Luschan's Salamander

Luschan's salamander is brown with small yellow dots dorsally, yellow or whitish laterally, and flesh-colored ventrally. The eyes and the narrow paratoid glands are prominent. Its tail is thin. Males have a protruding "spike" at the base of their tails on the dorsal surface. Adults may grow to 13 cm (5.1 in) in length. The Luschan's salamander is a nocturnal, land-dwelling animal, most active during the rainy or wet season, which lasts from November to April in the Mediterranean region. Males and females have similar weights. Male and female L. luschani are sexually dimorphic. Males can be distinguished by a protuberance near the tail absent in both females and juvenile salamanders. The females, however, have a cloaca that can be used to determine their sex. Juvenile salamanders possess neither. One study has also shown that females tended to have a larger snout to vent length on average than males, but males had a significantly larger maximum snout-vent-length in comparison. One population of the Lyciasalamandra luschani was found at the Dodurga village in southwestern Anatolia. The population was split into two types. Type 1 had a light brown dorsum, while type 2 had a light brown dorsum that is orangish. The other main differences can be seen in the upper eyelids such that they have a greenish light yellow color in type 2 salamanders. …

L. luschani's natural habitats are temperate forests and arid Mediterranean environments. During active seasons, they live under shelters (i.e., rocks, wood) during the day, and at night, they forage. L. lushani populations are threatened by habitat loss. One of its subspecies, L. l. helverseni, is known to be found within a pine forest on the island of Carpathos. M. luschani has also been reported to inhabit about 350 kilometers of southwestern Turkish coast.

When comparing adult and juvenile L. luschani basoglui salamanders, scientists found that there were statistically significant differences in the measurements of body length, body weight, snout to vent length, head width, mean prey length, and mean prey volume. This study showed that juvenile salamanders tended to have a diet heavily centered on collembolans and gastropods, whereas adult males tended to mostly eat beetles, and adult females mostly ate beetles and Hymenoptera. The researchers also discovered that L. l basoglui's snout-vent-length and the head with were significant predictors of both mean prey length and mean prey volume.