Reinforcement, Reward, and Intrinsic Motivation: A Meta-AnalysisOn April 22, 2010, Dr. Boone’s Herpetology class once again visited Houston Woods State Park for another round of searching for Herp species native to Butler Country. This time, we went to a rolling stream near the quarry. We began to walk up current turning over heavy rocks and digging through muck along the way. It didn’t take very long for people to find all sorts of squirming things. I, however, didn’t find anything until quite some time later. It was after I hopped up a waterfall to a flat rock shelf covered in a mesh of slimy green grass-like material that I flipped over a rock and saw it. At first, I wasn’t really quite sure what it was. It just looked like a small twig that had been washed downstream and got stuck under the rock. When the swirling mud finally cleared, I saw some appendages. I tried to grab it, but it was so tiny that my meaty hands couldn’t get around it. Another student was able to catch it for me. We called the T.A. Tammy over and attempted to determine what it was, but it was so tiny. It probably wasn’t even an inch and a half long. She thought maybe it was a streamside at first, but then she changed her mind to a Mudpuppy (Nectorus maculosus). When the student sat it down in the water, its external gills fanned out. It was really neat.
The Mudpuppy is an aquatic Salamander that retains its larval characteristics of external gills. This retention of juvenile characteristics is known as Paedomorphosis. The Mudpuppy is usually found under rocks in slow moving streams and lakes. Their diet consists of just about anything that can fit into their mouths, including fish, aquatic insects, crawfish, etc. They are normally a dark or rusty color with indistinct blue spots scattered on the dorsal side of the body.
(Jim R. McClanahan)
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