Cars were killing salamanders. A student got the road closed to save them.

[SmallFry]

Once residents in Marquette, Mich., learned about the critters, they fell in love and started a Salamander Days festival.

Eli Bieri noticed something disturbing as he walked through Presque Isle Park in Marquette, Mich., a few years ago.

Several dozen blue-spotted salamanders had been smashed by cars while they were crossing from the forest to the wetlands on the other side of the road during their annual migration to breed and lay eggs.

“They were all over the road, squished flat by tires,” said Bieri, 23, then a freshman ecology student at Northern Michigan University in the Upper Peninsula.

“I’ve always loved salamanders, and it really made me sad,” he said about the 4-inch, bug-eyed amphibians, a common species in east-central North America.

Washington Post

[XanaDUer2]

1. Wonderful nt

[lagomorph777]

2. I've only seen them a few times in the mid-Atlantic region,

but they are adorable. I'd be upset to see a bunch of them crushed! Amphibians are already in dire danger - we don't need to add to the problem.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

3. Good for Eli!!

[Diamond_Dog]

4. The world needs more

thoughtful young people like this young man

And fewer Kyle Rittenhouses.

[PufPuf23]

5. PufPuf is the name of the Pacific Giant Salamander in the

Karuk (Native American) language.

In Karuk creation stories PufPuf is a friend of Coyote and lives in a creek near my home.

The PufPuf "barks" and are large enough to eat small rodents. Wiki and OR Live mention the "barking"; however, my understanding is the "barking" is also used to bring together salamanders for mating. Several years ago had a large PufPuf hang out for over a week in a mud puddle near my house barking for a mate. Just in the past week, the current favorite feral cat brought me a still alive garter snake with limited mobility because there was a fresh pufpuf in its throat. yuck.

The Pacific giant salamanders (frequently stylized as Gaiant Pacific Salamanders or GPS) are members of the genus Dicamptodon. They are large salamanders endemic to the Pacific Northwest in North America.[1][2][3] They are included in the family Ambystomatidae,[1][4][5] or alternatively, in their own monogeneric family Dicamptodontidae

cut

Pacific giant salamanders are defined by their wide protruding eyes, costal grooves, thick arms, and dark background coloring. Dicamptodon have a snout-vent-length (SVL) of 350 mm, a broad head, laterally flexible flattened tails, paired premaxillae that are separate from the nasals, and the aquatic larvae have gills. Dicamptodon have lacrimals and pterygoids that are present, but quadratojugal are absent.[3]

While most salamanders are silent, the Pacific giant salamander is one of several salamanders that have vocal abilities. When startled, these salamanders may respond with a croaky-sounding cry similar to that of a barking dog

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_giant_salamander

lots of pictures

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=pacific+giant+slamander+wifi&form=HDRSC2&first=1&tsc=ImageBasicHover

here is what Oregon Wild has to say.

https://oregonwild.org/wildlife/pacific-giant-salamander

[SmallFry]

6. I'm so childish.

You just dropped a lot of good information yet all I want to do after reading it is hear a salamander croak.