Starre Julia Vartan

Pleased to share my second article for National Geographic: This one came about because during a trail run with a big German Shepherd I was caring for, we came across a long-toed salamander. I didn’t recognize this species since I grew up in New York and this is a west-coast-only type of sal. I moved her off the road we were crossing and then Instagrammed the picture I took.

A month later I was talking to a Forest Service scientist about amphibians and wildfire and she mentioned the long-toed salamanders. I got excited as I had just learned about them from my post-trail-run research and I said I was learning about them and she said “did you know they can grow fangs and turn into cannibals?” I did not! And so a story was born.