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Can A Tiger Change Its Spots? A Test Of The Stability Of Spot Patterns For Identification Of Individual Tiger Salamanders (Ambystoma Tigrinum), Heather L. Waye

Biology Publications

There is increasing interest in the use of unique spot patterns as a way to “mark” individual amphibians as an alternative to invasive techniques for studies of free-ranging populations. however, studies testing the efficacy of the pattern recognition technique have largely drawn their conclusions from the ability to recognize recaptured individuals that were identified solely by spot pattern. individuals whose color pattern changed significantly would therefore not be identified upon recapture. for this study, Tiger salamanders (Ambystoma tigrinum) were captured in west-central Minnesota and maintained in captivity for one year, and their dorsal and ventral surfaces photographed approximately …