Poor newts
| Poor newts | ||||||||||||
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Little arm newt ( Siren intermedia ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the superfamily | ||||||||||||
| Sirenoidea | ||||||||||||
| Dubois , 2005 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the family | ||||||||||||
| Sirenidae | ||||||||||||
| JE Gray , 1825 |
The sirenidae (Sirenidae) are a primitive family of salamanders within the class of amphibians that (see: as dauer larvae neoteny ) in waters from the Southeastern United States as far as the north-east of Mexico occur. They get their name because they have front extremities but no hind legs. The taxon has been fossilized for 130 million years ago .
features
Arm newts have an eel-like elongated, inconspicuously colored, slimy-smooth body with a short tail and reduced bone structure. The rear limbs and pelvic bones are missing. The maxillary of the maxillary bones is reduced and absent, as is the septomaxillary. Teeth on the intermaxillary bone (premaxillary) are missing and are replaced by a horny sheath. There is a large tooth field on the palatine bone (vomer). Three pairs of external gills are present in the adult animals as well as lungs .
In the genus Siren , whose representatives have four fingers on each hand, a larval skin is present in youth. The shell later transforms into the more robust skin of adult salamanders. This physiological transformation is absent in the three-fingered dwarf newts; therefore they are unable to leave the body of water.
The outer gill tufts remain lifelong, but the lungs are used to breathe regularly and atmospheric air is taken in as they emerge.
Taxonomy
- Genus Pseudobranchus
Gray , 1825 - Small-arm newts
- Species Pseudobranchus axanthus Netting & Goin , 1942 - Striped dwarf newt
- Species Pseudobranchus striatus ( LeConte , 1824) - dwarf newt
- Genus Siren Oesterdam , 1766 - sirenidae
- Art Siren intermedia Barnes , 1826 - Small arm newt
- Art Siren lacertina Österdam , 1766 - Large arm pig
- Art Siren reticulata Graham et al., 2018
Way of life, occurrence
The great arm newt ( Siren lacertina ), which can grow to be almost a meter long, lives in the coastal plains from Virginia to Florida and in southern Alabama . It prefers muddy fresh water with a lot of vegetation. The species has a flattened tail and during the day hangs under rocks or burrows in the mud. At night the animals go looking for food. They can also occasionally crawl ashore. In dry periods they hold a summer dormancy. To do this, the newt spins itself into a dry-hardening mucus cocoon , which consists of the secretion of its skin glands. The little arm newt ( Siren intermedia ) grows to a maximum of 60 centimeters and is distributed from South Carolina to Florida.
The small arm newt ( Pseudobranchus striatus ) becomes 10 to 25 centimeters long. He lives in the coastal plains of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The species prefers pools, swamps and moats, where they can be found in the dense aquatic vegetation, mainly of water hyacinths . Since little newts do not transform their larval skin, they cannot survive terrestrially.
All species eat worms and aquatile insect larvae, crustaceans and snails .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Alexander Haas: Lissamphibia. In: Wilfried Westheide, Reinhard Rieger: Special Zoology. Part 2: Vertebrae and Skull Animals. 1st edition. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg / Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-8274-0307-3 , pp. 311-340.
- ↑ Sean P. Graham, Richard Kline, David A. Stehen, Crystal Kelehear: Description of An Extant Salamander from the Gulf Coastal Plain of North America: The Reticulated Siren, Siren reticulata. In: PLoS ONE. Volume 13, No. 12, 2018, e0207460, DOI: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0207460 .
- ^ Daniel Lingenhöhl: "Mystical" Lurch described for the first time , December 7, 2018, Spektrum.de .
Web links
- AmphibiaWeb: Information on amphibian biology and conservation. 2011. Berkeley, California: Sirenidae