What Salamanders Can Teach Us About Urban Evolution

Every spring for the last few years, I’ve made an expedition to a rocky hillside in an upper Manhattan park, where water from underground springs seeps through the granite and spills down the steep cliff faces. That water is pure, but the overgrown park is far from pristine. Pathways sparkle with broken glass. The underbrush is scarred with signs of campfires. People dump old tires in the bushes. On one visit, I looked up and saw that I was being watched from afar by a pack of feral dogs.

But I go back each April, because under the logs and stones of this neglected place you can find salamanders -- mostly northern dusky salamanders. Once common in the city, they have almost disappeared from the five boroughs (the only other population in New York City is on Staten Island). Once you know where to look, you realize they are everywhere. I bring along my young son and his friends, and it is magical to watch them realize that all around them, in the drab, unpromising leaf litter of the forest floor, there is life.