All About Salamanders and How to Draw Them!
If you’d love to learn all about salamanders, then watch the video workshop below in which I teach you all about salamanders; their biology, ecology, species diversity, and anatomy.
In the second half of the presentation, you’ll learn how to draw a Pacific Giant Salamander in my step-by-step demonstration.
If you’d like to follow along to the drawing demonstration (starting at the 31-minute mark) gather a pencil and paper, and if you are able to, download and print the Tiger Salamander Image.
The Pacific Giant Salamander
Aptly named, this is one of the largest salamanders in the world, growing up to 13 inches long! They sport a beautiful, marbled pattern on their skin that cryptically camouflages them in the mountain streams and moist forests of the Pacific Northwest of the United States, such as near my home in Oregon’s Cascades.
As you can imagine, the large adults are formidable predators, devouring a wide range of prey like insects, mollusks, and crayfish while keeping a watchful eye out for their own predators which include weasels, otter, shrews, and garter snakes. Interestingly, when threatened the salamander creates an impressive defense strategy of tail lashing, biting, arching of the back, and even emitting a warning bark.
Like other amphibians, salamanders face many unnatural threats including habitat loss, logging, climate change, and water pollution.
