Ep. 82 - Wild Ideas: Resurrected! (feat. Gordon Maupin)

This episode, we’re stepping back to the golden age of natural history podcasting by resurrecting the format of the classic show Wild Ideas: The Podcast. Joining us on the trail is one of the OG hosts: the man himself, Gordon Maupin. It’s a 3-way team-up where each of us brings a heavy-hitting seasonal mystery to the table.
First, Steve unravels the rule-breaking world of the Ambystoma polyploid salamander complex, where unisexual lineages are mixing up DNA from different species and blurring the lines of what makes a species a species. Then, Gordon shrinks things down to look at the world of duckweed ecology, a group that includes the smallest flowering plants in the world. Finally, Bill turns our eyes to the skies over the marsh to pull back the curtain on dragonfly migration, looking into the recent science that shows some dragonfly species are multi-generational continental travelers (as well as badass predators).
Come listen in as Gordon and the guys answer the question, “What’s going on outside?” (Wild Ideas fans, that’s for you)
This episode was reecorded at the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama, NY on May 13, 2026.
Episode Links
Check out the Iroquois National Wildlife Refige and their Bald Eagle Cam.
Here’s the New York Times article about 7 Podcasts About the Joys of Bird Watching that includes a mention of our show.
Episode Notes
Getting The Great Egret’s Latin Name Right
During a quick aside this episode, Gordon spotted a Great Egret and Steve tried to recall its scientific name, tentatively going with Erodea alba. He wasn't entirely wrong! The correct name is Ardea alba.
While alba means "white," Ardea is Latin for "heron." It also ties back to the ancient myth by everyone’s favorite Roman poet Ovid, who wrote about a bird rising directly from the ashes of the burned city of Ardea.
What’s the Deal With Axolotls?
We wondered if the axolotl is in the same genus as the Jefferson and blue spotted salamander (Ambystoma) and yes they are!
Species: A. mexicanum (Axolotl)
Unlike most members of Ambystomatidae—which typically metamorphose into terrestrial adults—the axolotl exhibits a trait called neoteny (or paedomorphosis). This is where an organism retains juvenile or larval traits into adulthood. Axolotls retains its aquatic, larval features (like its signature feathery external gills) into adulthood and spends its entire life in the water
Bill’s Hard Claim on ID’ing Jefferson Salamanders
Bill said there is no way we could tell if it was a Jefferson salamander: is that true? Bill was basically right if we’re talking about visually confirming a female-looking salamander in a blue-spotted/Jefferson overlap zone. Many unisexual individuals cannot be confidently identified by sight, and genetic testing is the clean answer. But during the breeding season, a male with a swollen cloaca is not part of the all-female unisexual lineage, so that can help narrow things down. So, a male in breeding condition can sometimes be identified much more confidently than a female/unisexual-looking animal, but you need to have serious knowledge about species location, morphology, and breeding-season characteristics.
The Jefferson Complex vs. the Bigger Unisexual Salamander Situation
During the episode, Bill had a “wait, what are we even talking about?” moment while Steve was explaining the huge all-female/unisexual Ambystoma salamander lineage.
Steve was talking about the big-picture version: a bizarre evolutionary group that can involve genomes from several mole salamander species, including Blue-spotted, Jefferson, Small-mouthed, Streamside, and Tiger Salamanders.
Bill, though, was thinking what we hear more about in the Northeast and Great Lakes region: the “Jefferson complex,” or the Blue-spotted/Jefferson Salamander mess. Around here, that usually means you can’t usually ID a Jefferson Salamanders or a Blue-spotted Salamander down to species because the sally in front of you may belong to the all-female, polyploid lineage ...