THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY
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Amphibia    Caudata    Plethodontidae  
Santa Cruz Black Salamander
Aneides niger Myers and Maslin, 1948
AH-nee-des — NIGH-jer
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SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 Elevated from the synonymy of A. flavipunctatus by Reilly and Wake (2019, PeerJ 7: e7370). (Pyron, R. Alexander, Christopher K. Beachy, David A. Beamer, and Kenneth M. Kozak. 2025. Caudata – Salamanders. Pages 10-21 in Kirsten E. Nicholson (Editor), Scientific and Standard English Names of Amphibians and Reptiles of North America North of Mexico, with Comments Regarding Confidence in Our Understanding, 9th Edition. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, Lawrence, Kansas. 87 pp.)

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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:; 220 Total; 13 Museum; 207 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: 2023.09.02.15.28.27)
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Province/State Distribution:
United States: California

Taxonomic Etymology:
Named for its uniformly black coloration.
Aneides — Greek an- = “not” + eidos = “form”
niger — Latin niger = “black” — refers to the species’ all-black appearance.

First instance(s) of published English names:
Black Salamander (Aneides flavipunctatus niger: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Santa Cruz Black Salamander (Aneides flavipunctatus niger: 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);


Selected References:
1948 Myers, George S. and T. Paul Maslin. The California plethodont salamander, Aneides flavipunctatus (Strauch), with description of a new subspecies and notes on other western Aneides. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 61:127–138
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
2010 Kozak, Kenneth H. and John J. Wiens. Accelerated rates of climatic-niche evolution underlie rapid species diversification. Ecology Letter 13:1378-1389
2019 Reilly, Sean B. and David B. Wake. Taxonomic revision of black salamanders of the Aneides flavipunctatus complex (Caudata: Plethodontidae). PeerJ 7(7370):1–36.
2026 Glosli, Cort, Andre Giraldi, Pedro Peloso, Silvia Pavan, and Karen Kiemnec-Tyburczy. Range extension and species assignment of a rediscovered population of the Black Salamander complex (genus Aneides) in California, USA, based on morphological and molecular evidence. Herpetology Notes 19:289–300

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