THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Amphibia    Caudata    Plethodontidae  

Comal Blind Salamander
Eurycea tridentifera Mitchell and Reddell, 1965
yoor-EE-see-uh — try-DEN-tih-fer-ah

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: 2023.04.08.20.59.18)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 0.01 MB

Province/State Distribution:

Taxonomic Etymology:
Named for its dental morphology.
Eurycea — Rafinesque (1822) intentionally used a mythological-sounding name, but its specific Greek meaning or derivation was not disclosed. So, while modern etymologists may connect Eurycea to Eurydice or Greek roots (eurys “broad”), Rafinesque himself treated it as a classical name without a defined origin.
tridentifera — Latin tri- = “three” + dens, dentis = “tooth” + fero = “to bear”; “Bearing three teeth”

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:
1965 Mitchell, Robert W., and James R. Reddell. Eurycea tridentifera, a new species of troglobitic Salamanders from Texas and a reclassification of Typhlomolge rathbuni. Texas Journal of Science 27(1):12-27
1977 Sweet, Samuel S. Eurycea tridentifera. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (199):1-2
1993 Arnold, Steven J., Nancy L. Reagan, and Paul A. Verrell. Reproductive isolation and speciation in plethodontid salamanders. Herpetologica 49(2):216-228
2003 Wiens, John J., Paul T. Chippindale and David M. Hillis. When are phylogenetic analyses misled by convergence? A case study in Texas cave salamanders. Systematic Biology 52(4):501-514
2009 Lucas, Lauren K., Zachariah Gompert, James R. Ott, and Chris C. Nice. Geographic and genetic isolation in spring-associated Eurycea salamanders endemic to the Edwards Plateau region of Texas. Conservation Genetics 10:1309-1319
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: Friday 05 December 2025 20:00 CT