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

Hemidactylium Tschudi, 1838

Class: Amphibia > Order: Caudata > Family: Plethodontidae > Subfamily: Hemidactyliinae > Genus: Hemidactylium

1 species

Hemidactylium Tschudi, 1838, Classif. Batr.: 59, 94. Type species: Salamandra scutata Temminck and Schlegel, 1838, by monotypy. Placed on the Official List of Generic Names in Zoology by Opinion 1873, Anonymous, 1997, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 54: 140-141.

Cotobotes Gistel, 1848, Naturgesch. Thierr.: xi. Substitute name for Hemidactylium Tschudi, 1838.

Desmodactylus Duméril, Bibron, and Duméril, 1854, Erp. Gen., 9: 117. Substitute name for Hemidactylium Tschudi, 1838.

Dermodactylus — David, 1872 "1871", Nouv. Arch. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, 7: 95. Incorrect subsequent spelling of Desmodactylus.

Common Names

Four-toed Salamanders (Jordan, 1878, Man. Vert. North. U.S., Ed. 2: 193; Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 174; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 7; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 31; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 7; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 24; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 19; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 13; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 28; Highton, Bonett, and Jockusch, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 29).

Distribution

Fairly continuous from extreme southern Maine (USA), extreme southern Quebec (Canada), extreme southern Ontario (Canada), and northern Wisconsin (USA), southward to the Fall Line in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee (USA); presumably disjunct populations occur in Nova Scotia (Canada), Mississippi, Arkansas and Oklahoma, Louisiana, Georgia, and northern Florida (USA).

Comment

See accounts by Neill, 1963, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 1: 1, and Petranka, 1998, Salamand. U.S. Canada: 290–295. In the tribe Hemidactyliini of Vieites, Nieto-Roman, Wake, and Wake, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 59: 633. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada: 122, provided an account of larval morphology and biology. Raffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 569–572, provided an account, summarizing systematics, life history, population status, and distribution (including a polygon map)

Contained taxa (1 sp.):

Hemidactylium scutatum (Temminck, 1838)

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