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

Isthmura bellii (Gray, 1850)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Caudata > Family: Plethodontidae > Subfamily: Hemidactyliinae > Genus: Isthmura > Species: Isthmura bellii

Spelerpes bellii Gray, 1850, Cat. Spec. Amph. Coll. Brit. Mus., Batr. Grad.: 46. Holotype: BMNH 1946.9.6.23 (formerly 1850.I.III.9.9a), according to Brame and Gorham, 1972, Checklist Living & Fossil Salamand. World (Unpubl. MS): 289, and museum records. Type locality: "Mexico"; restricted to "Río Frío, 2 miles east of", Puebla, Mexico, by Smith and Taylor, 1950, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 33: 341.

Geotriton bellii — Garman, 1884, Bull. Essex Inst., 16: 39.

Oedipus bellii — Dunn, 1918, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 62: 471.

Bolitoglossa bellii — Taylor, 1941, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 54: 77.

Pseudoeurycea bellii — Taylor, 1944, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 30: 209.

Pseudoeurycea belli belli — Lowe, Jones, and Wright, 1968, Contrib. Sci. Nat. Hist. Mus. Los Angeles Co., 140: 4, 6.

Pseudoeurycea (Isthmura) bellii — Dubois and Raffaëlli, 2012, Alytes, 28: 77–161.

Isthmura bellii — Rovito, Parra-Olea, Recuero, and Wake, 2015, Zool. J. Linn. Soc., 175: 185.

Common Names

Bell's False Brook Salamander (Pseudoeurycea bellii: Liner, 1994, Herpetol. Circ., 23: 13; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 33).

Bell's Salamander (Liner and Casas-Andreu, 2008, Herpetol. Circ., 38: 32).

Bell's False Brook Salamander (Pseudoeurycea bellii bellii: Liner, 1994, Herpetol. Circ., 23: 13).

Bell's Salamander (Pseudoeurycea bellii bellii: Liner and Casas-Andreu, 2008, Herpetol. Circ., 38: 32).

Distribution

High elevation pine and pine-oak forest of southern Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Queretaro, Hidalgo and the Sierra Madre del Sur of Guerrero, Mexico, and west and north to southern Nayarit and southern Zacatecas, 750–3300 m elevation.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Mexico

Endemic: Mexico

Comment

In the Pseudoeurycea bellii group of Wake and Lynch, 1976, Sci. Bull. Nat. Hist. Mus. Los Angeles Co., 25: 61. Uribe-Peña, Ramírez-Bautista, and Casas-Andreu, 1999, Cuad. Inst. Biol., UNAM, 32: 24–25, provided an account and described the distribution. Parra-Olea, García-París, Papenfuss, and Wake, 2005, Herpetologica, 61: 145–158, discussed the systematics of the complex and redefined the species as composed of two widely allopatric and diagnosable subspecies: Pseudoeurycea bellii bellii (Mexican Tableland) and Pseudoeurycea bellii sierraoccidentalis of eastern Sonora and adjacent Madrean Chihuahua (now Isthmura sierraoccidentalis). Raffaëlli, 2007, Les Urodèles du Monde: 219–220, provided brief accounts by subspecies, photographs, and map, and considered it to be in the Pseudoeurycea bellii complex of the Pseudoeurycea bellii group. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 586. Lemos-Espinal and Dixon, 2013, Amphibians and Reptiles of San Luis Potosí: 27, provided an account for San Luis Potosí, Mexico. Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 285–286, provided brief accounts by subspecies, photographs, and map. Quintero-Díaz, Sigala-Rodríguez, and Carbajal-Márquez, 2014, Herpetol. Rev., 45: 651, provided a range extension within southern Zacatecas, Mexico, and briefly characterized the range. Domínguez-Vega, Zuria, and Fernández-Badillo, 2018, Herpetol. Notes, 39: 239–244, reported the species in tropical scrub in Hidalgo, Mexico, and discussed the range. Bryson, Zarza, Grummer, Parra-Olea, Flores-Villela, Klicka, and McCormack, 2018, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 125: 75–84, provided a tree and discussed the phylogenomic diversification of the genus across the Mexican highlands. Quezada-Hipólito, Smith, Suazo-Ortuño, Alvarado-Díaz, González, Thammachoti, and Smart, 2019, Rev. Mexicana Biodiversidad, 90(e902448): 1–15, commented on the impact of vulcanism on biogeography. Raffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 641–642, provided an account summarizing systematics, life history, population status, and distribution (including a polygon map). Tepos-Ramírez, Garduño-Fonseca, Peralta-Robles, García-Rubio, and Cervantes Jiménez, 2023, Check List, 19: 269–292, discussed the distribution and conservation status of the species in Queretaro, Mexico. Loc-Barragán, Smith, Woolrich-Piña, and Lemos-Espinal, 2024, Herpetozoa, Wien, 37: 31, reported on the distributional and conservation status in the state of Nayarit, Mexico.

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