Species recognition of four species of salamanders, Ambystoma, tigrinum, A. maculatum, A. opacum, and A. tremblavi, was studied in a series of investigations performed from September 9, 1984 to October 29, 1984. The purpose of the study was to determine if vision is a component in interspecies recognition in these salamanders and, if so, to determine what specific sign stimuli are effective.A total of 23 individual salamanders were tested in three experimental situations involving choices between live conspecific and heterospecific salamanders, live conspecifics and heterospecifics where no olfactory cues were available, and between different models, varying either in pattern composition or ground color.In the preliminary tests, all four species of salamander preferred their conspecifics. In the live animal tests only the tiger salamanders preferred their conspecifics. In the model tests only the tiger salamanders showed a preference for one of the models, preferring the supernormal to the natural model.

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Salamander courtship coordinates the exchange of gametes. Plethodontids have evolved an elaborate means by which this is done. Throughout the family Plethodontidae a tail-straddling walk is performed to orchestrate the transfer of sperm. Typically this behavior is linear, however in the genus Aneides there are exceptions. In the genus Aneides there are two species that have a circular tail-straddling walk; others perform the highly conserved linear tail-straddling walk. I observed courtship in three species of Aneides and used accounts of others to discern which members possessed circular tail-straddling walk and used a phylogeny to map the courtship characters found in the courtships of the members of the tribe plethodontini. / Graduation date: 2003