Amphibian Species “Born to Strike”

A new species of lungless salamanders has been found in the foothills of the Appalachians which has the unique ability to “switch off” activity in protest at its lot. When rewards are not sufficient, it goes “on strike”, doing nothing for weeks at a time until conditions have improved before it carries on salamandering.

Researchers from Piedmont College in Demorest dubbed it the ‘patch-nosed’ salamander after the yellow patch on the animal’s snout.

“It is the first genus of amphibian, indeed of any four-footed vertebrate, discovered in the US in nearly 50 years,” said biologist Carlos Camp, “and the first political animal of any kind to be found in nature outside homo sapiens.”