Marie Towle, age 10, of West Falmouth, Me., for her question;
What is the difference between a salamander and a lizard?
You could easily mistake certain lizards and salamanders for brothers. But the little look‑alikes are not even related. A closer look shows important differences in their bodies. The lizard has ten little fingers and ten little toes, Chances are, the salamander is short one finger on each hand. But the biggest difference between them is in their skins, The lizard has a dry, scaly skin. The salamander has no scales. His skin is soft and always moist. These different skins force the two little fellows to live very different lives.
The lizard is a land‑dwelling reptile. His family history goes back to the big dinosaurs that once ruled the world for over a hundred million years. The salamander is an amphibian, at home on land and in the water. His family tree goes back 340 million years to the first backboned animal who left the sea for life on the dry land.
As babies, our two little fellows do not resemble each other at all. Each has a different life story ‑ a different way of growing up. Mrs. Lizard lays a batch of round, soft shelled eggs in a hollow on the ground. Being a reptile, she is not a very careful mother. She goes off and lets the warm sun hatch her brood. The little ones come out looking like small copies of their parents.
Most of the salamanders also lay eggs. But the eggs are strung in blobs of jelly and intended to hatch in the water. They hatch into dark little tadpoles. The little follows may be shaped like their parents, but there is one big difference. They have gills and can live and breathe only in the water. Kindergarten days end when the salamander tadpoles grow lungs. The gills fade away and the cute little fellows enjoy life on land or in the water as they choose.
Not all kinds of salamanders, however, follow the usual stages of growing up. The black salamander of Europe gives birth to live babies. The mud puppy, who is a salamander, keeps his baby gills all his life. Other salamander cousins have neither gills nor lungs. They breathe through special skin in the mouth and throat.
Every salamander has still another way to breathe ‑ through the skin. The skin of an amphibian animal is one of the wonders of nature. It can take in oxygen from the air or from the water.
The salamander pays one price for his double duty skin. He must keep it moist. The surface is always covered with slime which oozes up from glands. The little fellow must never let his damp skin become dry. For this reason, salamanders must live in damp, shady places away from hot sunshine and drying winds.
Both the lizard and the salamander are cold blooded animals. They can only get as warm as their surroundings. But the lizard needs no moisture for his dry, scaly skin. He is a dry, land animal from start to finish. What’s more, he prefers a warmer climate than does our little salamander. He loves the heat of the sun and is most happy when he can bask and doze on a warm rock while the world goes by.