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Amphibians in Movies   Toy Story 5 (2026)   Spoiler Alert ! Some of these pictures and descriptions may give away plot details that you might not want to know before watching the film.   This is another installment of the Pixar/Disney Toy Story franchise about toys that, unknown to humans, can talk and move on their own. This one the highest-grossing film of the franchise, so far, earning more than a billion dollars and, I predict, another nomination for best animated picture. Once again, we see a crisis with the toys becoming obsolete. Bonnie is an 8-year-old girl who loves to play with her toys, but other kids her age think she's backwards and shun her because of it. They all spend their time looking at screens, so Bonnie's parents give her a screen device named Lilypad to help her make friends. Lilypad is designed to look like a frog and she has a female voice. Bonnie becomes addicted to Lilypad, uses her internet connections to make new friends, and forgets about her other toys. Bonnie's former favorite toy, Jessie, a cowgirl doll, discovers another girl Bonnie's age named Blaze, who also likes to play with toys, so Jessie arranges to have the girls meet each other, hoping they will continue to play with their toys. When Bonnie goes to Blaze's house, we see that Blaze has a pet salamander named Sammy 2, who plays a small part in the story and even returns in the credits. We see Woody, the cowboy doll who is the leader of the toys, and Buzz Lightyear, a space man toy, at Blaze's house, sabotaging Bonnie's Lilypad device. They drained Lilypad's power so Bonnie can't use her when she wakes up, then they charge her up just enough to try to change her settings. But they can't use their tiny plastic hands on her touchscreen, so Woody tells Buzz to get Sammy 2. He takes comically long time to catch the salamander while Woody waits, but eventually he catches it and carries it to the screen where he uses its hands to try to change Lilypad's settings so that Bonnie can't use the device. But Lilypad stops them by falling on top of them, allowing Sammy 2 to run away. I like that the Pixar people are fans of salamanders. At one time they even planned to make a movie with a salamander as the main character called "Newt" but it was cancelled. You can read about it on the Pixar Wicki: https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Newt. Sammy 2 is a fun minor character in the movie, but there are some problems with him or her. One is a typical problem with people's perception of salamanders: many people think they're a type of lizard, but they're not reptiles, they're amphibians that live much different lives than lizards. We first see Sammy 2 in a terrarium set up for a day-active lizard. Sammy 2 is standing on a branch basking under a heat lamp, which is what lizards do, not salamanders. Salamanders spend their days hiding in cool, dark, moist places, then they come out at night to wander around and find food. (This is why they don't make good film characters or mascots for car insurance companies.) Sammy 2 is a Tiger Salamander, one of the better salamanders to keep as a pet because they breathe through lungs, not through their moist skin like other more fragile salamanders, but they still aren't very active in daylight. Another problem with Sammy 2 is that the salamander's tongue is always sticking out of its mouth. That's not something you see on a healthy salamander.