Climbing salamanders
Aneides lugubris
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Urodela
Family: Plethodontidae
Subfamily: Plethodontinae
Genus: Aneides
Baird, 1851
Subgenera
Synonyms[1]

Climbing salamanders is the common name for plethodontid (lungless) salamanders of the genus Aneides.[1] It contains 10 species native to North America, distributed between the Pacific Coast (7 species), Sacramento Mountains (1 species), and Appalachian Mountains (2 species). As their common name suggests, most of these species have prehensile tails and are quite mobile in trees.

Taxonomy

The green salamander (A. aeneus) and the Hickory Nut Gorge green salamander (A. caryaensis) are now considered to belong to their own subgenus Castaneides, which diverged from the Aneides hardii lineage between 27.2 and 32.3 million years ago, during the Oligocene. Castaneides contains significant cryptic diversity and may contain more as-of-yet undescribed species.[2] All other western Aneides including A. hardii are considered Aneides sensu stricto, and belong to the subgenus of the same name.[3]

Distribution

All ten known species in this genus inhabit mountain ecosystems in North America, and all but three are found primarily in the mountains of the west coast of the United States, Baja California and British Columbia. Of the three non-western species, the Sacramento Mountain salamander (A. hardii) is endemic to a mountainous region in New Mexico, while the two currently-described Castaneides species are endemic to the Appalachian Mountains of eastern United States.[2]

Species

Ten species in two subgenera are currently assigned to this genus:[1][3]

Subgenus ImageBinomial Name and AuthorCommon Name Distribution IUCN status
Castaneides

(Patton et al., 2019)

 Aneides aeneus
(Cope & Packard, 1881)		Green salamander Eastern United States (Appalachian Mountains, southwest Pennsylvania to northeast Mississippi) Near Threatened
Aneides caryaensis
Patton et al., 2019[2]		Hickory Nut Gorge green salamander Hickory Nut Gorge area of southwest North Carolina Critically Endangered
Aneides

(Baird, 1851)

Aneides ferreus
Cope, 1869		 Clouded salamander Pacific Coast of the United States (northernmost California to southernmost Washington) Least Concern
Aneides flavipunctatus
(Strauch, 1870)		 Speckled black salamander Pacific Coast of northern California Least Concern
Aneides hardii
(Taylor, 1941)		 Sacramento Mountain salamander Sacramento Mountains of south-central New Mexico Near Threatened
Aneides iecanus
(Cope, 1883)		 Shasta black salamander Shasta Mountains of northern California Endangered
Aneides klamathensis
Reilly & Wake, 2019		 Klamath black salamander Pacific Coast of the United States (northern California and southernmost Oregon) Least Concern
Aneides lugubris
(Hallowell, 1849)		 Arboreal salamander Southern Pacific Coast of North America (California to northernmost Baja California) Least Concern
Aneides niger
Myers & Maslin, 1948		 Santa Cruz black salamander Santa Cruz Mountains of California Endangered
Aneides vagrans
Wake & Jackman, 1999		 Wandering salamander Pacific Coast of North America (northern California and Vancouver Island) Least Concern

Nota bene: A binomial authority in parentheses indicates that the species was originally described in a genus other than Aneides.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Frost, Darrel R. (2017). "Aneides Baird, 1851". Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.0. American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 10 July 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 Patton, Austin; Apodaca, Joseph J.; Corser, Jeffrey D.; Wilson, Christopher R.; Williams, Lori A.; Cameron, Alan D.; Wake, David B. (December 2019). "A New Green Salamander in the Southern Appalachians: Evolutionary History of Aneides aeneus and Implications for Management and Conservation with the Description of a Cryptic Microendemic Species". Copeia. 107 (4): 748–763. doi:10.1643/CH-18-052. ISSN 0045-8511.
  3. 1 2 "Plethodontidae". AmphibiaWeb. University of California, Berkeley. 2017. Retrieved 10 July 2017.

Further reading

  • Baird SF (1851). Iconographic Encyclopædia of Science, Literature, and Art. Systematically Arranged by J. G. Heck. Translated from the German, with Additions, and Edited by Spencer F. Baird ... In Four Volumes. Vol II: Botany, Zoology, Anthropology, and Surgery. New York: Rudolph Garrique. xxiv + 203 (Botany) + 502 (Zoology) + 219 (Anthropology and Surgery) + xii + xvi + v (indices) pp. (Aneides, new genus, pp. 256–257 in Zoology).
Wikispecies has information related to Aneides.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.