Testing has showed that Cheat Mountain salamanders have noxious skin properties. Their predators receive a mouthful of white slime originating from the tail region. The predators’ mouths swell up and swallowing becomes increasingly difficult (Dodd et al. 1974). Cheat Mountain salamanders use chemical and tactile cues in mating as well.
Communication Channels: chemical
Other Communication Modes: pheromones
Perception Channels: visual ; tactile ; acoustic ; vibrations ; chemical
Cheat Mountain salamanders are federally listed as threatened. The main threat to P. nettingi is human-induced loss of habitat and degradation from mining, logging, recreational development, and road construction. Another limiting factor of Cheat Mountain Salamanders is competition with red-bellied salamanders (Plethodon cinereus).
US Federal List: threatened
CITES: no special status
State of Michigan List: no special status
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: near threatened
Cheat Mountain salamander eggs are approximately 4.9 to 5.0 mm when fertilized. When they are hatched they measure from 1.7 to 1.8 cm. During development, young have extremely large gills for sufficient oxygen flow through the jellied membranes, which prevent dehydration of the embryos (Lynn 1961). These salamanders continue to grow in size non-uniformly - the tail grows first and then the abdomen (Thurow 1955) continues to grow and stretch until reaching adult size (Green and Pauley 1987). Adults may reach 10.2 cm. During development young have extremely large gills for sufficient oxygen flow through the jellied membranes, which prevent dehydration of the embryos (Lynn 1961).
Development - Life Cycle: metamorphosis ; indeterminate growth
There are no known adverse effects of Plethodon nettingi on humans.
Plethodontid salamanders offer an important benefit to humans as indicator species of forested ecosystem health. In an experiment using leaf litter enclosures, the keystone-species Plethodon cinereus, a sister species to P. nettingi, was determined to be a strong regulator of forest floor invertebrate popluations (Davic and Welsh Jr. 2004).
Positive Impacts: research and education; controls pest population
Plethodontid salamanders are important members of foods webs, providing both indirect as well as direct methods of biotic control of species. They also contribute to soil dynamics through their tunneling activities (Davic and Welsh Jr. 2004). Interspecific competition has been noted between Plethodon nettingi and Plethodon cinereus in areas of common habitat. Food foraging and aggression towards non-conspecifics have caused competitive exclusion of P. nettingi by P. cinereus (Kaplan 1977).
Cheat Mountain salamanders are insectivores. One study of stomach contents of 42 salamanders found 42.1% mites (Acari), 17.8% springtails (Collembola), 16.4% beetles (Coleoptera), 9.3% flies (Diptera), 4.3% ants (Hymenoptera), and 10% other insects or arthropods (Green and Pauley 1987).
Animal Foods: insects; terrestrial non-insect arthropods
Primary Diet: carnivore (Insectivore , Eats non-insect arthropods)
Cheat Mountain salamanders are limited in distribution to 4 counties in West Virginia: Randolph, Pocahontas, Tucker, and Pendleton counties. This salamander’s habitat stretches approximately 30 by 80 km from McGowan Mountain to Backbone Mountain, in Tucker County (Green and Pauley 1987).
Biogeographic Regions: nearctic (Native )
Cheat Mountain salamanders are limited to areas of young red spruce (Picea rubens) and yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis) in West Virginia forests. They have been discovered on the southern face of the Cheat Mountain Range at high altitudes of 960 m. An individual salamander was discovered in 2002 in an open-canopied Sphagnum/Picea wetland in Canaan Valley (Tucker County, West Virginia; K. Francl, personal communication). During the day, Cheat Mountain salamanders reside under long, flat rocks or on the inside of fallen and rotting spruce logs. At twilight they can move short distances to nearby spruce trees (Green and Pauley 1987).
Average elevation: 960 m.
Habitat Regions: temperate ; terrestrial
Terrestrial Biomes: forest ; mountains
Other Habitat Features: riparian
Although not much is known about the longevity of Cheat Mountain salamanders, studies of Plethodon cinereus indicate an average lifetime of 8 years for females and approximately 9 years for males (Leclair et al. 2006).
Cheat Mountain salamanders are dark brown or black, though the color tends to be lighter around the throat. They have tiny spots of gold on their dorsal surfaces (Brooks 1948). These slim and petite salamanders usually mature to a size of 10.2 cm (Green and Pauley 1987). Adults tend to have 17 to 19 coastal grooves, and an average of 5.5 coastal folds. Males often have larger, more engorged snouts (Thurow 1955).
Average length: 10.2 cm.
Other Physical Features: ectothermic ; heterothermic ; bilateral symmetry ; poisonous
Common predators of Cheat Mountain salamanders are southern short-tailed shrews (Blarina carolinensis), common garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis), and ring-necked snakes (Diadophis punctatus) (Lannoo 2010). A series of experiments were completed where a number of animals were provided with P. nettingi as part of their diet: blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata), hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus), sungazers (Cordylus giganteus), and Sonoran mud turtles (Kinosternon sonoriense). These experiments showed that Cheat Mountain salamanders have skin with noxious properties. Those predators, after attempting to eat P. nettingi, had difficulty chewing, swollen tongues, and a sticky white substance seeming to glue the jaws together. After a few of these experiments, the predators learned to avoid Cheat Mountain salamanders (Dodd et al. 1974).
Known Predators:
Anti-predator Adaptations: cryptic
Not much is known about mating in Cheat Mountain salamanders. However, in a close relative, Plethodon cinereus, larger males that attract the most females tend to roam in prey-filled territories that lack the scent of other females. Once the two sexes have paired, they each defend a territory: males defend territories from outside males, and females defend against outside females. Couples have the most success in their defense. Plethodon cinereus individuals are serially monogamous, choosing a different mate for each mating effort, but staying with that mate throughout the mating effort. Males begin to guard their females and can even discipline their mate by threatening postures or nipping the female if he catches another male’s odor.
Mating System: monogamous
Cheat Mountain salamander breeding season begins during the spring and lasts through autumn. Spermatophores are transferred in late spring. The gestation period is approximately 1 to 2 months, then the eggs are deposited into cracks of decomposing spruce logs and secured by small pedicles (stalk-like structures). The unpigmented eggs have large yolks compared to other plethodontid salamanders. Pletodon nettingi have eggs and egg masses very similar to those of Plethodon cinereus. Egg masses vary from 4 to 17 eggs, ranging from 0.49 to 0.50 cm wide (Green and Pauley 1987), with at least one or two females very close in proximity to their brood. However, the masses of different mothers are usually very spread out; it is very rare to find more than one clutch in the same spruce log (Brooks 1948). After a period of three to six months growth inside the egg, these broods then hatch from late August to early September (Lannoo 2010); the young vary from 1.7 to 1.8 cm long at hatching (Green and Pauley 1987). The only aspect of sexual maturity known about Cheat Mountain salamanders is that they reach maturity when males have swollen cloacas and squared-off snouts, and females have mature follicles (Lannoo 2010). As for age of maturation, Plethodon cinereus is about 3 or 4 years of age (Prosen et al. 2006), one may assume the same range for Cheat Mountain salamanders.
Breeding interval: Breeding occurs once a year.
Breeding season: Cheat Mountain salamanders breed from the beginning of spring to the end of autumn
Range number of offspring: 4 to 17.
Average number of offspring: 10.
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female): 3 to 4 years.
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male): 3 to 4 years.
Key Reproductive Features: iteroparous ; seasonal breeding ; gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); sexual ; induced ovulation ; fertilization (Internal ); oviparous
Not much is known about Cheat Mountain salamander parental investment, but in Plethodon cinereus, the father provides protection only during the breeding season, while the mother cares for her young until they become independent at 6 to 9 weeks old. Instead of leaving the clutch unguarded, females will live off of food stores in their tail and belly. The mother also will sometimes nudge or agitate the eggs in order to stimulate healthy development, and prevent deformations when growth occurs all on one side. She also keeps in close contact with her eggs to provide moisture. The mother defends her nest and continues her parental care until several weeks after hatching (Ng and Wilbur 1995). In one instance a mother was found caring for 8 juveniles (Green and Pauley 1987).
Parental Investment: female parental care ; pre-fertilization (Protecting: Female); pre-hatching/birth (Provisioning: Female, Protecting: Female); pre-weaning/fledging (Provisioning: Female, Protecting: Female); pre-independence (Protecting: Female)
The Cheat Mountain salamander (Plethodon nettingi) is a species of small woodland salamander found only on Cheat Mountain, and a few nearby mountains, in the eastern highlands of West Virginia.[1][4] It and the West Virginia spring salamander (Gyrinophilus subterraneus) are the only vertebrate species with geographic ranges restricted to that state.
The Cheat Mountain salamander has decreased in population due to destruction of its original red spruce forest habitat, as well as by pollution, drought, forest storm damage, and by competition with other salamanders, especially its relative, the red-backed salamander (P. cinereus).
The Cheat Mountain salamander is smallish, similar in size to the red-backed salamander, 3 to 4¾ inches (7½ to 12 cm) in total length (including tail), but is distinct in its black or dark brown dorsum (back) which is boldly marked with numerous small brassy, silver or white flecks. It lacks a dorsal stripe. The belly is dark gray to black. The tail is about the same length as its body, which has 17 to 19 costal grooves (vertical grooves along its sides).
P. nettingi was discovered by M. Graham Netting and Leonard Llewellyn on White Top, a summit of Cheat Mountain in Randolph County in 1935. It was described (and named) by N. Bayard Green in 1938.[5] This salamander and the Peaks of Otter salamander (P. hubrichti), which has a similarly restricted range in Virginia, were once considered subspecies of a single species, "Netting's salamander", but since 1979 they (along with the Shenandoah salamander, P. shenandoah) have been considered separate, full species. Their geographic ranges were both probably much larger in the past. (The circumstances surrounding the discovery and formal description of P. nettingi are related by Maurice Brooks in his classic natural history book, The Appalachians (1965).)
P. nettingi is restricted to a small portion of the high Allegheny Mountains in eastern West Virginia. Initially, in the 1930s and '40s, its range was thought to be limited to Cheat Mountain at elevations above 3,500 feet (1,100 m) in Randolph County — and in Pocahontas County, where it was also found at Thorny Flat (Cheat's highest point). Later inventories, conducted in the 1970s and ‘80s, expanded the known range to include Pendleton and Tucker Counties (e.g., Backbone Mountain, Dolly Sods). More recently, the range has been shown to include the eastern edge of Grant County where it is found as low as 2,640 feet (800 m) elevation. Most populations are found above 3,500 feet (1,100 m). The entire P. nettingi range encompasses only about 935 square miles (2,420 km2), but not continuously throughout even this area (about 60 isolated populations are known). Much of this range is within the Monongahela National Forest.
Originally, the Cheat Mountain salamander was probably restricted to red spruce forests of West Virginia's higher mountains. Most of these forests were cut down by 1920, and so several populations today occur in mixed deciduous forests that have replaced red spruce stands. These include yellow birch, American beech, sugar maple, striped maple and eastern hemlock trees. The salamander's occurrence, however, is not dependent upon any particular type of vegetation, but is often associated with boulder fields, rock outcrops, or steep, shaded ravines lined with a dense growth of rhododendron. It is more abundant adjacent to large emergent rocks where soil and litter are more moist and cooler than the surrounding hillsides. It may be that it was protected in these refugia (emergent rocks) when the original forests were cut and in some areas burned. Typically, it is found where the ground cover consists of bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, etc. – especially the liverwort Bazzania) and an abundance of leaf litter, fallen logs and sticks.
Cheat Mountain salamanders spend the winter underground where temperatures remain above freezing. Depending on soil temperature, they emerge from winter refugia at the end of March or early April and retreat to underground refugia again in mid October. During the above ground period, they are especially active at night in humid weather. During the day, they remain under rocks and in or under logs; and sometimes among wet leaves. Aestivation only occurs during unusual drought conditions.
Like other woodland salamanders, P. nettingi subsists on mites, springtails, beetles, flies, and ants. On moist evenings it searches the forest floor, rocks and logs for food. It will occasionally climb trees, shrubs and stumps in pursuit of a meal.
The breeding behavior of P. nettingi has not been directly observed, but most likely occurs on the forest floor. Pairs of males and females have been found together under rocks in both spring and autumn and both sexes during these months are in breeding condition: males with swollen cloacas and squared-off snouts, females with mature follicles. Nesting activities are similar to the red-backed Salamander. The female typically lays 8 to 10 eggs (minimum 4; maximum 17) which are attached to the inside of a rotten log or the underside of a rock or log in either red spruce or deciduous forests. Females attending small clusters of eggs have been found from late April through early September. The female apparently guards the eggs until they hatch (a behavior unique to salamanders of the woodland salamander family, Plethodontidae). The young undergo their larval stage within the egg so that they resemble small adults when they hatch in late August or September.
The juveniles reach sexual maturity in 3 to 4 years and live for approximately 20 years. The young may remain in the same area as the adults until they become mature at which time they move away and establish their own territories. Territories are about 48 square feet (4.5 m2) in area. Woodland salamanders seldom leave their territories and, as a result, move only a few meters during their lives.
Populations of the Cheat Mountain salamander probably plummeted when its original habitat (red spruce forests) was destroyed by logging in the early 20th century. It is now on the U.S. Endangered Species List and it has been protected under the Federal Endangered Species Act since 1989 as a threatened species.[2][3] Any disturbance exposing the forest floor to sunlight changes the cool, moist conditions on which these animals depend for nest sites as well as food and respiration. Alterations as minor as clearing service roads or hiking or skiing trails can fragment and isolate populations since these salamanders do not cross bare surfaces. As populations become divided, gene pools decline as does the likelihood of viability. Such habitat alterations probably also favor the encroachment of mountain dusky and red-back salamanders which out-compete the Cheat Mountain salamander for food, cover and moisture.
Fortunately, much of the Cheat Mountain salamander's range (46 of 60 known populations) falls within the Monongahela National Forest. A recovery plan was developed for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and annual surveys are conducted by Thomas K. Pauley (Marshall University), an authority on this species. He indicates that its numbers appear to be stable except where habitats have been altered. The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources has also conducted population monitoring and surveys. Since both the salamander and its habitat are monitored and protected in the National Forest and the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge, its future looks hopeful.
The Cheat Mountain salamander (Plethodon nettingi) is a species of small woodland salamander found only on Cheat Mountain, and a few nearby mountains, in the eastern highlands of West Virginia. It and the West Virginia spring salamander (Gyrinophilus subterraneus) are the only vertebrate species with geographic ranges restricted to that state.
The Cheat Mountain salamander has decreased in population due to destruction of its original red spruce forest habitat, as well as by pollution, drought, forest storm damage, and by competition with other salamanders, especially its relative, the red-backed salamander (P. cinereus).
