Salamanders are carnivores across nearly all of their habitats, spread out across the world. Many animals may be picky eaters, but not salamanders: anything that fits in their mouths, they will eat. Regardless of their hunting methods, salamanders prefer meaty meals such as insects. Other common food items include crustaceans, fish, small mammals, and even other salamanders. Their diverse diets hint at their opportunistic hunting style, in that salamanders never pass up the opportunity for a meal.
What is a Salamander’s Diet?
Salamanders are opportunistic carnivores, eating anything in sight that will feasibly fit in their mouths. Although salamanders could feasibly eat plants, their stomachs and digestive systems as a whole are not designed to process plants. Thus, while they can eat algae and similar plants, salamanders must prefer meat-based meals.
For aquatic and semi-terrestrial salamanders, their diet consists of food such as bugs, insect larvae, amphibian eggs, minnows, nightcrawlers, and small fish. These salamanders can even eat larger prey, such as mollusks, shrimp, squid, snails, and crayfish. Terrestrial salamanders primarily eat prey such as insects, flies, worms, crickets, beetles, ticks, and ants. Larger prey includes small mammals, such as rodents, and even other small reptiles and amphibians.
Salamanders are even known to be cannibalistic under certain circumstances, particularly in relation to smaller species of salamanders. This is particularly of note for anyone wanting a pet salamander, as there are already special care needs for carnivorous amphibians.
What Do Infant and Juvenile Salamanders Eat?
As amphibians, salamanders go through a transformation as they mature. As infants and juveniles, salamanders are aquatic animals before developing lungs and becoming either semi-terrestrial or terrestrial. (Notably, some salamanders remain completely aquatic.) This transformation is just one of the differences between salamanders and reptiles like lizards.
When salamanders are still infants, they are called larvae. Salamander larvae are limited to food within their aquatic environment that is small enough to fit in their mouths. This primarily includes small invertebrates, such as insects and crustaceans. Even as larvae, salamanders are opportunistic hunters. As salamanders grow and their teeth and senses develop, they can begin hunting increasingly larger prey.
What is the Diet of a Wild Salamander vs. Pet Salamander?
Many salamander species make great pet amphibians, despite not often ranking as one of the best aquatic pets. But the diet of a pet salamander is going to vary quite a bit from that of a wild salamander, mostly by necessity. Most pet owners will not have access to the diversity that a wild salamander will find in its natural habitat. Instead, pet salamanders will be limited to what is commercially available at reptile stores, chain pet stores, or via online shipping.
Some owners may be tempted to provide their pet salamanders with wild-caught food in order to better mimic their natural surroundings. However, this can be dangerous: bugs and other prey from the wild may have diseases that can harm your pet. Similarly, wild-caught prey may have been exposed to pesticides or other dangerous chemicals that could hurt your salamander if ingested.
How Do Salamanders Use their Tongues to Hunt?
Salamanders use a variety of methods to track their prey and keep up their diverse diet. Their senses make up a large part of their hunting habits, including their tongues, eyesight, smell, and sensory receptors. Perhaps the most notable of these senses is their tongue: nearly everyone has seen the iconic image of a salamander shooting out their tongue to trap an insect.
When salamanders spot prey, such as a bug, they flick out their mucus-covered tongues to trap the insect, worm, or other meal of choice. Salamanders then roll their tongue back into their mouths with their meal, sealing the fate of the unlucky target. Even the species of lungless salamanders, known as Plethodontidae, still use their tongues to hunt. This is just one of the many unique adaptations that amphibians have developed.
How Do Salamanders Hunt Their Prey?
Each of a salamander’s other senses involved in hunting are outlined in more detail below:
- Salamanders have trichromatic color vision, just like humans, and binocular vision. This improves their hunting, giving them great eyesight to precisely aim their tongues even over long distances. They are especially astute at spotting movement, which is often how they initially detect their next meal.
- Salamanders have a vomeronasal organ, which allows them to detect chemicals in the air. This organ is located on the roof of their mouth and helps them differentiate between potential prey and other predators. Even if the prey is hidden, a salamander’s keen sense of smell helps with tracking.
- Some species of salamander have sensory nodes spread over their skin, which allow for mechanoreception. These sensory nodes are designed to detect even minute vibrations, specifically within the water. Mechanoreception is ideal for aquatic salamanders that live in low-visibility environments, such as the Chinese Giant Salamander. (Fun fact: the Chinese Giant Salamander is one of the biggest animals on the planet.)
Armed with all of these senses, salamanders are excellent hunters that thrive in both terrestrial, semi-terrestrial, and aquatic environments.
