INTRODUCTION 



This report presents field body temperatures of salamanders, and 

 summarizes previous reports of field body temperatures in the 

 literature. In it we extend and update a similar survey (Brattstrom, 

 1963), which has proven invaluable in studies of amphibian 

 thermobiology . 



Table 1 presents temperature records for salamanders. Each record 

 represents a salamander or series of salamanders measured at the 

 indicated locality and usually at the same time of day. Also included 

 when available is information on time of year, locality, elevation, 

 and microhabitat . Temperatures without literature references were 

 taken by us. We measured the temperature of the substrate immediately 

 adjacent to newly discovered salamanders. Bogert (1952) has shown 

 that substrate temperatures measured in this manner are generally 

 equivalent to salamander body temperatures. All temperatures of 

 tropical ambystomatids are for aquatic salamanders and larvae. 



In Table 1 we include only those values from the literature that 

 were gathered with similar techniques. Reports equating salamander 

 body temperatures with air temperature or weather bureau records are 

 not included. In most cases we have retained the taxonomic 

 designation employed by the original source. 



Table 2 summarizes annual variation in body temperature that might 

 be experienced by salamanders in a single population. Because body 

 temperatures of tropical salamanders vary with elevation (Feder and 

 Lynch, 1982), we include only species for which winter and summer 

 records are available at the same elevation. Similarly, we report on 

 only those temperate species for which winter and summer records are 

 available for comparable climates. 



Table 3 reports maximum and minimum temperatures for each species. 

 Unlike in Table 2, these temperatures often are not for single 

 populations and may represent extremes of species ranges. 



These data are valuable in several respects. In designing 

 experiments, biophysical modelling, calculation of energy budgets, 

 etc., it is important to know what temperatures an animal normally 

 experiences in the field. Also, exceptional species that experience 

 unusual thermal regimes can be identified only when the 'normal' 

 pattern is known. Furthermore, these data are obviously significant 

 in understanding the ecological and thermal relations of amphibians; 

 the data form the basis of an analysis of field body temperatures of 

 salamanders (Feder and Lynch, 1982) with this goal in mind. [Values 

 in Table 1 gathered too late to be incorporated in the above study and 

 in Tables 2-3 are designated by '***'.] 



Research was supported by the following: NSF Grant DEB 78-23896, 

 University of California Chancellor's Patent Fund, The Andrew Mellon 

 Foundation, and the Louis Block Fund, The University of Chicago (MEF); 

 Smithsonian Fluid Research Fund (JFL); NSF Grant DEB 78-03008 (DBW). 

 Collecting permits were provided to D. Wake by Mexican (Direccion 

 General de la Fauna Silvestre) and Guatemalan (INAFOR) authorities. 



