Texas Blind Salamander
Eurycea rathbuni · Amphibian
A pale salamander with skin-covered eyes, outer gills and a broad flat snout, the American likeness of the olm, found only around San Marcos, Texas, in the underground streams and deep cave pools of the Edwards Aquifer, hundreds of feet below the surface, where the water stays at 21 to 22 °C. The first ones came up in 1895 from a newly dug well drawing water from 58 m down. It finds its way and its prey by sensing movement in the water, eats blind shrimp, snails and amphipods washed into its cave, and can regrow a lost tail or leg. Listed as endangered since 1967, it is threatened by the pumping and pollution of the aquifer.
- Danger
- Harmless
- How it is met
- Alone, day and night
- Size
- Tiny
- In winter
- Active in winter
Where it lives
Sources
Open it in Biomes — MGS Toolbox