Red-backed Salamander (Plethodon cinereus)

AmphibianSalamanderNorth America

Overview

The red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus) is a small, slender salamander of the woodlands of eastern North America — and, despite its modest size, one of the most abundant vertebrates in many of those forests. It is typically dark with a straight reddish or orange stripe down the back, though a plainer grey “lead-backed” form is common too. Most remarkably, this salamander has no lungs at all: it breathes entirely through its moist skin and the lining of its mouth.

Being lungless ties it to cool, damp places, but it has freed itself from water in another way: the red-backed salamander lays its eggs on land and the young hatch as miniature adults, skipping the aquatic, gilled larval stage that most amphibians go through.

Note: details here cover the red-backed salamander as a species; treat general statements as approximate and verify against authoritative sources.

Habitat & Range

Red-backed salamanders live in moist forests across eastern North America, on and just under the forest floor — beneath logs, bark, rocks, and leaf litter. They need cool, damp conditions to keep their skin moist for breathing, so they retreat deeper or become inactive in dry or freezing weather. In suitable woodland they can occur in astonishing numbers.

Diet

Red-backed salamanders are carnivores that eat tiny invertebrates — mites, springtails, insects, spiders, worms, and other small soil and litter creatures. By consuming vast numbers of these invertebrates, the enormous combined population of red-backed salamanders plays a significant role in forest-floor food webs and even in how leaf litter and carbon are cycled.

Behavior

Because it is lungless, the red-backed salamander's whole life revolves around staying moist: it breathes through its skin, so it must avoid drying out and stays hidden in damp microhabitats, emerging to forage on humid nights. It is territorial, defending a patch of prime cover and foraging ground. Reproduction is fully terrestrial — the female lays a small cluster of eggs in a moist, hidden spot (such as inside a rotting log) and often guards them until they hatch directly into tiny salamanders, with no free-swimming larval stage. Like many salamanders it can shed its tail to escape a predator and later regrow it.

Human Interaction & Conservation

Red-backed salamanders are harmless and ecologically important, and because they are so numerous and sensitive to conditions, they are widely used as indicators of forest health and in ecological research. They remain common across much of their range, but they depend on moist, undisturbed woodland with plenty of logs and leaf litter, so deforestation, drying, and ground disturbance can hurt local populations. Leaving logs and litter in place helps them. Consult AmphibiaWeb and the IUCN Red List for current status.

More photos of the red-backed salamander