THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Amphibia    Caudata    Ambystomatidae  

Streamside Salamander
Ambystoma barbouri Kraus and Petranka, 1989
AM-bis-TOH-mah — BAR-boor-eye

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

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2024.01.20.17.49.33)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 0.2 MB

Province/State Distribution:
United States: Indiana Kentucky Ohio Tennessee West Virginia

Taxonomic Etymology:
Named in honor of a Kentucky herpetologist.
Ambystoma — Greek amblys = "blunt" + stoma = "mouth"
barbouri — Patronym honoring Thomas Barbour (1884–1946), herpetologist and museum director noted for blending academic rigor with wide-ranging travel and cultural engagement, and whose work helped shape modern herpetology and biogeography; Latinized possessive form.

First instance(s) of published English names:
Small-mouthed Salamander (Ambystoma microstomum: 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.); Small-mouthed Salamander (Amblystoma microstomum: 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.); Small-mouthed Salamander (Ambystoma microstomum: Hay, Oliver P. 1892. Batrachians and Reptiles of the State of Indiana. Pages 409-624 in 17th Annual Report of the Indiana Department of Geology and Natural Resources, William B. Burford, Printer and Binder, Indianapolis, Indiana. pp.);

Taxon Links:

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

Selected References:
1958 Tihen, Joseph A. Comments on the osteology and phylogeny of ambystomatid salamanders. Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, Biological Sciences 3(1):1-50
1969 Tihen, Joseph A. Ambystoma. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (75):1-4
1982 Petranka, James W. Geographic variation in the mode of reproduction and larval characteristics of the small-mouthed salamander (Ambystoma texanum) in the east-central United States. Herpetologica 38(4):475-485
1989 Kraus, F. and James W. Petranka. A new sibling species of Ambystoma from the Ohio River drainage. Copeia 1989:94-110
1996 Kraus, Fred Ambystoma barbouri Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (621):1-4
2021 Wade, Bryce S., Bailey H. Kemp, McKenna S. Vininski, Robert D. Denton, Stephen C. Richter, Andrea N. Drayer, Steven J. Price, Benjamin H. Holt, Keving G. Hutcheson, and Benjamin M. Fitzpatrick. Kleptogenesis in Kentucky, USA: Genetic analyses of unisexual Ambystoma at the southernmost extent of  their range. Herpetological Review 52(4):730–734

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Friday 05 December 2025 16:59 CT