THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY


Amphibia    Caudata    Plethodontidae  

Valentine’s Southern Dusky Salamander
Desmognathus valentinei Means, Lamb, and Bernardo, 2017
DEZ-moh-NAY-thus — val-en-TIN-ee-eye

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
New Species. Delimited from D. auriculatus by Means et al. (2017, Zootaxa 4263: 467–506). (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.)

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2023.09.01.08.34.03)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 0.37 MB

Province/State Distribution:

Taxonomic Etymology:
Named for a biologist.
Desmognathus — Greek desmos = “ligament” + gnathos = “jaw”
valentinei — Patronym honoring Barry Valentine, a herpetologist and evolutionary biologist.

First instance(s) of published English names:
No historic English names have been assigned to this taxon yet.

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
2017 Means, D. Bruce, Jennifer Y. Lamb, and Joseph Bernardo. A new species of dusky salamander (Amphibia: Plethodontidae: Desmognathus) from the Eastern Gulf Coastal Plain of the United States and a redescription of D. auriculatus. Zootaxa 4263(2):467-506

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Friday 05 December 2025 20:04 CT