Amphibian Species of the World 5.6, an Online Reference

Ambystoma californiense Gray, 1853, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1853: 11. Type(s): BMNH. Type locality: "California, Monterey, in a well", USA. Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 23, considered Monterey as in error and corrected the type locality to "vicinity of San Francisco", California, USA.

Ambystoma tigrinum californiense — Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 86. Dunn, 1940, Copeia, 1940: 157.

Ambystoma californiense — Dunn, 1918, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 62: 457. Storer, 1925, Univ. California Publ. Zool., 27: 60; Bishop, 1943, Handb. Salamanders: 119; Shaffer and McKnight, 1996, Evolution, 50: 417-433.

Ambystoma (Ambystoma) tigrinum californiense — Tihen, 1958, Bull. Florida State Mus., Biol. Sci., 3: 36.

English Names

California Axolotl (Yarrow, 1882, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 24: 20).

California Tiger Salamander (Storer, 1925, Univ. California Publ. Zool., 27: 42; Bishop, 1943, Handb. Salamanders: 119; Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 23; Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 173; Stebbins, 1966, Field Guide W. North Am. Rept. Amph.: 34; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 4; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 27; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 5; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 18; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2008, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 37: 13; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 10; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 23).

Distribution

Highly fragmented range in coastal California from the vicinity of Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, south to Lompoc area, Santa Barbara County, also in the Central Valley of California and adjacent foothills; in the Sierra from southern Sacramento County to northwestern Tulare County and in the innter Coast Range to the Temblor Range, California, USA.

Comment

Removed from the synonymy of Ambystoma tigrinum by Shaffer and McKnight, 1996, Evolution, 50: 417-433, where it had been placed most recently by Gehlbach, 1967, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 52: 1-4 (and earlier by Garman, 1884, Bull. Essex Inst., 16: 36). See discussion of the Ambystoma tigrinum complex by Collins, Mitton, and Pierce, 1980, Copeia, 1980: 938-941; Shaffer and McKnight, 1996, Evolution, 50: 417-433; and Irschick and Shaffer, 1997, Herpetologica, 53: 30-49. See account by Petranka, 1998, Salamand. U.S. Canada: 47. Stebbins, 2003, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 3: 153-154, provided a brief account, figure, and map, and suggested that the Santa Barbara County population might constitute a distinct species. Raffaëlli, 2007, Les Urodèles du Monde: 80, provided a brief account, map, and figure. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 544. Fitzpatrick, Johnson, Kump, Shaffer, Smith, and Voss, 2009, BMC Evol. Biol., 9 (176): 1-11, reported on hybridization with introduced Ambystoma mavortium. Johnson, Thomson, Micheletti, and Shaffer, 2011, Conserv. Genetics, 12: 355-370, reported on hybridization with introduced populations of Ambystoma mavortium (as Ambystoma tigrinum) throughout California, Oregon, and Washington, USA.

External Links

Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.

• For additional sources of information from other sites search Google
• For images search Arkive, CalPhoto Images and Google Images
• To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
• For information aggregation from other sites and some original accounts see AmphibiaWeb report
• For further information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
• For related information on conservation and images as well as observation see iNaturalist;
• for a quick link to their maps see iNaturalist KML