Most amphibians have some kind of chemical defense to help them avoid or survive predation. Salamanders of the family Salamandridae are known for synthesizing their own defensive chemicals from cholesterol, the samandarines. These are toxic compounds that can cause death in potential predators through respiratory paralysis. Not surprisingly, we lack information regarding the chemical defenses of several lineages in Salamandridae. Eleftherakos et al. (2024) aimed to help fill this gap by surveying two species in the genus Lyciasalamandra from Greece. Using a metabolomics analysis, they confirmed the presence of samadarines in L. helverseni and L. luschani. Their analyses also identified trace amounts of pumiliotoxins, pyrrolizidine alkaloids, and decahydroquinolines, as well as other alkaloids from the same classes of compounds sequestered by poison frogs from their ant and mite prey. These data hint for the first time that some salamanders may be able to sequester toxins from their prey, although further experimental evidence will be necessary to validate this hypothesis. Such diet-derived toxin accumulation may be more widely known in amphibians than previously thought (See Tarvin et al. 2024).

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