I carefully lifted Scuba's rock cave to check on him and found that I was interrupting his snack time. Can you guess what the Tiger Salamander was eating for breakfast?
Draping from his mouth was a wad of his old, shed skin. While it doesn't sound like a tasty snack to me, dermatophagy (eating of skin) is common in amphibians. I had read about this phenomenon, and figured it was true since I rarely found shed skin from Scuba or our tree frogs, but had never seen dermatophagy in action. How exciting!
It turns out this process is not well understood, even by herpetologists. While more and more species are being documented eating their shed skins, we still don't know precisely how or why they do it. Do they do it on purpose? Is the skin eaten whole or in pieces? (This observation of Scuba looks like he is swallowing it all at once.)
And why would they eat their own skin? The most common reason proposed is to recycle nutrients. It may also be an effective way to remove and dispose of pathogens from their environment. And some species have even been documented feeding skin to their offspring.
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