THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Amphibia    Caudata    Plethodontidae  

Cave Salamander
Eurycea lucifuga Rafinesque, 1822

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: 2024.01.23.07.43.37)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 0.6 MB

Province/State Distribution:
USA: Alabama Arkansas Georgia Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Mississippi Missouri Ohio Oklahoma Tennessee Virginia West Virginia

First instance(s) of published English names:
Hoosier Salamander (Spelerpes maculicaudus: 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.); Spotted-tail Salamander (Spelerpes maculicaudus: Hurter, Julius. 1911. Herpetology of Missouri. Transactions of the Academy of Science St. Louis 20(5):59-274); Cave Salamander (Eurycea lucifuga: 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:
1822 Rafinesque, Constantine S. On two new salamanders of Kentucky. Kentucky Gazette, New Series. Lexington. 1(9):3
1950 Mittleman, M. Budd. Cavern dwelling salamanders of the Ozark Plateau. Bulletin of the National Speleological Society 12:12-15
1958 Hutchison, Victor H. The distribution and ecology of the cave salamander, Eurycea lucifuga. Ecological Monographs 28(1):1-20
1962 Valentine, Barry D. The range of the cave salamander, Eurycea lucifuga Rafinesque, in Alabama. Herpetologica 18(3):214
1964 Smith, Charles C. The problem of hybridization of the red cave salamander, Eurycea lucifuga (Raf.), and the long-tailed salamander Eurycea longicauda melanopleura (Green). Arkansas Academy of Science Proceedings 18:59-62
1966 Hutchison, Victor H. Eurycea lucifuga. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (24):1-2
1977 Merkle, Donald A. and S. I. Guttman. Geographic variation in the cave salamander Eurycea lucifuga. Herpetologica 33(3):313-321
1991 Collins, Joseph T. Amphibians and reptiles in the upper Mississippi river valley: Systematic and distributional problems. Journal of the Tennessee Academy of Science 66(4):149-152
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 Letters 13:1378-1389

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Monday 21 April 2025 12:59 CT