THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Amphibia    Caudata    Plethodontidae  

Oregon Slender Salamander
Batrachoseps wrighti (Bishop, 1937)
buh-TRAY-koh-seps — RYE-tye

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

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Open icons indicate questionable records; click on a marker to view details.
Occurrences:; 616 Total; 470 Museum; 146 Other
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Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH. - (Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2023.04.08.12.03.08)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 0.62 MB

Province/State Distribution:
United States: Oregon

Taxonomic Etymology:
Named for a prominent herpetologist.
Batrachoseps — Greek batrachos = “frog” + seps = “lizard”
wrighti — Patronym honoring both Dr. Albert Hazen Wright and his wife, Margaret R. Wright. Typically, in a name honoring a man and a woman, the suffix would be -orum. However, under the ICZN and in current usage wrighti is correct, because it was the original, intentional spelling and does not qualify as an error under the Code.

First instance(s) of published English names:
Oregon Slender Salamander (Batrachoseps wrighti: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.);

Taxon Links:

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

Selected References:
1937 Bishop, Sherman C. A remarkable new salamander from Oregon. Herpetologica 1:93–95
1949 Stebbins, Robert C. and Charles H. Lowe. The systematic status of Plethopsis with a discussion of speciation in the genus Batrachoseps. Copeia 1949(2):116-129
1953 Tanner, Wilmer W. Notes on the life history of Plethopsis wrighti Bishop. Herpetologica 9:139-140
1953 Storm, Robert M. Range extensions of the salamander, Batrachoseps wrighti. Copeia 1953(1):65-66
1954 Hendrickson, John R. Ecology and systematics of salamander of the genus Batrachoseps. University of California Publications in Zoology 54(1):1-46
1991 Kirk, James J. Batrachoseps wrightii. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (506):1-3
1993 Arnold, Steven J., Nancy L. Reagan, and Paul A. Verrell. Reproductive isolation and speciation in plethodontid salamanders. Herpetologica 49(2):216-228
2010 Kozak, Kenneth H. and John J. Wiens. Accelerated rates of climatic-niche evolution underlie rapid species diversification. Ecology Letter 13:1378-1389
2014 Highton, Richard. Detecting cryptic species in phylogeographic studies: Speciation in the California Slender Salamander, Batrachoseps attenuatus. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 71:127-141
2025 Yang, Clare, Laura Guderyahn, Charlotte Corkran, Steven Wagner, and Lauren M. Chan. Population genomic investigation of the Oregon Slender Salamander (Batrachoseps wrighti) reveals suburban populations are remnants, not recent introductions. Conservation Genetics 26:891-904

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Wednesday 22 July 2026 16:53 CT