Join PFC Member Cathy Brosky  at the Burgatory for a social dinner and then walk to the Kamin Science Center for a fascinating lecture by Dr. Sarah Woodley on the surprising and fascinating properties of salamander skin! Did you know: 

Salamanders are slimy, but it is for a very good—and fascinating—reason: their skin needs to be moist in order for them to function. The gooey membrane of mucus that they secrete from their skin enables these amphibians’ basic bodily functions—everything from breathing to making their heart beat.

This mucus is also a great substance for microbes to colonize. Salamander skin is always moist and nutrient rich, making it a more hospitable and stable place to live than water or soil. The mucus can host good microbes as well as bad ones, including peptides that have the potential to help humans fight disease and could be used in place of antibiotics in certain instances.

In the eastern United States, we have more salamander species than anywhere in the world. About 180 salamander species live in the continental U.S. There are so many salamanders, in fact, that the biomass of just salamanders is greater than that of all the birds and small mammals! Simply because there are so many of them, they are integral to the food web and carbon cycling within forest ecosystems.

Salamanders can benefit humans in other ways, too. They have the most pronounced regenerative properties of any vertebrate and can regrow body parts that were once lost, including tails, limbs, eyes and internal organs. Scientists are studying how salamanders can do this amazing feat. What they learn could have major implications for human medicine in future.