Taricha rivularis

Among the Salamandridae, displaced Western newts, Taricha rivularis, home to the same section of a stream year after year. Blinded newts still homed successfully, and anosmic specimens were reduced in their homing ability but still did not move in random fashion. They return to their home pond from up to 12km(Twitty, 1966). Another salamander, tested in the... 

Newts have been shown to have a keen ability to find their way home to their natal or home pond. After they were displaced during an experiment, red-bellied newts (Taricha rivularis) studied in California proved to be capable of returning to their home stream within only one year, over a distance of up to 4.96 mi (8 km). 

Tetrodotoxin, however, has been isolated from the Californian newts Taricha torosa, Taricha rivularis, and Taricha granulosa it has formerly been called tarichatoxin but was later found to be identical with tetrodotoxin from Tetraodontidae. We now know that tetrodotoxin is a bacterial toxin (ref. 29) but we have no idea about this kind of symbiosis between bacteria and amphibia. It certainly does not act as a fungicide or bactericide (ref. 30) but it might act as a repellent against predators of the animals themselves or of their egg clusters as has been observed in Tetrodotoxin containing fish. 

Grant, D., Anderson, 0. and Twitty, V., 1968, Homing orientation by olfaction in newts (Taricha rivularis), Science, 160 1354. 

Twitty, V. C., Grant, D. L., and Anderson, 0., 1966, Course and timing of the homing migration in the newt, Taricha rivularis, Proc. Nat. 

Since 1964 it has been thought that tetrodotoxin (TTX, 1, Fig. 1) [1-3] occurred only in puffer fish and in newts of the family Salamandridae, and Taricha trosa, Taricha rivularis, and Tarich granulosa were found to be the most toxic species [4,5]. However, in 1969, Mosher and colleagues reported the presence of a potent, water-soluble, guanidinium toxin in extracts of skin... 

Tarichatoxin the main toxin of North American salamanders (Taricha lorosa, T. rivularis). It is identical with Tetrt otoxin (see). 

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