Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniotic, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all tetrapods excluding the amniotes. All extant (living) amphibians belong to the monophyletic subclass Lissamphibia, with three living orders: Anura, Urodela (salamanders), and Gymnophiona (caecilians). Evolved to be mostly semiaquatic, amphibians have adapted to inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living in freshwater, wetland or terrestrial ecosystems. Their life cycle typically starts out as aquatic larvae with gills known as tadpoles, but some species have developed behavioural adaptations to bypass this.
The tiger salamander is a species of mole salamander and one of the largest terrestrial salamanders in North America.
The spotted salamander or yellow-spotted salamander is a mole salamander common in eastern United States and Canada. It is the state amphibian of Ohio and South Carolina. The species ranges from Nova Scotia, to Lake Superior, to southern Georgia and Texas. Its embryos have been found to have symbiotic algae living in and around them, the only known example of vertebrate cells hosting an endosymbiont microbe.
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 blue-spotted salamander is a mole salamander native to the Great Lakes states and northeastern United States, and parts of Ontario and Quebec in Canada. Their range is known to extend to James Bay to the north, and southeastern Manitoba to the west.
The streamside salamander is a species of mole salamander from North America, occurring in several Midwestern states of the US.
The frosted flatwoods salamander is an endangered salamander species native to the Southeastern United States.
The northwestern salamander is a species of mole salamander that inhabits the northwest Pacific coast of North America. These fairly large salamanders grow to 8.7 in (220 mm) in length. It is found from southeastern Alaska on May Island, through Washington and Oregon south to the mouth of the Gualala River, Sonoma County, California. It occurs from sea level to the timberline, but not east of the Cascade Divide. Its range includes Vancouver Island in British Columbia and The San Juan Islands, Cypress, Whidbey, Bainbridge, and Vashon Islands in Washington.
The long-toed salamander is a mole salamander in the family Ambystomatidae. This species, typically 4.1–8.9 cm (1.6–3.5 in) long when mature, is characterized by its mottled black, brown, and yellow pigmentation, and its long outer fourth toe on the hind limbs. Analysis of fossil records, genetics, and biogeography suggest A. macrodactylum and A. laterale are descended from a common ancestor that gained access to the western Cordillera with the loss of the mid-continental seaway toward the Paleocene.
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".
The Lake Patzcuaro salamander, locally known as achoque, is a paedomorphic species of salamander found exclusively in Lake Pátzcuaro, a high-altitude lake in the Mexican state of Michoacán. First described in 1870 by Alfredo Dugès, the species is named in honor of the French herpetologist Auguste Duméril. However, the salamander has been used as a food source and an ingredient in traditional medicines by the Purépecha people since the Pre-Columbian era. Ambystoma dumerilii are neotenic, meaning they retain their larval characteristics throughout their entire life. This results in adults that have long, heavily filamented external gills, gill slits lined with tooth-like gill rakers, and caudal fins. When stressed, Ambystoma dumerilii can undergo an incomplete metamorphosis, though this is process significantly decreases their lifespan and is often fatal.
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 marbled salamander is a species of mole salamander found in the eastern United States.
The blunt-headed salamander is a mole salamander endemic to Mexico. It is only known from the vicinity of its type locality, near Morelia, in Michoacán state in Southwestern Mexico. It inhabits a landscape consisting of a mosaic of natural grasslands and pine-oak forests at elevations of about 2,000 m (6,600 ft) asl. Breeding takes place in ponds. An average adult has a mass of 6.18 grams while wet. Adult females of the species range from 42-93 mm and males range from 45.4-70.5 mm in standard length.
The western chorus frog, also known as striped chorus frog, or midland chorus frog is a species of frog found in Canada and the United States.
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.
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 (14.0–19.7 cm) long and slender, with many small silvery-blue spots on its back and sides. It is brownish grey, and the area around its vent is grey. A unisexual Ambystoma hybrid species, A. platineum has been grouped with other unisexual ambystomatids that take genetic material from Jefferson salamanders, streamside salamanders, small-mouthed salamanders, tiger salamanders and the blue-spotted salamander.
The spotted-tail or spotted-tailed salamander is a species of brook salamander in the family Plethodontidae. This species is, somewhat vaguely, referred to by the common name of 'cave salamander'; however, it is not restricted to dwelling inside deep caverns, but is known for inhabiting surface-level, terrestrial, woodland habitats, as well. More often than not, the common name 'cave salamander' refers to the "true" cave salamanders, such as the olm of Europe. It is rarely used to refer to the axolotl, another species which, like the olm, inhabits caves that never see daylight, thus lacking skin pigment and having extremely poor eyesight when compared with the vivid orange and bright-eyed spotted-tail salamander. Additionally, true cave salamanders, including the olm as well as the axolotl, spend their entire lives as fully-aquatic amphibians, while the spotted-tail salamander is not limited to an exclusively amphibious lifestyle.
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.
