ABSTRACT
Salamanders were not unknown to the scholars of antiquity. Aristotle (Aristoteles), the Greek philosopher and scientist of the fourth century b.cv based his classification of animals on their anatomy, physiology, and modes of reproduction (1587 edition of Aristotle, edited by Sylburg). He grouped all amphibians and reptiles together - as reptiles - with amphibians classified simply as oviparous quadrupeds without scales (Table 1.1). Among the amphibians, Aristotle included salamanders (his word ZaXxxiLidvSpa1 was Latinized to Salamandra, later to the Middle English*2 salamandre from which the modem English name comes). The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus), of the first century a.d., also mentions salamanders in his natural history works, but introduces some of the then-prevalent myths about them: that salamanders have no sex and are generated from putridity; that they are invulnerable to fire; and that their saliva destroys human hair. Indeed, during the Middle Ages, salamanders were the subject of many myths which greatly retarded progress in our knowledge of their true biology.
