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Amphibia    Caudata    Plethodontidae  
Brown-backed Salamander
Eurycea aquatica Rose and Bush, 1963
yoor-EE-see-uh — uh-KWAH-ti-kuh
Taxon Links
iNaturalist
Amphibian Species of the World
Catalog of American Amphibians and Reptiles
NatureServe
GenBank
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:; 804 Total; 584 Museum; 220 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: 2023.04.08.20.59.19)
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Polygon Range File Museum Literature Fossil Personal Observation Citizen Science

Province/State Distribution:
United States: Alabama Georgia Tennessee

Taxonomic Etymology:
Named for its semi-aquatic lifestyle.
Eurycea — Rafinesque (1822) intentionally used a mythological-sounding name, but its specific Greek meaning or derivation was not disclosed. So, while modern etymologists may connect Eurycea to Eurydice or Greek roots (eurys “broad”), Rafinesque himself treated it as a classical name without a defined origin.
aquatica — Latin aquaticus = “of the water”; Refers to its streamside habitat and aquatic tendencies.

First instance(s) of published English names:
No historic English names have been assigned to this taxon yet.


Selected References:
1963 Rose, Francis L. and F. M. Bush. A new species of Eurycea (Amphibia: Caudata) from the southeastern United States. Tulane Studies in Zoology 10:121–128
1971 Rose, Francis L. Eurycea aquatica.. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (116):1-2
1993 Arnold, Steven J., Nancy L. Reagan, and Paul A. Verrell. Reproductive isolation and speciation in plethodontid salamanders. Herpetologica 49(2):216-228
2009 Lucas, Lauren K., Zachariah Gompert, James R. Ott, and Chris C. Nice. Geographic and genetic isolation in spring-associated Eurycea salamanders endemic to the Edwards Plateau region of Texas. Conservation Genetics 10:1309-1319
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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