THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY
Loading taxon account
Retrieving account information and occurrence data...

Amphibia    Caudata    Plethodontidae  
Wandering Salamander
Aneides vagrans (Wake and Jackman, 1999)
AH-nee-des — VAY-granz
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.
Errata/Changes: Page 11: Authority/publication date should not be in parentheses. — (9/14/2025)

(,   Museum Voucher) (,   Observation) (,   Literature Record), (,   Citizen Science), (  Fossil)
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:; 2,199 Total; 1,015 Museum; 1,184 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: 2023.04.08.10.07.48)
Download map data (GeoJSON):
Polygon Range File Museum Literature Fossil Personal Observation Citizen Science

Province/State Distribution:
Canada: British Columbia
United States: California

Taxonomic Etymology:
Named for its disjunct and wide-ranging populations.
Aneides — Greek an- = “not” + eidos = “form”
vagrans — Latin vagrans = “wandering” — reflects its distribution across both California and Vancouver Island.

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


Selected References:
1950 Lowe, Charles H., Jr. The systematic status of the salamander Plethodon hardii, with a discussion of biogeographical problems in Aneides. Copeia 1950:92-99
1974 Wake, David B. Aneides.. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (157):1-2
1999 Wake, David B. and Todd R. Jackman. Appendix 1. Pages 1579-1580 in Molecular and historical evidence for the introduction of clouded salamanders (genus Aneides) to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, from California. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 76: 1570-1580. pp.
1999 Jackman, Todd R. Molecular and historical evidence for the introduction of clouded salamanders (genus Aneides) to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, from California. Canadian Journal of Zoology 76:1570–1580
2010 Kozak, Kenneth H. and John J. Wiens. Accelerated rates of climatic-niche evolution underlie rapid species diversification. Ecology Letter 13:1378-1389

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Thursday 01 October 2026 16:07 CT
Site concept, design, and programming: Travis W. Taggart (CNAH President/Executive Director).
CNAH usage since 31 August 2026: 206,396 human page views • 110,985 visitors • 108,657 file accesses