Climbing salamander

Climbing salamanders is the common name for plethodontid (lungless) salamanders of the genus Aneides.[1] As this name suggests, most of these species have prehensile tails and are as mobile up a tree as in a stream.

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

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
Castaneides

(Patton et al., 2019)

 Aneides aeneus
(Cope & Packard, 1881)		green salamander
Aneides caryaensis
Patton et al., 2019[2]		Hickory Nut Gorge green salamander
Aneides

(Baird, 1851)

 Aneides ferreus
Cope, 1869		 clouded salamander
Aneides flavipunctatus
(Strauch, 1870)		 black salamander
Aneides hardii
(Taylor, 1941)		 Sacramento Mountain salamander
Aneides iecanus
(Cope, 1883)		 Shasta black salamander
Aneides klamathensis
Reilly & Wake, 2019		 Klamath black salamander
Aneides lugubris
(Hallowell, 1849)		 arboreal salamander
Aneides niger
Myers & Maslin, 1948		 Santa Cruz black salamander
Aneides vagrans
Wake & Jackman, 1999		 wandering salamander


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

References
  1. 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. 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. "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).


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