Focus on Fish Gallery Guide Focus on Fish Final | Page 18

Mud puppy
Habitat and Diet:
Mud puppies are a type of salamander that lives in the
eastern part of North America. They can inhabit lakes,
ponds, rivers, and streams. One unusual trait of t he
mudpuppy is that they retain external gills because skin and
lung respiration alone is not sufficient. Their external gills
will be larger in still water will less oxygen (ponds) and
smaller in running water with more oxygen (rivers).
Their diets consist of almost anything they can get in their
mouths, including crayfish, insects, earthworms, and
mollusks,
Relationship to humans:
Mud puppies have no negative impact on humans. Some
people believe that they eat the eggs of game fish and kill
them, but there is no evidence that mud puppies impact game
fish populations. People are sometimes frightened by the
strange appearance of mud puppies, but they are completely
harmless.
Fun/Unusual fact:
In the more northern sections, they are called mud puppies,
and in the southern portions, they are called "waterdogs."