THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY


Amphibia    Caudata    Plethodontidae  

Pisgah Black-bellied Salamander
Desmognathus mavrokoilius Pyron and Beamer, 2022
dez-mog-NAWK-us — mav-roe-koy-LEE-us

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
New Species. Delimited from the invalid D. quadramaculatus by Pyron and Beamer (2022, Bionomina 27: 1–43).

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2023.08.30.08.17.52)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 0.08 MB

Province/State Distribution:
USA: North Carolina Tennessee Virginia

First instance(s) of published English names:
Black Salamander (Desmognathus nigra: Jordan, David Starr. 1876. Manual of the Vertebrates of the Northern United States: Including the District East of the Mississippi River, and North of North Carolina and Tennessee, Exclusive of Marine Species. Jansen, McClurg, and Company, Chicago, Illinois.. 342pp.); Black Salamander (Desmognathus nigra: Jordan, David S. 1878. Manual of the Vertebrates of the Northern United States: Including the District East of the Mississippi River, and North of North Carolina and Tennessee, Exclusive of Marine Species. Second Edition, Revised, and Enlarged. Jansen, McClurg & Company, Chicago. pp.); Black Triton (Desmognathus nigra: Yarrow, Henry C. 1882. Check list of North American Reptilia and Batrachia with catalogue of specimens in U. S. National Museum. Bulletin of the United States National Museum (24):1-249); Black Salamander (Desmognathus nigra: Garman, H. 1892. A synopsis of the reptiles and amphibians of Illinois. Illinois Laboratory of Natural History Bulletin 3():215-403); Mountain Triton (Desmognathus quadrimaculatus: Brimley, Clement S. 1915. List of reptiles and amphibians of North Carolina. Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society 30(4):195-206); Black-bellied Salamander (Desmognathus quadramaculatus: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Black-bellied Salamander (Desmognathus quadramaculatus: 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:
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 Letters 13:1378-1389
2022 Pyron, R. Alexander and David A. Beamer. Nomenclatural solutions for diagnosing ‘cryptic’ species using molecular and morphological data facilitate a taxonomic revision of the Black-bellied Salamanders (Urodela, Desmognathusquadramaculatus’) from the southern Appalachian Mountains. Bionomina 27(1):1–43
2025 Pyron, R. Alexander, Kyle A. O'connell, Edward A. Myers, David A. Beamer, and Hector Banos. Complex hybridization in a clade of polytypic salamanders (Plethodontidae: Desmognathus) uncovered by estimating higher-level phylogenetic networks. Systematic Biology 74(1):124-140

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Wednesday 11 June 2025 09:06 CT