{"id":760,"date":"2015-07-12T18:25:18","date_gmt":"2015-07-13T01:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigromano.com\/blog\/?p=760"},"modified":"2020-12-21T14:26:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T22:26:00","slug":"paedomorphic-critters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigromano.com\/?p=760","title":{"rendered":"Hiking among Paedomorphic and Neotonic critters\u2014oh my!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2144\" src=\"http:\/\/craigromano.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Copes-Giant-Salamander-300x187.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"187\" srcset=\"https:\/\/craigromano.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Copes-Giant-Salamander-300x187.jpg 300w, https:\/\/craigromano.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Copes-Giant-Salamander-1024x638.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/craigromano.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Copes-Giant-Salamander-768x479.jpg 768w, https:\/\/craigromano.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Copes-Giant-Salamander.jpg 1498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Here are a couple of fifty cents words you can impress (or bore) your hiking friends with over your next post-adventure beer. I recently had an encounter with a paedomorphic critter. They are actually quite common in the Cascades and Olympics of Washington. Just what is paedomorphois? It\u2019s a condition (sometimes referred to as neoteny) that several species of salamanders and frogs acquire in which they don\u2019t fully metamorphose (the verb form of metamorphosis-I intend to throw a few fifty-centers at you!) from larvae to adult. But dig this-they mature and are able to reproduce in this aquatic form without becoming terrestrial adults.<\/p>\n<p>One of the most common paedomorphic amphibians in the Olympics is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.burkemuseum.org\/herpetology\/dcopei\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cope\u2019s giant salamander <\/a>( <em>Dicamptodon copei<\/em> ). In fact, terrestrial fully metamorphosed adults of this species are rare. So you are more apt to see them in their aquatic form complete with gills.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2146\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2146\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2146\" src=\"http:\/\/craigromano.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/DSC04860-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/craigromano.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/DSC04860-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/craigromano.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/DSC04860-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/craigromano.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/DSC04860-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/craigromano.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/DSC04860-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/craigromano.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/DSC04860-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2146\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Beware of the paedomorphic critters that lurk in those waters!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>On my recent hike to Sundown Pass, I witnessed one of these critters in the headwaters of the South Fork Skokomish River in a high basin at about 3300 feet. It blended in quite well with the rocky bottom of the clear mountain creek\u2014its preferred habitat. Most of the time they are submerged under rocks during the day\u2014but this one was freely swimming about in broad daylight. If you grew up in the south they look a lot like <a href=\"http:\/\/animals.nationalgeographic.com\/animals\/amphibians\/mudpuppy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">mudpuppies<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And why do these salamanders remain in their aquatic form? According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.burkemuseum.org\/herpetology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Burke Museum<\/a>, \u201cThis happens because most individuals lack the physiological ability to respond to the hormones that induce metamorphosis in other salamanders.\u201d But occasionally these salamanders do metamorphose, and according to the Burke, \u201ca few (roughly a dozen) terrestrial individuals have been found.\u201d So that would be exciting news to come upon a non-paedomorphic Cope\u2019s giant salamander. And as far as other critters not fully maturing into adults\u2014I have hiked with many!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Here are a couple of fifty cents words you can impress (or bore) your hiking friends with over your next post-adventure beer. I recently had an encounter with a paedomorphic critter. They are actually quite common in the Cascades and Olympics of Washington. Just what is paedomorphois? It\u2019s a condition (sometimes referred to as&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1,39],"tags":[48,195,234,304],"class_list":["post-760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-uncategorized","category-wildlife","tag-amphibians","tag-olympic-national-park","tag-salamanders","tag-wildlife"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Hiking among Paedomorphic and Neotonic critters\u2014oh my! &#187; Craig Romano<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/craigromano.com\/?p=760\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hiking among Paedomorphic and Neotonic critters\u2014oh my! &#187; Craig Romano\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; Here are a couple of fifty cents words you can impress (or bore) your hiking friends with over your next post-adventure beer. 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