Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
Single word	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Dicamptodon Strauch, 1870

Class: Amphibia > Order: Caudata > Family: Ambystomatidae > Genus: Dicamptodon

4 species

Dicamptodon Strauch, 1870, Mem. Acad. Imp. Sci. St. Petersbourg, Ser. 7, 16 (4): 68. Type species: Triton ensatus Eschscholtz, 1833, by monotypy.

Chondrotus Cope, 1887, Am. Nat., 21: 88. Type species: Amblystoma tenebrosum Baird and Girard, 1852, by original designation. Synonymy by Hay, 1892, Annu. Rep. Dept. Geol. Nat. Res. Indiana for 1891: 427.

Common Names

Pacific Giant Salamanders (Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 174; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 21; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 17; Highton, Bonett, and Jockusch, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 26).

American Giant Salamanders (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 28).

Giant Salamanders (Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 5; Nussbaum, Brodie, and Storm, 1983, Amph. Rept. Pacific Northwest: 59; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 6; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 10).

Pacific Mole Salamanders (Vitt and Caldwell, 2009, Herpetology, 3rd Ed.: 425).

Distribution

The Pacific coast, from southwestern British Columbia (Canada) to Santa Cruz County, California; northern Idaho, USA.

Comment

See detailed accounts by Anderson, 1969, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 76: 1–2, and Petranka, 1998, Salamand. U.S. Canada: 145–156. Nussbaum, 1976, Misc. Publ. Mus. Zool. Univ. Michigan, 149: 1–94, presented information on morphology and geographic variation. Daugherty, Allendorf, Dunlap, and Knudsen, 1983, Copeia, 1983: 679–691, and Good, 1989, Evolution, 43: 728–744, reported on biochemical evolution within the genus. Steele, Carstens, Storfer, and Sullivan, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 36: 90–100, discussed aspects of molecular phylogenetics and biogeography within the genus. See comment under Ambystomatidae. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583 (see comment in Amphibia record) as part of a larger study suggested a tree of species. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada, provided keys and accounts for the larvae of the USA and Canada. Raffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 130–135, provided accounts of the species, summarizing systematics, life history, population status, and distribution (including a polygon map).

Contained taxa (4 sp.):

Dicamptodon aterrimus (Cope, 1868)

Dicamptodon copei Nussbaum, 1970

Dicamptodon ensatus (Eschscholtz, 1833)

Dicamptodon tenebrosus (Baird and Girard, 1852)

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