C. Kenneth Dodd Jr. 1989 Immobility is a potentially important antipredator behavior in salamanders, especially for those posessing noxious skin secretions. The duration of immobility in 15 species of terrestrial salamanders (<i>Plethodon</i>) varied among species. Most salamanders (78.8%) became immobile when initially contacted under field conditions, and remained immobile from 1-180 s. Immobility duration was inversely correlated with substrate temperature and covaried with air temperature, but snout-vent level (SVL) had no effect on duration. Only immobility times of <i>Plethodon shenandoah</i> were significantly different from any other species. Substrate temperature, air temperature, SVL, and species accounted for only a small percentage of the variance (<i>r</i>²=0.09). The degree of disturbance received during a predator-prey encounter is probably more important than the subtle effects of temperature and SVL in determining immobility duration. application/pdf en Herpetologists' League Duration of immobility in salamanders, genus <i>Plethodon</i> (Caudata: Plethodontidae) article