The mole salamanders are a group of advanced salamanders endemic to North America. The group has become famous due to the presence of the axolotl, widely used in research due to its paedomorphosis, and the tiger salamander which is the official amphibian of many states, and often sold as a pet.
The Mexican blind lizard is a species of legless lizard in the family Dibamidae, and the only species in the genus Anelytropsis. It is endemic to Mexico. They look like Amphisbaenia, but are in fact, only distantly related.
The California tiger salamander is a vulnerable amphibian native to California. It is a mole salamander. Previously considered to be a subspecies of the tiger salamander, the California tiger salamander was recently designated a separate species again. The California tiger salamander distinct population segment (DPS) in Sonoma County and the Santa Barbara County DPS are listed as federally endangered, while the Central California DPS is listed as federally threatened. The Sonoma County, south San Joaquin, and the Santa Barbara County DPS have diverged from the rest of the California tiger salamander populations for over one million years, since the Pleistocene and they may warrant status as separate species.
The Jefferson salamander is a mole salamander native to the northeastern United States, southern and central Ontario, and southwestern Quebec. It was named after Jefferson College in Pennsylvania.
The frosted flatwoods salamander is an endangered salamander species native to the Southeastern United States.
Taylor's salamander is a species of salamander found only in Laguna Alchichica, a high-altitude crater lake to the southwest of Perote, Mexico. It was first described in 1982 but had been known to science prior to that. It is a neotenic salamander, breeding while still in the larval state and not undergoing metamorphosis. The lake in which it lives is becoming increasingly saline and less suitable for the salamander, which is declining in numbers. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has rated it as being "critically endangered".
Anderson's salamander is a neotenic salamander from Zacapu Lagoon in the Mexican state of Michoacán.
The Santa Cruz long-toed salamander is an endangered subspecies of the long-toed salamander, which is found only close to a few isolated ponds in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties in California. It has a black body, broken yellow or orange irregular striping along its spine, and a tail fin well evolved for swimming. Like other mole salamanders, it is found near pools or slow-moving streams and has a very secretive lifestyle, making it difficult to find.
The Lake Lerma salamander is an extremely rare, occasionally neotenic mole salamander species from Mexico.
The Puerto Hondo stream salamander or Michoacan stream salamander is a mole salamander from the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt within the Mexican state of Michoacán.
The small-mouth salamander is a species of mole salamander found in the central United States, from the Great Lakes region in Michigan to Nebraska, south to Texas, and east to Tennessee, with a population in Canada, in Pelee, Ontario. It is sometimes referred to as the Texas salamander, porphyry salamander, or the narrow-mouthed salamander. The Kelley's Island salamander was synonymized with A. texanum in 1995.
Ambystoma talpoideum, the mole salamander, is a species of salamander found in much of the eastern and central United States, from Florida to Texas, north to Illinois, east to Kentucky, with isolated populations in Virginia and Indiana. Older sources often refer to this species as the tadpole salamander because some individuals remain in a neotenic state. This salamander lives among the leaf litter on the forest floor, migrating to ponds to breed.
Iztaccíhuatl–Popocatépetl National Park, also known as Izta-Popo Zoquiapan National Park, is a national park in Mexico on the border of the states of México, Puebla, and Morelos. The park protects 39,819.08 hectares, surrounding Mexico's second- and third-highest peaks, the Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl volcanoes as well as the area of the Hacienda de Zoquiapán, and its annexed areas (anexas) of Zoquiapan, Ixtlahuacán, and the Frío de Juárez River.
Ambystoma rivulare is a species of mole salamander in the family Ambystomatidae. Typically gains a lot of population distribution in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt around central Mexico City. Found in various small or medium-sized ponds and lakes that have large and wide range of food options, all within a distance of at least 2 km. It is endemic to Mexico. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist montane forests and rivers. It is threatened by habitat loss. The larvae, who continue to prey on the same organisms as they grow, prey mainly on ostracods as well as some gastropods and assorted other prey with limited diversity. Ambystoma rivulare continue to live in the river they hatch in post-metamorphosis.
The plateau tiger salamander or Mexican tiger salamander is a species of mole salamander in the family Ambystomatidae. It is typically considered endemic to Mexico, although its range might extend to the United States. Its natural habitat is grassland, including sparse forest and semiarid grassland. Breeding takes place in a range of aquatic habitats: deep volcanic lakes, shallow vernal pools, artificial cattle ponds, and intermittent, fish-free stream pools. It exhibits facultative paedomorphosis.
The silvery salamander is a hybrid species of mole salamander from the United States of America and Canada. It is usually between 5.5 – 7.75 in long and is slender with many small silvery-blue spots on its back and sides. It is brownish grey and the area around its vent is grey. This unisexual Ambystoma hybrid species, has been grouped with other unisexual ambystomatids that takes genetic material from Jefferson salamander, streamside salamander, small-mouthed salamander, tiger salamander and the blue-spotted salamander.
The reticulated flatwoods salamander is a species of mole salamander, an amphibian in the family Ambystomatidae. The species is native to a small portion of the southeastern coastal plain of the United States in the western panhandle of Florida and extreme southwestern Georgia. The species once occurred in portions of southern Alabama but is now considered extirpated there. Its ecology and life history are nearly identical to its sister species, the frosted flatwoods salamander. A. bishopi inhabits seasonally wet pine flatwoods and pine savannas west of the Apalachicola River-Flint River system. The fire ecology of longleaf pine savannas is well-known, but there is less information on natural fire frequencies of wetland habitats in this region. Like the frosted flatwoods salamander, the reticulated flatwoods salamander breeds in ephemeral wetlands with extensive emergent vegetation, probably maintained by summer fires. Wetlands overgrown with woody shrubs are less likely to support breeding populations.
The mountain stream salamander or mountain stream siredon is a species of mole salamander that only lives in central México.
The Oriental Basin pocket gopher is a species of pocket gopher which is endemic to Mexico. It was first described in 1895 by Clinton Hart Merriam. It was considered to be a subspecies of Merriam's pocket gopher in the late 20th and early 21st century but has been reinstated as its own species. The IUCN Red List has evaluated it to be of least concern.
