Desmognathus ocoee Nicholls, 1949
Desmognathus ocoee Nicholls, 1949, J. Tennessee Acad. Sci., 24: 127. Holotype: USNM 128007, by original designation. Type locality: "on the surface and in crevices of cliffs at Ship's Prow Rock, in Ocoee Gorge, beside U.S. Highway 64, nine miles airline west of Ducktown, in Polk County, Tennessee", USA.
Desmognathus perlapsus Neill, 1950, Publ. Res. Div. Ross Allen’s Rept. Inst., 1: 1. Holotype: ERA-WTN 14150 (to be deposited in FSM), by original designation. Type locality: "rocky outcropping on the western wall of Tallulah Gorge, near the twon of Tallulah Falls, Rabun County, Georgia", USA. Synonymy (with Desmognathus ocoee) by Valentine, 1961, Copeia, 1961: 315-322.
English Names
Ocoee Salamander (Desmognathus ocoee: Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 30; Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 174; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 6; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 21; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 16; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 12; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 26).
Tallulah Salamander (Desmognathus perlapsus [no longer recognized]: Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 30).
Cliffside Salamander (Desmognathus perlapsus [no longer recognized]: Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 174; Conant, 1958, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. Cent. N. Am.: 225).
Distribution
Two allopatric units, one in the Appalachian Plateau of northeastern Alabama and adjacent Tennessee, and the other in the southwestern Blue Ridge Physiographic Province of western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, extreme western South Carolina, and northern Georgia, south of the Pigeon River (Balsam, Blue Ridge, Cowee, Great Smoky, Nantahala, Snowbird, Tusquitee, and Unicoi Mountains.
Comment
Resurrected from the synonymy of Desmognathus ochrophaeus by Tilley and Mahoney, 1996, Herpetol. Monogr., 10: 25, where it had been placed by Martof and Rose, 1963, Am. Midl. Nat., 69: 376. See also account by Valentine, 1964, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 7: 1-2. Highton, Tilley, and Wake in Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 21, noted that Desmognathus ocoee is composed of of genetically heterogeneous allopatric and parapatric units that occupy different mountain ranges in the southern Blue Ridge and Cumberland Plateau physiographic provinces and noted that the relationships among these isolates as well as with other species of Desmognathus deserve additional study.
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
