Encyclopaedia
AmphibianTerrestrialIntermediate
©AI Generated·Proprietary
Barred Fire Salamander
Salamandra salamandra terrestris
The classic European fire salamander, but the French/German variant, characterized by two distinct, nearly continuous parallel yellow stripes down its back.
Class:Amphibia
Order:Caudata
Family:Salamandridae
Subfamily:Salamandrinae
Genus:Salamandra
Species:Salamandra salamandra terrestris
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Environment
Terrestrial
Humidity
70 - 90 %
Day temperature
15 - 18 °C
Night temperature
12 °C
Ambient temperature
15 - 18 °C
Minimum enclosure
>= 45 L
UVB
None
Species description
Geographic Origin and Habitat: No additional source-verified editorial notes are available about geographic origin and habitat for Salamandra salamandra terrestris. Consult this record's parameters and sources.
Taxonomy and Genetics: No additional source-verified editorial notes are available about taxonomy and genetics for Salamandra salamandra terrestris. Consult this record's parameters and sources.
Behaviour and Habits: No additional source-verified editorial notes are available about behaviour and habits for Salamandra salamandra terrestris. Consult this record's parameters and sources.
Morphology and Sexual Dimorphism: No additional source-verified editorial notes are available about morphology and sexual dimorphism for Salamandra salamandra terrestris. Consult this record's parameters and sources.
Care, breeding and tankmates
Terrarium Setup: Low, terrestrial enclosures completely dense with dark hiding spots (minimum 36x18 inches / 80x40 cm floor space for a pair). Paludariums or deep water setups are strictly forbidden: they are clumsy swimmers and will tragically drown. The substrate must be deep (4-5 inches / 10 cm) using rich, organic topsoil or coco-coir kept perpetually damp, thickly covered with sheets of live moss and garbage bags' worth of dry beech/oak leaf litter. Liberally bury curved cork bark tubes directly into the dirt to create freezing, dark, cavernous burrows. A very shallow water dish is all they need to drink from.
Lighting and Heating: HEAT IS THEIR ABSOLUTE DEATH SENTENCE. They are European creatures of freezing, dark woods: their optimal temperature zone sits firmly around 59-64°F (15-18°C). They DO NOT TOLERATE prolonged temperatures over 72-74°F (22-23°C), entering severe metabolic suffocation and distress. In summer, if your house hits 77°F (25°C), they MUST be moved to a cold basement, a wine cooler setup, or a room with dedicated A/C. In winter, they thrive in the cold and can easily undergo artificial hibernation (brumation) in a fridge at 41-46°F (5-8°C). Provide very weak LED lights solely for viewing; heavy UV lighting is not strictly required for them.
Humidity and Hydration: Being bound to the ground without protective scales, they require permanently high humidity (75-90%). The soil should feel like a wrung-out sponge, cool and wet to the touch (but not flooded into an asphyxiating mud soup). Gently spray or water one side of the terrarium twice a week, always ensuring there is a slightly drier gradient on the other side. A bone-dry terrarium will lock up their skin-shedding process and lethally mummify the salamander in a matter of days.
Feeding and Supplementation: Gluttonous, placid, but infallible devourers. They locate prey in pitch blackness by combining excellent night vision with a highly acute sense of smell. They will happily devour tons of live earthworms/nightcrawlers (their absolute supreme, perfect staple food), small shell-less slugs, isopods, calcium-dusted crickets, and soft roaches. They inexorably tend toward lethal clinical obesity in household captivity: once adult, they must be fed very sparingly, offering large earthworms via tongs no more than 1 or 2 times a week.
Compatibility: Perfect, peaceful tank mates. You can comfortably house large groups together in appropriately sized enclosures, as they are completely peaceful, show zero territorial aggression, and almost never bite each other—unless two accidentally strike at the exact same earthworm. Their reproduction is utterly unique: the mating amplexus is done completely on dry land (not in the water), and the female gestates the eggs internally for months, eventually backing her rear into a very shallow stream (or a plastic tub provided by the keeper) to drop dozens of fully formed, swimming, gilled larvae directly into the water.
Health and Common Diseases: Bsal (Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans): An apocalyptic, lethal Asian fungus currently wiping out wild European salamander populations, literally eating the animals' skin alive in necrotizing ulcers. Captive European stock must be strictly and fiercely isolated from any newly imported Asian newts to prevent catastrophic tank crashes. Thermal Intoxication (Heat Stress): If kept at typical 'summer apartment' temperatures (80°F / 27°C+), their immune system completely shuts down, they refuse all food, their shedding skin gets permanently stuck to them in choking rags, and they quickly die from massive multiple organ failure.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
This species originates from: Francia e Germania.
Origin
Europe, Mediterranean, and West Asia
Amphibian profile
- Diet
- No verified data available
- Life expectancy
- No verified data available
- Adult size
- 28 cm
- Lifestyle/Microhabitat
- No verified data available
- Activity cycle
- No verified data available
- Sociality
- No verified data available
- Reproduction
- No verified data available
- Toxicity
- No verified data available
- Life stage
- No verified data available
- Handling tolerance
- No verified data available
- Brumation
- No verified data available
- Molting
- No verified data available
The catalog's scalar value is 28 cm. The AmphiBIO v1 source reports a maximum adult measurement of 28 cm for this species, recorded as total length (TL). These figures are not interchangeable: the first is the profile's editorial reference, whereas the second is a published maximum under a specific measurement convention; differences among sources can reflect sex, population, life stage and measuring method.
Image gallery
Licensed images linked to the species or, when marked, to the closest representative taxon.
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