[at-l] The salamander's secret sexual scent

["David F. Addleton" <dfa@wimlaw.com>]

From:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_4
50000/450092.stm 

For anyone who's watched these marvelous
creatures. I've seen them in two places: pumping
water from small streams and after lighting a
fire in an old fire ring. Eg., Tray Mtn Shelter
where the ash mound must stand around 2 ft high.
After lighting a fire this angry, square jawed,
large, black salamander came stomping out and
headed straight to the woods. It's happened at
other fire rings too, but I'll not forget how
pissed off this Tray Mtn salamander seemed to me.
 Why do they live in ash mounds?  I don't know,
but here's an article about their sexual
behaviors:

The salamander's secret sexual scent 

Scientists have identified the secret love potion
a salamander uses to woo his mate. 
It is a pheromone, or signalling chemical, that
the male wipes onto the female's nares or
nostrils during their courtship dance. 
As soon as this happens, things get a little
steamy. 
The molecule is produced in a gland under the
male's chin. It is unique and different from the
few other animal pheromones that have ever been
identified, said University of Chicago graduate
student Stephanie Rollmann, who did the research.

"To our knowledge this is the first vertebrate
pheromone to affect female receptivity". 
Tail-straddling walk 
Rollmann and colleagues, who report their
findings in the journal Science, studied the
species Plethodon jordani, which lives in the
mountains of western North Carolina. 
They found that the designer fragrance is applied
at a particular stage in courtship known as the
tail-straddling walk, where the female walks
forward with the male, straddling his tail and
resting her chin on the tail base. 
The male has to turn around to deliver the
chemical signal. 
After purifying the pheromone and isolating its
principal protein component, the researchers
tested its potency in courtship situations where
the males had their chin gland removed. Test
pairs that had the purified pheromone applied by
the researchers spent a shorter amount of time
tail-straddling, indicating that the female
became receptive to the male's advances more
quickly than couples without the pheromone. 

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