Desmognathus apalachicolae Means and Karlin, 1989

Class: Amphibia > Order: Caudata > Family: Plethodontidae > Subfamily: Plethodontinae > Genus: Desmognathus > Species: Desmognathus apalachicolae

Desmognathus apalachicolae Means and Karlin, 1989, Herpetologica, 45: 38. Holotype: USNM 269079, by original designation. Type locality: "Big Sweetwater Creek steephead . . ., 60 m elevation, in SE 1/4 Section 11, Township 1 N, Range 7 W, Liberty 7 W, Liberty County, Florida", USA.

Desmognathus (Desmognathus) apalachicolaeDubois and Raffaëlli, 2012, Alytes, 28: 145. See comment under Desmognathus regarding the status of these subgenera. 

English Names

Apalachicola Dusky Salamander (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 31; 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: 20; 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: 11; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 25; Powell, Conant, and Collins, 2016, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. North Am., 4th ed.: 41; Highton, Bonett, and Jockusch, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 25).

Distribution

Southwestern Georgia, southeastern Alabama and south to the Apalachicola region of northwestern Florida, USA.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: United States of America, United States of America - Alabama, United States of America - Florida, United States of America - Georgia

Endemic: United States of America

Comment

Most closely related to Desmognathus ochrophaeus according to the original publication. See detailed accounts by Means, 1993, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 556: 1–2, and Petranka, 1998, Salamand. U.S. Canada: 162–164. Graham, Timpe, and Giovanetto, 2008, Herpetol. Rev., 38: 494–495, provided a specific locality for Piedmont region of Georgia, USA. Beamer and Lamb, 2008, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 47: 143–153, reported on phylogenetics of Desmognathus on the Gulf Coastal Plain and redelimited the species and its range. Means, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 698–699, provided an account containing a detailed summary of the literature and range. Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 425, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada: 105–106, provided an account of larval morphology. Pyron, O'Connell, Lemmon, Lemmon, and Beamer, 2022, Ecol. Evol., 12 (2: e8574): 1–38, provided molecular evidence that Desmognathus apalachicolae is a single lineage-species. Pyron and Beamer, 2022, Zootaxa, 5190: 207–240, discussed mtDNA, nuDNA, and morphological evidence of relationship and transferred the nominal populations of northeastern Georgia to Desmognathus ocoeeRaffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 987–989, provided an account summarizing systematics, morphology, life history, population status, and distribution (including a polygon map). 

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