Blacksburg salamander

The Blacksburg salamander (Plethodon jacksoni) is a species of salamander in the family Plethodontidae.[1] It is endemic to the Southeastern United States, where it is restricted to the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Virginia and northwestern North Carolina. It is named after the town of Blacksburg, Virginia, as its first recorded sighting was within its vicinity. Its natural habitat is temperate forest.[1]

Blacksburg salamander
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Urodela
Family: Plethodontidae
Subfamily: Plethodontinae
Genus: Plethodon
Species:
P. jacksoni
Binomial name
Plethodon jacksoni
Newman, 1954
Synonyms[1]
  • Plethodon wehrlei jacksoni Cochran, 1961
  • Plethodon wehrlei (in part) Highton, 1962

Taxonomy

Shortly after its initial description,[2] it was considered to be a southern population of the Wehrle's salamander (P. wehrlei)[3] and was lumped in with it for many years, but a 2019 study recovered it as a distinct species, finding P. wehrlei to be a paraphyletic taxon.[1][4][5][6] However, not all taxonomic issues within P. jacksoni were solved during the study, and thus P. jacksoni itself may be paraphyletic. The holotype was collected in Montgomery County, Virginia.[1]

References
  1. Camp, Carlos D.; Pierson, Todd W.; Wooten, Jessica A.; Felix, Zachary I. (2019-05-24). "Re-evaluation of the Wehrle's salamander (Plethodon wehrlei Fowler and Dunn) species group (Caudata: Plethodontidae) using genomic data, with the description of a new species". Zootaxa. 4609 (3): 429–448. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4609.3.2. ISSN 1175-5334.
  2. Newman, Walter B. (1954). "A New Plethodontid Salamander from Southwestern Virginia". Herpetologica. 10 (1): 9–14. ISSN 0018-0831. JSTOR 20171296.
  3. Cochran, D.M. (1961) Type specimens of reptiles and amphibians in the US National Museum. Bulletin of the United States National Museum, 220, 1–291.
  4. Highton, R. (1962) Revision of North American salamanders of the genus Plethodon. Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, 6, 235–367.
  5. "AmphibiaWeb - Plethodon jacksoni". amphibiaweb.org. Retrieved 28 September 2019.
  6. "AmphibiaWeb - Plethodon wehrlei". amphibiaweb.org. Retrieved 28 September 2019.
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