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Amphibia    Caudata    Plethodontidae  
Black Mountain Salamander
Desmognathus welteri Barbour, 1950
DEZ-moh-NAY-thus — WEL-ter-eye
Taxon Links
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Amphibian Species of the World
Catalog of American Amphibians and Reptiles
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USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 There are no current SSAR comments for this taxon.

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Open icons indicate questionable records, including those with coordinate uncertainty greater than 10,000 m (approximately 6 miles). Click a marker to view metadata.
Occurrences:; 860 Total; 787 Museum; 73 Other

The locality database contains 8,094,832 records, and geographic and taxonomic errors exist. Logged-in, registered users may report a potential issue directly from the marker popup.
Shaded range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH. (Version: 2023.04.08.20.40.10)
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Province/State Distribution:
United States: Kentucky Tennessee Virginia West Virginia

Taxonomic Etymology:
Named for a zoologist.
Desmognathus — Greek desmos = “ligament” + gnathos = “jaw”
welteri — Patronym honoring Wilfred T. Welter (1906–1939), a zoologist and herpetologist who collected the holotype specimen.

First instance(s) of published English names:
Black Mountain Dusky Salamander (Desmognathus fuscus welteri: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Black Mountain Salamander (Desmognathus fuscus welteri: Conant, Roger, Fred R. Cagle, Coleman J. Goin, Charles H. Lowe, Wilfred T. Neill, M. Graham Netting, Karl P. Schmidt, Charles E. Shaw, Robert C. Stebbins, and Charles M. Bogert. 1956. Common names for North American amphibians and reptiles. Copeia 1956(3):172-185);


Selected References:
1950 Barbour, Roger W. A new subspecies of the salamander Desmognathus fuscus. Copeia 1950:277–278
1993 Arnold, Steven J., Nancy L. Reagan, and Paul A. Verrell. Reproductive isolation and speciation in plethodontid salamanders. Herpetologica 49(2):216-228
1996 Titus, Tom A. and Allan Larson. Molecular phylogenetics of Desmognathine salamanders (Caudata: Plethodontidae): A reevaluation of evolution in ecology, life history, and morphology. Systematic Biology 45(4):451-472
2010 Kozak, Kenneth H. and John J. Wiens. Accelerated rates of climatic-niche evolution underlie rapid species diversification. Ecology Letter 13:1378-1389

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