The salamander is a cold animal. It can live unharmed in a fire, and its coldness will extinguish the hottest flames. If it enters hot water, the water will become cold.

From the salamander comes a material that is unlike any other cloth; when it becomes dirty, it must be thrown into a fire, which will consume the dirt without harming the cloth. This cloth is made in the deserts of India, and is worn by important people. This is a good description of asbestos, which some sources link with the salamander.

The salamander's poison is very strong, and can kill many at once. If it climbs an apple tree, the apples become poisonous; if it enters a well, the water becomes deadly.

Note: Both the salamander and the newt are called some variation of stellio, and sometimes they can only be distinguished by context.

The salamander represents righteous people, who can withstand fire, just as Daniel could emerge unharmed from the fiery furnace.

If a person touches the milky spit of the salamander, all his hair will fall out and a disease will break out on his skin. Any water or wine the salamander touches becomes poisonous, and a vessel it drinks from also become contaminated and will poison a person who drinks from it. The salamander is enclosed in a silky membrane that is used for clothes by nobles; such clothes can only be cleaned by fire. The heart of a salamander extinguishes the fire of fever and lust,