very wide. But in certain areas, for example, in the Amur region, Siberian salamanders are rare.

They live on the territory of several nature reserves. This type not listed in the Red Book.

Species similar to the Siberian salamander

The Siberian salamander shares its habitat with the Ussuri newts, but the Siberian salamanders have a different shape of tail and teeth.

Siberian salamanders differ from common and crested newts by the presence of 4 toes on the hind legs, the shape of the palatal teeth and clearly visible warts on the sides of the body. Siberian salamanders are not associated with other species of tailed reptiles, since they are geographically isolated.

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While scientists are struggling with the problems of life extension, in the north Krasnoyarsk Territory There lives a creature that can be frozen for 5 thousand years without any problems, and then continue to live. This is a newt of the Siberian salamander species.

"The Siberian salamander is one of the most widespread northern species. The head is flattened.
A typical taiga species of Siberia [Syroechkovsky, Rogacheva, 1980]. The size of sexually mature individuals (body length with tail) is 8-9 cm, rarely more than 13 cm [Syroechkovsky, Rogacheva, 1980]. In the salamanders we studied, the body length varied from 9.3 to 10.9 cm. The color is dark, brownish or grayish-brown,” the scientific dictionary boringly reports.

But here's a more interesting fact. The Siberian salamander is one of those living creatures that representatives of all sorts of near-religious and scientific organizations dealing with issues of immortality.

As Soviet scientific journals reported, geologists, who often came across these animals, established their age based on the age of the surrounding sedimentary rocks and estimate it to be within 5-10 thousand years.

For example, it is reported that a salamander was found in a pit at a depth of 8 m in permafrost, clay deposits that are at least 5,000 years old. “The lizard, hard as an icicle,” according to the author, thawed and came to life, greedily drank water and lived for three weeks.

Zoologists believe that modern salamanders accidentally fall into a layer of fossil ice through cracks, which are washed away with water and clay, soldered together, and the animals thus become walled up.

In November 1972, geologist D. B. Kolomeytsev delivered a live Siberian salamander to the Institute of Zoology of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. In July of this year, the amphibian was extracted from alluvial deposits of the Upper Quaternary age during stripping operations at a depth of 11 m. The work was carried out in the basin of the Great Camperlame River. According to D.B. Kolomeytsev, an excavator destroyed a lens of ice, in one piece of which an inclusion was noticed. After the ice thawed, this inclusion turned out to be a salamander that came to life. Geologists denied the possibility of an animal accidentally falling through cracks in such a thick layer of permafrost.

The salamander, delivered first to Krivoy Rog and then to Kyiv, actively fed: it ate flies, cockroaches, and live fish - guppies. The animal did not differ in color and body proportions from modern ones. There was just one “problem” - his age was more than 100 years. For a simple lizard, which usually lives in nature for several years, the result is phenomenal.

Afterwards, this Siberian salamander, which lived after thawing for almost six months without any signs of pathology, was killed and its absolute age was studied by the radio-carbon method at the Institute of Geochemistry and Physics of Minerals of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. The individual, previously cleaned of external contaminants and entrails, was analyzed according to generally accepted methods. Dried newt was burned in a stream of argon (500°) to carbon dioxide, from which benzene was synthesized - a countable form of radiocarbon. The data obtained allowed us to establish the age of the Siberian salamander from permafrost at 90 ± 15 years. Considering that the amphibian lived for a very long time after thawing and a certain amount of radioactive carbon dioxide entered its body with food and air, we can assume that this age is even somewhat underestimated.

Thus, the newt, originally from the Far North, is well adapted to withstand low temperatures due to the ability to enter into suspended animation. It can tolerate temperatures down to -45 degrees, and there are specimens that have survived many years (up to 100) of being frozen. It does this due to the fact that it produces glycerol in the liver. Because of this, the question arises of what its actual duration life. If we count from the moment of birth to the moment of death, then it will be very large, larger than that of humans and most other species of living beings. And if we count the time of active life outside the state of suspended animation, then the usual for animals of this size is several years.

And if people could plunge into such suspended animation, they could live much longer.

And contrary to apparent logic, they would gain not only in absolute years of life, but also in active ones, since when they woke up, the ways to prolong active life would also improve. However, in this case there will be many social problems, as well as psychological dangers,

The Siberian salamander is the name given to the four-toed newt, which lives in Russia. This species is classified as endangered and is therefore listed in the Red Book.

The color of the newt is quite original. Its brown body is covered with a number of specks and dim colored stains. Individual individuals can have a different color, from green to golden and completely black. It all depends on the species, habitat, and diet.

The newt is not much different from its fellows. It has the same body, elongated, flat head, four short four-fingered limbs. Although, this is not at all necessary. Some species of newts may have three to five toes. Our hero is no more than 13 centimeters long.

The salamander's habitat includes lowlands located in close proximity to rivers, ponds and swamps. There are newts in the zone mixed forests, as well as in city squares and parks. They do not pay attention to the person, and treat him rather favorably. In suburban areas you can find newts everywhere, from railway tracks to private plots. The salamander is not afraid of low temperatures. It easily tolerates frost, and can live even in permafrost conditions, falling into torpor when the temperature is too low.

Triton leads night look life. During the day he hides in various shelters, and at night he goes out hunting. Try to avoid direct sunlight. His smooth skin quickly loses moisture and dries out, which can be fatal. If the ambient temperature rises above 27 degrees, the newt will die.

Salamander larvae behave completely differently. They do not react to temperature changes and feel great. They are not in danger of drying out the skin.

We have already said that newt is adapted to low temperatures. However, this does not mean that in severe frosts he leads an active lifestyle. At this time, the salamander is in a state of torpor. He begins to look for a place for wintering at the end of August. This could be: natural shelters, a thick layer of fallen leaves, rotten stumps, a pile of brushwood, etc. Sometimes the salamander simply buries itself in the ground and falls asleep there.

He will remain in a state of torpor all winter. Typically, this period lasts about eight months. The newt will wake up with the first warmth. At the same time, he does not pay attention to night frosts, and feels great at zero temperatures.

The salamander feeds on insects, worms, and larvae. He does not experience a shortage of food, since there is more than enough of it in humid places. The movements of the newt are smooth and slow. Yes, this is understandable, because he has nowhere to rush, since food is always under his feet.

The mating season for salamanders begins immediately after they emerge from hibernation. At this time, males perform their mating rituals, trying to attract the attention of females. It looks quite original. The male wraps his body around a branch located above the water and frantically twirls his tail, showing the female how strong and skillful he is. If his advances are accepted, the female will attach a sac with eggs to the branch, and the male will attach a spermatophore. Sometimes several females can attach eggs to one branch at once. One such bag can contain more than a hundred eggs. Incubation period last about three months. IN exceptional cases (high temperature) this period can be reduced to several weeks.

The hatched larvae enter the water, where they develop. They are perfectly adapted to life in water. They have gills and fins that disappear as they grow older. By appearance The larvae are similar to tadpoles, although there are still some differences. They concern the shape of the head and the body, which is flatter and more elongated. The larva is incredibly cautious and timid. In case of danger, she immediately seeks shelter and hides.

Loss of moisture due to overheating does not threaten the larvae, since they are constantly in the water. In addition, they can change the depth of their habitat, choosing areas with the most comfortable temperature. They are most active during the daytime. At night they prefer to rest, sinking to the bottom and burying themselves in the mud.

Over time, the larva transforms into a newt and comes to land, where it will continue its later life. A young salamander is quite ready for independent life, but becomes sexually mature only at the age of three. Average duration his life is 13 years.

Already from the name of this animal it becomes clear that it is endemic to the Siberian regions of Russia. However, its habitat is not limited to Siberia alone. It is quite wide and includes: Kuril Islands, Ural, Chukotka, Sakhalin. The Siberian salamander can be found in China, Japan and Korea, as well as in the European part of Russia. In this case, preference is given to low-lying areas covered with swamps, reservoirs, lakes, as well as areas with abundant forest vegetation. Salamanders are not afraid of people, and therefore are frequent guests of city parks and squares.

Triton is not picky about conditions environment. He tolerates it well low temperatures, and survives well in permafrost conditions. But a high temperature, above 27 degrees, is destructive for him. Even if it is in the shade, at this temperature a newt can die.

What does a Siberian salamander look like?

This is a tailed amphibian, belonging to the family of salamanders, with a rather original, heterogeneous body color, in which brown color tones predominate, with numerous stains. Moreover, the same brown color, depending on the halo of the newt’s habitat, can have different color shades, from green and golden to completely black.

The appearance of the newt is almost the same as that of all representatives of its family. This is an elongated body, short four-toed paws, and a flattened head. Although, there is a little intrigue regarding the number of toes on the paws. There don't have to be four of them. There are individuals with three and five fingers. The body is crowned by a long and flat tail. The newt itself grows no more than 13 centimeters in length.

The Siberian salamander is most active in the evening and at night. During the day, he hides in a secluded place, where he waits for dusk. The newt avoids direct sunlight because the skin quickly dries out. This makes him extremely lethargic and slow. If exposed to the sun for a long time, the newt dies.

Salamander larvae behave completely differently. They are active both day and night. At the same time sun rays they are not harmed at all. They still remain as cheerful and active.

With the onset of frosty days, the larvae begin a period of suspended animation, just like the newts themselves. Around the end of November they begin to look for a secluded place for the winter. They can burrow into fallen leaves of trees, hide in dead wood, build a shelter under old rotten stumps, use abandoned rodent holes, etc. Having climbed into one of these places, the newt settles comfortably in it and falls asleep. The state of suspended animation lasts until the onset of spring warmth, approximately five to eight months.

With the first warmth, the newt climbs to the surface. He is not afraid of short-term frosts and zero temperatures. There are cases when Siberian salamanders calmly tolerated temperatures down to minus forty degrees. Their body coped well with this test.

The newt feeds on insects, invertebrates, mollusks, and earthworms.

It can reproduce at water temperatures from 14 to 18 degrees. The female salamander lays eggs on the stems of aquatic plants. After four weeks, larvae will emerge from them. At the end of summer they will turn into newts and wash ashore. They become sexually mature at three years of age.

Despite the fact that the Siberian salamander, or, as it is also called, the four-toed newt, is widespread in nature, it is very rare to see an adult specimen. During the day, these animals hide under snags and turf, crawl into cracks in the ground, and only at night come out to feed. Due to the secretive lifestyle in some habitats, including the European part of Russia, salamanders for a long time didn't notice. Meanwhile, these amphibians are unique.

The four-toed newt (Salamandrella keyserlingii) is a tailed amphibian, a member of the salamander family. Its habitat is very extensive. It is found from the Kuril Islands, Sakhalin and the Japanese Islands through all of Siberia to the eastern regions of Europe, where it lives in the Republic of Mari El, Perm, Nizhny Novgorod, Kostroma, Kirov regions and the Komi Republic, as well as in the eastern regions of the Arkhangelsk region.

The four-toed newt penetrates far to the north. Obviously, the entire northeast of Russia is within the plains, with the exception of only the coastal tundras of the Kara and Barents seas, is included in its habitat.

The Siberian salamander is a resident of forests, mainly taiga. In the tundra, steppes and mountains it is found where there is woody vegetation. An important condition for the habitat of these animals is the presence of reservoirs. These can be swamps, ponds, lakes, oxbow rivers, ditches and pits filled with water. I'll understand large rivers four-toed newts do not avoid either. However, they only need water bodies for reproduction. They spend most of their lives on land, usually close to the coast.

In general, these newts gravitate towards shaded habitats. This requirement also applies to breeding reservoirs.

Description of the Siberian salamander

Triton is small. The body is about 7 cm long, round, the head is oval and flattened, the muzzle is short, the eyes are bulging; the tail, the length of which is approximately equal to the length of the body, is laterally compressed, but not as strongly as in other newts. The body is covered with smooth, moisturized and shiny skin of uniform brown various shades. A wide, lighter stripe runs along the back, along the edges of which there are scattered dark spots. On the head this stripe widens somewhat. On the sides of the body, 11-13 transverse grooves are visible on each side. Males and females are almost identical in appearance.

The Siberian salamander differs from other representatives of its genus in the presence of four toes on its hind legs; There are cases of greater reduction of the fingers.

The name “sharptooth” comes from the fact that this tailed amphibian has palatal teeth arranged in a row, forming a V-shaped line.

Features of the northern amphibian

In general, salamanders - amazing creatures. Scientists find in them such structural features that have not been preserved in any other modern vertebrates, but which were present in long-extinct representatives of the prehistoric fauna. Therefore, these reptiles are sometimes called “living fossils.”

In addition, from the general range of amphibians, they also stand out because they are the most cold-resistant. Of course, it is difficult to call an amphibian a “cold-loving” animal, but in the case of our hero this is exactly the case. The salamander, unlike its relatives, gravitates towards cold areas: it can be found in the tundra and in the mountains, i.e. where there are usually no other species of amphibians.

It is able to maintain mobility even at zero temperatures, and at minimal positive temperatures it leads an active lifestyle. Salamanders do not die when cooled to -35 - -40 ° C, since the concentration of glycerol in the tissues and organs of the animal increases. Wintering of four-toed newts ends successfully, even if in shelters average monthly temperatures have negative value. This allows animals to spread even into the tundra zone and is the reason that allowed the primitive species to have such a wide range in northern Eurasia.

There are even cases where salamanders were found in permafrost. Apparently, they got there as a result of collapses of previously washed away banks. The age of one of these animals trapped in permafrost was determined to be 90 years. But the most amazing thing is that after thawing, such animals come to life, and if thawing occurred gradually, they remain viable!

Average daily positive temperatures during the beginning and end of seasonal activity do not exceed +3 – +4° C. The appearance of salamanders in breeding ponds is closely related to the temperature in the ground layer. The beginning of spawning occurs at daytime temperatures of the soil layer from +9 to +15° C. Spawning itself can take place at minimum temperature water 3.2° C.

Four-toed newts do not tolerate direct sunlight and high temperatures, preferring shaded areas. They even choose shaded ponds for breeding.

At high average daily temperatures with warm and light nights in the first half of summer, animals become lethargic, move little, and try not to leave the shelter. Obviously, the strict nocturnal activity of the species is also associated with its preference for low temperatures.

Lifestyle, behavior of Siberian salamanders

The salamander is characterized by low mobility and slowness. Even when discovered in a shelter, he is in no hurry to hide. Only during the mating season these animals are quite active, including during the daytime. In water they are light and agile.

Shelters

Ground shelters for four-toed newts are voids under sedge or moss hummocks, dilapidated rotten trees, often with hollows rotting in them, and cracks behind the half-lost bark of more recent trees. Often such emptiness large size formed along fallen trees overgrown with grass or moss on all sides. In such places, salamanders are obviously able to feed without leaving their shelters for many days.

Nutrition

Animals come to the surface to feed only at night. These newts can obtain food both in water and on land, and they search for prey both by sight and by smell, which is very important because it allows them to feed on completely motionless objects, unlike, for example, frogs, which simply They don't notice anything that doesn't move.

Based on the smell, a Siberian salamander in a terrarium can snack on a piece of chopped meat or even a boiled egg. In nature, the basis of its nutrition is made up of various sedentary aquatic and soil small invertebrate animals: earthworms, mollusks, spiders, adults and larvae of insects, crustaceans, larvae and eggs of other amphibians.

Wintering

Depending on the habitat, salamanders go to winter in September - early October, and emerge from it in April - May. They overwinter in cracks in the soil, under the rhizomes of fallen trees, under heaps of rotten wood and windbreaks, or in rotten wood. In these places they can accumulate in large quantities several dozen individuals each.

Siberian salamanders live well in captivity. It is not difficult to keep adults, hatch from eggs and raise young animals. For adult animals, a fairly spacious aquaterrarium with water and land parts is needed, while artificial wintering is not a prerequisite for successful maintenance.

The Siberian salamander is a real long-liver. There are known individuals that have lived in nature for 12 years, and, obviously, this is not the limit.

Mating behavior, appearance of offspring

The mating behavior of Siberian salamanders is fundamentally different from other tailed amphibians found in Russia.

IN mating season males have a small leather trim on their tail, but it cannot be compared with the luxurious crests that adorn the males of true newts. But only in our heroes can one observe peculiar “mating currents” and “mating dances”. The male selects some twig in the water column and, holding onto it with his paws, begins to sway and rhythmically move his tail from side to side. When a female swims up to him, he wraps his tail around her, sometimes holding her with his front paws and teeth. The female then crawls through the ring formed by the male's curled tail and lays her egg sacs as she does so. The male, fingering them with his paws, helps his partner, as it were, pull them out.

Up to 20 individuals can spawn in one place, while a female laying eggs often attracts the attention of several males at once. At the very beginning of laying, the female attaches the adhesive base of the bags to some underwater object.

The salamander's clutch looks like two egg sacks spirally twisted by 2.5-3 turns. Fresh masonry is small in size (length 50-60 mm and width about 5 mm). Such masonry becomes opalescent in the sun and appears bluish. After swelling, the opalescence disappears. As the embryos develop, the length and width of the clutch increases slightly.

In the most favorable bodies of water, salamanders can lay several hundred clutches, which in some places form continuous gelatinous masses. Each clutch contains from 30 to 300 eggs.

If the weather is favorable, larvae emerge from the eggs after 18-20 days. However, the timing of embryonic development is highly dependent on weather conditions. The rather long period of egg development is due to the fact that four-toed newts often choose heavily shaded, cold bodies of water for breeding. Embryos have very high thermal resistance, so even the return of severe cold, up to the freezing of clutches into ice, does not stop the development of eggs, but prolonged cooling can greatly slow down embryogenesis. Too high water temperatures in breeding ponds can negatively affect the reproduction of this species.

At first, the hatched larvae are inactive and stay on the remains of the masonry and plants. Their body length is slightly more than 1 cm, they breathe using developed external gills. The larva has a clearly defined tail, making up about half the body length, and a well-defined head.

Soon the larvae begin to feed. First, they catch small aquatic crustaceans - daphnia, cyclops, and then they grab larger prey - mosquito larvae, mollusks, water bugs and beetles.

The duration of the larval period is 40-50 days, and then metamorphosis occurs.

As the larva grows, first the forelimbs and then the hind limbs appear, i.e. the sequence is completely different from that of the well-known frog tadpoles, in which the hind legs appear first, and only then the front ones.

The length of the gills first increases, reaching the middle of the body, and then they are reduced. By the time of metamorphosis, the hind limbs, previously similar in size to the forelimbs, become more powerful, with developed muscles. During the process of metamorphosis, the larval fin fold and external gills disappear.

Natural enemies

Salamanders have many natural enemies. Its clutches and larvae are eaten by insects, mollusks, fish and other amphibians. Adults are hunted by birds, mammals, and snakes. Only secrecy, stealth and protective coloring save them.

The huge range and high population density of salamanders allows us not to fear for the fate of the species, at least in the foreseeable future. At the same time, this newt, like other amphibians, is sensitive to the destruction and pollution of its habitats and needs protection.