Salamander

Salamander
Species information
Eye colour	Black
Skin colour	Fire
Hair colour	Bald
Related to	Lizards
Native to	Magical fire
Ministry of Magic Classification	XXX
Status	Beast

Hermione Granger: "Those salamanders are a menace!"

Ronald Weasley: "And they've burnt holes in my trousers!"

— Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger, shortly after an encounter with salamanders in a Defence Against the Dark Arts class.

The salamander is a small fire dwelling lizard that feeds on flames. They are born out of flames, specifically called salamander fires, and appear to be blue or red depending on the heat of the flames. They live as long as the flames that spawned them.

The salamander can survive outside out of the flames that birthed it for up to six hours if fed on pepper. Salamander blood has powerful regenerative and curative properties. Muggle world salamanders are amphibians, not lizards, and have no affinity for fire. It's unknown if salamanders can shed their skin like Muggle world salamanders.

There are different types of salamanders, such as the blue and the scarlet variety.

The number six, in runic.

The maximum number of hours a salamander can survive out of fire and the amount of legs most salamanders have is used in the runic alphabet to represent the number six.

Fred and George Weasley once experimented with feeding fireworks to a salamander, which caused it to rocket around the room, emitting multicoloured sparks. The salamander ended up running back into the fireplace in the room, looking scared.

Scale rot is an illess that can affect both salamanders and dragons. In 1996, Hagrid mentioned that he needed to rub more chilli powder on a couple of salamanders that had scale rot. If left untreated, it can cause a salamander's tail to detach.

There also exists a variant species called the Frost Salamander that instead of dwelling in fire, is closely associated with ice.

Appearances

• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (First appearance)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (video game)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (video game)
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• J. K. Rowling's Official Site