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Amphibia    Caudata    Plethodontidae  

Larch Mountain Salamander
Plethodon larselli Burns, 1954
PLEH-tho-don — LAR-sell-eye

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

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Occurrences:; 343 Total; 150 Museum; 193 Other
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Province/State Distribution:
United States: Oregon Washington

Taxonomic Etymology:
Named in honor of a local naturalist.
Plethodon — From Greek plethos (πλῆθος), meaning “multitude” or “fullness,” and odōn (ὀδών), meaning “tooth”—“many-toothed,” referring to the numerous vomerine teeth characteristic of the genus.
larselli — A patronym honoring Olof Larsell (1886–1964), a professor of anatomy and an authority on the comparative anatomy of the brain, especially of lower vertebrates..

First instance(s) of published English names:
Larch Mountain Salamander (Plethodon vandykei larselli: 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);

Taxon Links:

  
Catalog of American Amphibians and Reptiles
  
Amphibian Species of the World
  
NatureServe
  
iNaturalist
  
GenBank
  
USGS - Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database

Selected References:
1954 Burns, D. M. A new subspecies of the salamander Plethodon vandykei. Herpetologica 10:83-87
1956 Highton, Richard. The relationships of the salamanders of the genus Plethodon. Dissertation. University of Florida, Gainesville. 224pp.
1962 Highton, Richard. Revision of North American salamanders of the genus Plethodon. Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, Biological Sciences 6(3):235-267
1964 Burns, Douglas M. Plethodon larselli.. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (13):1-1
1970 Brodie, Edmund D., Jr. Western salamanders of the genus Plethodon: Systematics and geographic variation. Herpetologica 26(4):468-516
1979 Highton, Richard and A. Larson. The genetic relationships of salamanders of the genus Plethodon. Systematic Zoology 28(4):579-599
1979 Maxson, Linda R., Richard Highton, and David B. Wake. Albumin evolution and its phylogenetic implications in the plethodontid salamander genera Plethodon and Ensatina. Copeia 1979(3):502-508
1991 Highton, Richard H. Molecular phylogeny of Plethodonine salamanders and Hylid frogs: Statistical analysis of protein comparisons. Molecular Biology and Evolution 8(6):796-818
1993 Arnold, Steven J., Nancy L. Reagan, and Paul A. Verrell. Reproductive isolation and speciation in plethodontid salamanders. Herpetologica 49(2):216-228
2006 Kozak, Kenneth H., David W. Weisrock, and Allan Larson. Rapid lineage accumulation in a non-adaptive radiation: Phylogenetic analysis of diversification rates in eastern North American woodland salamanders (Plethodontidae: Plethodon). Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 2006(273):539-546
2010 Kozak, Kenneth H. and John J. Wiens. Accelerated rates of climatic-niche evolution underlie rapid species diversification. Ecology Letter 13:1378-1389
2026 Waldron, Brian P., Maggie M. Hantak, Emily F. Watts, Josef C. Uyeda, Alan R. Lemmon, Emily Moriarty Lemmon, Robert P. Guralnick, David C. Blackburn, and Shawn R. Kuchta. Phylogenomics of the woodland salamanders (Plethodon): Reticulate evolution and indistinct species boundaries. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 218(2026):108579

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Monday 10 August 2026 03:02 CT