Maternal care and defence of young by the plethodontid salamander Speleomantes strinatii (Aellen, 1951)

Egg brooding females of the North-west Italian Cave Salamander Speleomantes strinatii display a complex array of parental behaviours. Recently, prolonged skin contacts between mother and young were documented by means of infra-red video recording, up to 40 days after hatching. In this study the behaviour of two females attending their young in presence of a po-tential predator was experimentally tested. About seven days after hatching, two adult males of S. strinatii were introduced inside the terrarium, where two females (A and B) were both attending eight young. In one case, female A approached female B and her young, but was repelled away. The approaching male always elicited an aggressive behaviour of females that repelled the intruder by head pushes and bites. This behaviour, similar to the one displayed during egg brooding, is the first evidence of active defence of young in terrestrial salamanders.