RAUK - Archived Forum - Posts by Allen:

  I am an Orthopedic Surgeon in Fort Worth,Texas,USA, and an amateur naturalist. 13 years ago, I rescued a Tiger Salamander on a highway in Colorado which was almost run over by an automobile. I brought it back to Fort Worth where it lived for some 12 years in a terrarium. Like most amphibians it had a voracious appetite, consuming large quantities of insects & worms during the spring, summer, & fall (hibernated in winter). The last 6 -9 months of its life,it's abdomen spontaneously swelled to 3 or 4 times its normal size. During this time its activity level & appetite remained totally normal. Then one morning I opened the terrarium to feed it, and all that was left of its body was a thin gelatinous outline on the soil around its skeletal remnants. I did not witness the "explosion", but my family members & I had commented on numerous occasions prior to its demise, that it was so tightly swollen that it looked as if it would explode at any second.

     I don't have a scientific or medical explanation for  this phenomenom, but am curious if the etiology of the salamander's demise is related to the "Exploding toads of Hamburg". Thank you...any comments are welcome.