The Tragic Tale of Worth Hamilton Weller

An adult Weller's Salamander (Plethodon welleri). Whitetop Mountain, Virginia.

Many scientists have been devoted to their work, but few have sacrificed like the 18-year-old herpetologist Worth Hamilton Weller.

Weller was born (May 28, 1913) and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio; far from the Southern Appalachian Mountains where he would make his most well-known and final discovery atop Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina. As a child, young Weller roamed the fields and forests of the Midwest with his friend Karl Maslowski; who would later become a well-known wildlife photographer. Later, in his teen years, Weller met and began a mentorship with Ralph Dury, a Curator of Herpetology at the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History. At the age of sixteen, Weller joined Dury's organization of young naturalists; the Cincinnati Junior Society of Natural Sciences. Corresponding with legendary herpetologist Emmett Reid Dunn, and continuing his work with Dury as business manager and Curator of Herpetology for the Society, the intrepid Weller was soon accompanying Dury on expeditions south of Ohio, searching for elusive reptiles and amphibians.

In April 1930, Weller and Dury traveled to Cascade Caverns, Kentucky. There, Weller found a unique, large and brightly-colored salamander. After studying multiple individuals and collecting some specimens, the pair concluded that the salamander was a new subspecies of the Northern Spring Salamander; the Kentucky Spring Salamander (Gyrinophilus porphyriticus duryi); which was reviewed by herpetologists back in the city, and named after Dury. However, on his next expedition with Dury, the summer between his sophomore and junior years at Walnut Hills High School, they traveled to Grandfather Mountain, where Weller once again found a unique salamander.

A small, slender brass and charcoal-black salamander, it was confined to the cold, harsh spruce-fir forest of the rugged mountain. There was no other known species that even remotely fit the salamander's habitat and description. But despite Weller's insisting, Dury was hesitant to believe the salamander was an entirely new, undiscovered species. Which is a reasonable conclusion, as variation within the species of many Appalachian salamanders is mind-boggling. However, this salamander's lure, as well as the burning possibility of discovering a new species loomed in his mind, Weller was determined to hunt down the species once again.

Two years later, Weller, Dury, and the Junior Society, returned to Grandfather Mountain to collect more specimens of Weller's salamander. Upon their arrival, according to the testimony of Weller's girlfriend, most of the party was tired and wanted to wait until morning to go collecting. But Weller himself, fueled by determination and curiosity, was not about to forego an opportunity for which he had waited half of his high school career to experience. Despite Dury's concerns, and inclement weather in the form of intermittent rain and dense fog, Weller set off alone with collecting equipment to the high, dangerous mountain slopes.

When he had not returned by the next morning, his companions grew very worried. Four days of searching later, authorities found Weller's body wedged between boulders in a small stream trickling down the mountain. Allegedly, Weller had become lost in the fog and fell down one of the steep bluffs reaching down from Grandfather Mountain. However, with him was a cloth collecting bag filled with specimens of the salamander; which would soon be described in honor of the young herpetologist and his tragic tale of scientific devotion.

This mysterious salamander is now critically endangered by a combination of climate change, habitat loss, and anthropogenic pollution, but still lives in these most remote, secluded high mountains as an elusive jewel in the crown of American herpetology. In fact, "herping legend" states that if one goes searching for the Weller's Salamander twice, they too will meet the same fate as the young herpetologist.

Weller's Salamander with a Northern Pygmy Salamander (Desmognathus organi), found under the same log. Whitetop Mountain, Virginia.

Life history of the Weller's Salamander (Plethodon welleri)

The Weller's Salamander itself is also a remarkably interesting salamander regarding its life history. It is typically considered more closely related to P. dorsalis and other small, often common Woodland Salamander species than P. richmondi or the larger Plethodon species even though it lacks the relatively high population densities of its closer relatives. Distinguished from all other related species by bold, metallic blotching across the salamander's dorsal surface, Weller's salamanders are designed to live in the very harsh boreal forest of only a few mountaintops. They can often be found under the cover of rocks and logs during the day, but are most often seen foraging above ground on rainy nights. Due to the rarity and rapid decline of their habitat strictly within spruce-fir forest or decently acidic northern hardwood ecosystems, Weller's salamanders are also in decline.

Now listed as an endangered species, Weller's Salamanders are still important to their unique habitats. Specialized to survive in the Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest north of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, these small salamanders feed on a variety of montane invertebrates such as spiders (often Pirata spp.), small millipedes, insects (particularly larvae, such as that of beetle, Lepidopteran and fly species) and other taxa. They also serve as an ecologically expensive prey item for larger salamanders, shrews, moles and predatory invertebrates. P. welleri breeds during the spring and fall, with individuals alternating from spring of one year to not the following fall but the next fall to lay eggs. The salamanders also perform courtship dances before mating; and soon afterwards, the swollen female will lay a small clutch of eggs which she will guard until they hatch into terrestrial juveniles.

Potentially beneficial in human medicine for their strongly antibiotic and antifungal mucous, as well as their ability to regenerate lost limbs and organs, Weller's Salamanders are an important part of the Appalachians' salamander biodiversity. Mostly endangered by increasing acidity in high mountain forests due to airborne pollution in rain, which disturbs their habitat and causes them to move to lower elevations, Weller's Salamanders show a surprising resistance to many amphibian plagues that have wreaked havoc in Europe and South America. There are two recognized subspecies; the nominate subspecies P. welleri welleri, which lives in the Unaka Mountain chain of Tennessee and North Carolina, and the "spotted-belly" subspecies P. welleri ventromaculatum endemic to the Southwest Virginia Balsam Mountains and the Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area in Southwest Virginia, with remnant populations in the Holston Mountain hardwood forests of Tennessee and North Carolina.

A juvenile Weller's Salamander. Elk Garden, Smyth County, Virginia.

Sources, References and Resources

Mitchell, Joseph C., and Whit Gibbons. Salamanders of the Southeast. University of Georgia Press, 2010

Thurow, Gordon R., A New Subspecies of Plethodon welleri, with Notes on Other Members of the Genus. American Midland Naturalist, 1956. 10812

Organ, J.A., 1990, Salamander Survey Section One 1990, Prepared for the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area, Jefferson National Forest, 40 pgs., Dept. of Bio. of the City College of New York, New York

Adler, Kraig. 2007. Contributions to the History of Herpetology, Volume 2. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. 

Sasse, D. Blake. 2003. Job-Related Mortality of Wildlife

Workers in the United States, 1937-2000. Wildlife Society Bulletin

Burt, Charles E. 1933. A Contribution to the Herpetology of Kentucky. American Midland Naturalist.

Proceedings of the Cincinnati Society of Natural Sciences, v.2-3 1931-1932 http://www.cnah.org/news.asp?id=280 In Memoriam: Karl Maslowski. The Center for North American Herpetology.

Weller, W.H. 1930. "Notes on amphibians collected in Carter Co., Kentucky." Proceedings of the Junior Society of Natural Sciences, Cincinnati

 

Weller, W.H.  1930. A preliminary list of the salamanders of the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. Proceedings of the Junior Society of Natural Sciences, Cincinnati

Weller, W.H.  1930. "Notes on Aneides aeneus (Cope and Packard)." Proceedings of the Junior Society of Natural Sciences, Cincinnati

 Beltz, Ellin. Biographies of People Honored in the Herpetological Nomenclature North America, 2006.

Hamed, Michael Kevin, Impacts of Climate Change, Human Land Use, and Mercury Contamination on Southern Appalachian Plethodontid Salamander, 2014 and Unpublished, 2017.

Walker, Charles F., and Weller, W. Hamilton. 1932. The Identity and Status of Pseudotriton duryi. Copeia 1932 (2): 81–83. (Published by the American Society of Icthyologists and Herpetologists).