>>Bruce Means: We're standing at one of the places I most love in this world.
There's a big surprise right behind me.
You can't tell it standing here.
What you see is a line of oak trees, and then beyond it, it looks like flat ground.
Well, come with me.
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: We're in an off limits part of Torreya State Park.
Here, we're searching for salamanders in a uniquely Floridian environment.
>>Bruce Means: This is one of Florida's great natural treasures.
And one that most Floridians don't know about.
It's called a steephead.
And to understand what a steephead is all about, we have to go down into it.
This is a 45-degree angle slope.
And the sand that I'm sliding down on, with leaf litter on top of it, is at its angle
of repose.
Any steeper and it'll slide.
>>Bruce Means: There's an underground lake back there.
Where the slope intercepts it, it leaks out, and carries with it sand grain at a time.
That little creek is carrying this material away with it downstream.
This is fast enough that over 50 years, this little part of the steephead has migrated,
oh, goodness, what's that, about twenty feet?
>>Bruce Means: There's so many wonderful things about steepheads.
We can't recount all of them, but Because they're steep sloped and difficult
to get into, they weren't heavily logged.
They tell an ecological story of wonderful significance.
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: There are many plant and animal species that are only found in
the Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines region.
>>Bruce Means: There's something here that's really one of my favorite stories.
If you grab a leaf and crush it, it's got a really powerful and pungent odor.
And it's only found rooted in this kind of seepage in ravines in the panhandle.
It is one of the oldest angiosperm, meaning flowering plants, in the world.
This is called star anise.
>>Bruce Means: Right there, ha ha ha.
There you go- ah!
This is a girl
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: How can you tell?
>>Bruce Means: Because of the size of her head.
The males have a really big head with big jowls.
They fight.
I found him in the 1960s and named hi in 1972.
This is the Apalachicola dusky salamander.
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: Without much effort, Dr. Means turns up a few more.
>>Bruce Means: Oh this, this should be a good one!
He's lost his tail, something bit it off.
And he's regenerating it.
See the new little piece of tail tip coming in?
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: The tail shape helped Dr. Means determine that the Apalachicola
dusky salamander was a separate species from the southern dusky.
>>Bruce Means: One of the characteristics of this salamander, it has a long terite filamentous
tail.
When we go look at their relative, the one that's declined, the southern dusky salamander,
you'll find out they have a very deep, blade shaped tail, which is one of the differences
between them.
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: Another difference is hard to see when both salamanders are covered
in muck.
>>Bruce Means: Although this salamander looks dark, against light leaves, she'll lighten
up, and you'll see a beautiful little pattern of blotches on her back.
>>Bruce Means: Oh, there's eggs!
Salamander eggs!
And you can see little baby salamanders in the eggs.
Can you see the baby salamanders?
>>Bruce Means: I was the first biologist to study animals in these steepheads.
No biologist knew what a steephead was.
Until I started studying salamanders in steepheads, and writing papers about them, and realizing
biologically and geologically how unique steepheads were, steepheads were essentially not in the
scientific literature.
And what's really cool about steepheads is, they are so unique, and so found only
in Florida, north Florida, especially panhandle Florida, that the only other place in the
universe where they've been found is on Mars!
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: From steephead ravines… to seepage slopes… and dark and mysterious
swamps, Bruce Means has shown us that one of the best ways to get to know north Florida
wetlands, is to get down and dirty and go salamander hunting.
For WFSU, I'm Rob Diaz de Villegas.
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