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 scutatum (Temminck, 1838)

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

Salamandra sinciput-albida Green, 1818, J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 1: 352. Holotype: Not stated or known to exist, although likely originally in ANSP. Type locality: "Newjersey", USA. Synonymy with Desmognathus fuscus by Dunn, 1926, Salamanders Fam. Plethodontidae: 81. Considered to be a nomen dubium by Highton Tilley, and Wake in Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Green, Highton, Iverson, McDiarmid, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Tilley, and Wake, 2003, Herpetol. Rev., 34: 197. Pyron and Beamer, 2020, Zootaxa, 4838: 229, made this synonymy and considered this name a nomen oblitum.

Salamandra frontalis Gray, 1831, in Cuvier, Animal Kingdom (Griffith), 9—Appendix: 107. Substitute name for Salamandra sinciput-albida Green, 1818. Pyron and Beamer, 2020, Zootaxa, 4838: 229, made this synonymy and considered this name a nomen oblitum.

Salamandra scutata Temminck in Temminck and Schlegel, 1838, Fauna Japonica, 3: 119. Holotype: RMNH 2301, according to Hoogmoed, 1978, Zool. Meded., Leiden, 53: 103–104. Type locality: "Nashville, [Davidson County,] Tenn[essee].", USA. Placed on the Official List of Specific Names in Zoology by Opinion 1873, Anonymous, 1997, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 54: 140-141. See comments on authorship by Neill, 1963, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 2: 1–2 , and Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 111.

Hemidactylium scutatum — Tschudi, 1838, Classif. Batr.: 59, 94.

Salamandra melanosticta Gibbes, 1845, Boston J. Nat. Hist., 5: 89. Holotype: Not stated or known to exist. Type locality: "in Abbeville district, South Carolina . . . under old logs in open woods" (= Abbeville, Abbeville County, South Carolina), USA. Synonymy by Baird, 1850 "1849", J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Ser. 2, 1: 286, and Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Grad. Batr. Apoda Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 59.

Cotobotes scutatum — Gistel, 1848, Naturgesch. Thierr.: 11.

Desmodactylus scutatus — Duméril, Bibron, and Duméril, 1854, Erp. Gen., 9: 118.

Desmodactylus melanostictus — Duméril, Bibron, and Duméril, 1854, Erp. Gen., 9: 119.

Batrachoseps scutatus — Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Grad. Batr. Apoda Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 59.

Hemidactylium scutatum — Dunn, 1926, Salamanders Fam. Plethodontidae: 196.

Common Names

Scaly Lizard (Yarrow, 1882, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 24: 21).

Scaly Salamander (Hay, 1892, Annu. Rep. Dept. Geol. Nat. Res. Indiana for 1891: 440; Brimley, 1907, J. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc., 23: 153).

Eastern Four-toed Salamander (Bishop, 1943, Handb. Salamanders: 306; Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 42).

Four-toed Salamander (Jordan, 1878, Man. Vert. North. U.S., Ed. 2: 193; Davis and Rice, 1883, Bull. Chicago Acad. Sci., 1: 26; Hay, 1892, Annu. Rep. Dept. Geol. Nat. Res. Indiana for 1891: 440; Britcher, 1903, Proc. Onondaga Acad. Sci., Syracuse, 1: 120; Fowler, 1907, Annu. Rep. N.J. State Mus. for 1906: 52; Stejneger and Barbour, 1917, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept.: 14; Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 174; Conant, 1975, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. Cent. N. Am., Ed. 2: 282; 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; 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; Powell, Conant, and Collins, 2016, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. North Am., 4th ed.: 73; 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), southwestern Mississippi, west-central Arkansas to southeastern Oklahoma, Ozarks of Missouri, southeastern Louisiana, Georgia, and northwestern Florida (USA).

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Canada, United States of America, United States of America - Alabama, United States of America - Arkansas, United States of America - Connecticut, United States of America - Delaware, United States of America - Florida, United States of America - Georgia, United States of America - Illinois, United States of America - Indiana, United States of America - Kentucky, United States of America - Louisiana, United States of America - Maine, United States of America - Maryland, United States of America - Massachusetts, United States of America - Michigan, United States of America - Minnesota, United States of America - Mississippi, United States of America - Missouri, United States of America - New Hampshire, United States of America - New Jersey, United States of America - New York, United States of America - North Carolina, United States of America - Ohio, United States of America - Oklahoma, United States of America - Pennsylvania, United States of America - Rhode Island, United States of America - South Carolina, United States of America - Tennessee, United States of America - Vermont, United States of America - Virginia, United States of America - West Virginia, United States of America - Wisconsin

Comment

Reviewed by Neill, 1963, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 2: 1–2. See account by Petranka, 1998, Salamand. U.S. Canada: 290. Harris, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 780–781, provided a detailed account that summarized the biology and conservation literature. Burgason and Davis, 1978, Herpetol. Rev., 9: 21, provided a record for Maine. Casebere and Lodato, 2011, Proc. Indiana Acad. Sci., 119: 111–129, discussed historical changes in range in Indiana, USA. Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 252, provided a brief account, photograph, and map. Herman and Bouzat, 2016, J. Biogeograph., 43: 666–678, reported on molecular phylogeography, recovering deep mtDNA clade diversity that is geographically coherent. Vick and Irwin, 2019, Herpetol. Rev., 50: 95, provided records in Arkansas, USA, and discussed habitat preference.

External links:

Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.

For access to general information see Wikipedia
For additional sources of general information from other websites search Google
For access to relevant technical literature search Google Scholar
For images search CalPhoto Images and Google Images
To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
For additional information see AmphibiaWeb report
For information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
For information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
For related information on conservation and images as well as observations see iNaturalist