Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
Single word	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Ambystoma talpoideum (Holbrook, 1838)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Caudata > Family: Ambystomatidae > Genus: Ambystoma > Species: Ambystoma talpoideum

Salamandra talpoidea Holbrook, 1838, N. Am. Herpetol., 3: 117, pl. 29. Type(s): Specimen figured on pl. 29 of the original; not known to still exist. Type locality: "sea islands on the borders of South Carolina", USA.

Ambystoma ? talpoideum — Gray, 1850, Cat. Spec. Amph. Coll. Brit. Mus., Batr. Grad.: 36.

Amblystoma talpoideum — Cope, 1868 "1867", Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 19: 172.

Ambystoma talpoideum — Hay, 1892, Annu. Rep. Dept. Geol. Nat. Res. Indiana for 1891: 582.

Ambystoma (Ambystoma) talpoideum — Tihen, 1958, Bull. Florida State Mus., Biol. Sci., 3: 3, 38; Dubois and Raffaëlli, 2012, Alytes, 28: 77–161. See comment under Ambystoma regarding subgenera.

English Names

Tadpole Salamander (Yarrow, 1882, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 24: 20).

Mole Salamander (Jordan, 1878, Man. Vert. North. U.S., Ed. 2: 194; Davis and Rice, 1883, Bull. Chicago Acad. Sci., 1: 26; Brimley, 1907, J. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc., 23: 152; Bishop, 1943, Handb. Salamanders: 151; Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 21; Conant, 1975, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. Cent. N. Am., Ed. 2: 250; 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, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 14; 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: 24; Powell, Conant, and Collins, 2016, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. North Am., 4th ed.: 36; Highton, Bonett, and Jockusch, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 23).

Distribution

East Texas to northern Florida north to southeastern Missouri, extreme southern Illinois and extreme southwestern Indiana, western Kentucky and (in isolated populations) to central Virginia, USA.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: United States of America, United States of America - Alabama, United States of America - Arkansas, United States of America - Florida, United States of America - Georgia, United States of America - Illinois, United States of America - Indiana, United States of America - Kentucky, United States of America - Louisiana, United States of America - Mississippi, United States of America - Missouri, United States of America - North Carolina, United States of America - Oklahoma, United States of America - South Carolina, United States of America - Tennessee, United States of America - Texas, United States of America - Virginia

Endemic: United States of America

Comment

See detailed accounts by Shoop, 1964, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 8: 1–2, Petranka, 1998, Salamand. U.S. Canada: 96–102 (who suggested that additional study might document that the Atlantic Coast and Gulf Coast populations were different species), and Trauth, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 632–636. Williams and MacGowan, 2004, Herpetol. Rev., 35: 279, reported a locality in Indiana. Robison and Winters, 1978, Herpetol. Rev., 9: 21, provided an extension in Arkansas Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 104–105, provided a brief account, photo, and map. Huse, 2020, Herpetol. Rev., 51: 767, provided a record from Bowie County, Texas, on the western periphery of the range. Hernandez, 2021, Mertensiella, 30: 36–43, reviewed the species. Raffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 163–165, provided an account, summarizing systematics, life history, population status, and distribution (including a polygon map). Bassett, 2023, Reptiles & Amphibians, 30(e18486): 1–18, provided an updated county distribution map for Texas, USA.

External links:

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For access to general information see Wikipedia
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To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
For additional information see AmphibiaWeb report
For information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
For information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
For related information on conservation and images as well as observations see iNaturalist
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.