Salamander Skin

• Salamanders may be colorfully patterned.Hemera Technologies/PhotoObjects.net/Getty Images
  
  The moist, scale-less skin of salamanders tends to be smooth or bumpy. There's a substantial amount of variation in the texture. Members of the mole salamander family, such as the boldly colored tiger salamanders, often have distinct ribbing. The enormous hellbender, one of the heftiest salamanders in the world, has wrinkly folds running the length of its body. While many species breathe through lungs or gills, certain kinds actually respire across the permeable boundary of their skin.
  
  

Significance

• Even terrestrial salamanders are tied to damp places.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  Because their skin can easily become desiccated under dry conditions, salamanders tend to be tied to moist environments. Some, like the hellbender and the mudpuppy, are wholly aquatic. The larvae of many species hatch from eggs laid in water and are aquatic until metamorphosis; some may remain in gilled, larval form their entire lives. Terrestrial salamanders counter desiccation by favoring damp environments like deep-forest ground cover or subterranean burrows.
  
  

Reptile Scales

• Reptiles like this American alligator have scaly hides.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  By contrast to moist amphibian skin, reptiles are cloaked in rugged hides of scales or scutes partly made out of keratin, the same material comprising a human fingernail or a rhinoceros horn. The same hardy ingredient even makes up the outer layer of turtle and tortoise shells. Reptiles are less dependent on water sources than amphibians; many survive in cripplingly dry environments.
  
  

Salamanders and Lizards

• The presence of scaly skin and clawed toes distinguishes most lizards from salamanders.PhotoObjects.net/PhotoObjects.net/Getty Images
  
  Salamanders are most commonly confused with members of an unrelated suborder of reptiles, the lizards. Both salamanders and lizards, in typical form, have elongate, slender bodies with four legs, a long tail and a squat head. The presence of scales on the lizard is a major discriminating factor, as are the lizards' claws and (in most species) ear openings. Lizards also commonly attain larger sizes than salamanders. Japanese and Chinese giant salamanders are the biggest of their kind, reaching lengths of 5 feet or more, but a number of lizard species reach and well exceed this length -- the monitor lizards, which may surpass 10 feet long, being the most extreme examples.