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Bolitoglossa rufescens (Cope, 1869)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Caudata > Family: Plethodontidae > Subfamily: Hemidactyliinae > Genus: Bolitoglossa

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Oedipus rufescens Cope, 1869, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 21: 104. Holotype: USNM 6886, by original designation; not mentioned in USNM type list by Cochran, 1961, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 220: 1-291, so presumed lost. Type locality: "Orizava" (= Orizaba), Veracruz, Mexico.

Spelerpes (Oedipus) rufescens — Peters, 1873, Monatsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1873: 617.

Geotriton rufescens — Smith, 1877, Tailed Amph.: 76.

Spelerpes rufescens — Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Grad. Batr. Apoda Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 71.

Oedipus rufescens — Dunn, 1926, Salamanders Fam. Plethodontidae: 418.

Bolitoglossa rufescens — Taylor, 1941, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 27: 145.

Palmatotriton rufescens — Smith, 1945, Ward’s Nat. Sci. Bull., 19: 4.

Bolitoglossa rufescens — Smith and Taylor, 1948, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 194: 23.

Bolitoglossa (Nanotriton) rufescens — Parra-Olea, García-París, and Wake, 2004, Biol. J. Linn. Soc., 81: 335.

English Names

Northern Banana Salamander (Liner, 1994, Herpetol. Circ., 23: 11; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 30; Lee, 2000, Field Guide Amph. Rept. Maya World: 56; Liner and Casas-Andreu, 2008, Herpetol. Circ., 38: 29).

Rufescent Salamander (Lee, 1996, Amph. Rept. Yucatan Peninsula: 43).

Common Dwarf Salamander (Campbell, 1998, Amph. Rept. N. Guatemala Yucatan Belize: 39).

Distribution

Extreme eastern San Luis Potosí (Mexico) south through Veracruz, and, provisionally east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Chiapas to Belize and northern Honduras, along the Atlantic slopes (see comment).

Comment

Formerly in the Bolitoglossa rufescens group which now constitutes the subgenus Nanotriton according to Parra-Olea, García-París, and Wake, 2004, Biol. J. Linn. Soc., 81: 335. Populations near Catemaco, Veracruz, Mexico, were referred to this species (rather than Bolitoglossa occidentalis) by Larson, 1983, Herpetologica, 39: 97. See also Elias, 1984, Contrib. Sci. Nat. Hist. Mus. Los Angeles Co., 348: 11; Lee, 1996, Amph. Rept. Yucatan Peninsula: 43-44; Campbell, 1998, Amph. Rept. N. Guatemala Yucatan Belize: 39-40; and Lee, 2000, Field Guide Amph. Rept. Maya World: 56-57. McCranie and Wilson, 2002, Amph. Honduras: 129-131, note that "Bolitoglossa rufescens" from Honduras is not conspecific with Bolitoglossa rufescens from farther north. Raffaëlli, 2007, Les Urodèles du Monde: 246-247, provided a brief account, photograph, and map. McCranie, 2007, Herpetol. Rev., 38: 36, summarized the departmental distribution in Honduras. Campbell, Smith, Streicher, Acevedo, and Brodie, 2010, Misc. Publ. Mus. Zool. Univ. Michigan, 200: 40, confirmed the distinctivenes of this species from Bolitoglossa occidentalis, named the Guatemalan population southeast of the Rio Motagua (as Bolitoglossa nympha), and noted that the populations east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec were unlikely to be conspecific with Bolitoglossa rufescens (sensu stricto). The Sierra Juarez population in Oaxaca was recently named as Bolitoglossa chinanteca.

External Links

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  • For additional sources of information from other sites search Google
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  • For information aggregation from other sites and some original accounts see AmphibiaWeb report
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  • For related information on conservation and images as well as observation see iNaturalist;
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