page_title: Pain in amphibians
section_title: Spatial orientation
hierarchical_section_title: Pain in amphibians / Research findings / Cognitive ability and sentience / Spatial orientation
caption_attribution_description: English: Spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) 日本語: スポッテッドサラマンダー
context_page_description: Pain is an aversive sensation and feeling associated with actual, or potential, tissue damage. It is widely accepted by a broad spectrum of scientists and philosophers that non-human animals can perceive pain, including pain in amphibians.
  Pain is a complex mental state, with a distinct perceptual quality but also associated with suffering, which is an emotional state. Because of this complexity, the presence of pain in non-human animals cannot be determined unambiguously using observational methods, but the conclusion that animals experience pain is often inferred on the basis of likely presence of phenomenal consciousness which is deduced from comparative brain physiology as well as physical and behavioural reactions.
  Amphibians, particularly anurans, fulfill several physiological and behavioural criteria proposed as indicating that non-human animals may experience pain.
context_section_description: The Rocky Mountain toad (Bufo woodhousii woodhousii) and Gulf Coast toad (Bufo valliceps) are able to discriminate between left and right positions in a T-maze.
  Both the terrestrial toad Rhinella arenarum and the spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) can learn to orient in an open space using visual cues to get to a reward.  Furthermore, they prefer using cues close to the reward.  This shows a learning phenomenon previously recorded in other taxa including mammals, birds, fish and invertebrates.  It has been suggested that male dart frogs of the species Allobates femoralis use spatial learning for way-finding in their local area; they are able to find their way back to their territory when displaced several hundred metres, so long as they are displaced in their local area.
caption: The spotted salamander can learn to use visual cues to locate rewards
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