THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Amphibia    Caudata    Plethodontidae  

Kanawha Black-bellied Salamander
Desmognathus kanawha Pyron and Beamer, 2022

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 New Species. Delimited from the invalid D. quadramaculatus by Pyron and Beamer (2022, Bionomina 27: 1–43).

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2023.08.30.07.49.44)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 0.08 MB

Province/State Distribution:
USA: North Carolina Virginia West Virginia

First instance(s) of published English names:
Black Salamander (Desmognathus nigra: 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.); Black-bellied Salamander (Desmognathus quadramaculatus: 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:
1993 Arnold, Steven J., Nancy L. Reagan, and Paul A. Verrell. Reproductive isolation and speciation in plethodontid salamanders. Herpetologica 49(2):216-228
1996 Titus, Tom A. and Allan Larson. Molecular phylogenetics of Desmognathine salamanders (Caudata: Plethodontidae): A reevaluation of evolution in ecology, life history, and morphology. Systematic Biology 45(4):451-472
2010 Kozak, Kenneth H. and John J. Wiens. Accelerated rates of climatic-niche evolution underlie rapid species diversification. Ecology Letters 13:1378-1389
2022 Pyron, R. Alexander and David A. Beamer. Nomenclatural solutions for diagnosing ‘cryptic’ species using molecular and morphological data facilitate a taxonomic revision of the Black-bellied Salamanders (Urodela, Desmognathus ‘quadramaculatus’) from the southern Appalachian Mountains. Bionomina 27(1):1–43
2025 Pyron, R. Alexander, Kyle A. O'connell, Edward A. Myers, David A. Beamer, and Hector Banos. Complex hybridization in a clade of polytypic salamanders (Plethodontidae: Desmognathus) uncovered by estimating higher-level phylogenetic networks. Systematic Biology 74(1):124-140

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Monday 21 April 2025 11:47 CT