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 gigantea (Taylor, 1939)

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

Oedipus giganteus Taylor, 1939 "1938", Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 25: 266. Holotype: MCZ 8435, by original designation. Type locality: "Jalapa, Veracruz", Mexico.

Bolitoglossa gigantea — Taylor, 1941, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 27: 112.

Pseudoeurycea gigantea — Parra-Olea, Papenfuss, and Wake, 2001, Sci. Pap. Nat. Hist. Mus. Univ. Kansas, 20: 1.

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

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

Common Names

Giant False Brook Salamander (Liner and Casas-Andreu, 2008, Herpetol. Circ., 38: 33).

Veracruz Giant Salamander (Raffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 642).

Distribution

Known from the pine-oak/cloud-forest interface in the La Joya–Jalapa and Cerro del Borrego region of Veracruz into northeastern Hidalgo and northern Puebla, Mexico, 930–3048 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. In the Pseudoeurycea bellii complex, most closely related to Pseudoeurycea naucampatepetl according to Parra-Olea, Papenfuss, and Wake, 2001, Sci. Pap. Nat. Hist. Mus. Univ. Kansas, 20: 1, who removed it from the synonymy of Pseudoeurycea bellii on the basis of unreported molecular evidence. See Parra-Olea, García-París, Papenfuss, and Wake, 2005, Herpetologica, 61:145-158, for additional discussion and presentation of evidence. 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: 588. Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 287, provided a brief account, photograph, and map. Badillo-Saldaña, Ramírez-Bautista, Berriozabal-Islas, and Beteta-Hernández, 2015, Check List, 11 (1: 1521): 1–3, provided a record from the municipality of Tepehuacan de Guerrero in Hidalgo, Mexico and discussed natural history. Flores-Hernández, Morales-Capellán, González-Bonilla, Fernández-Badillo, Ramírez-Cruz, and Hernández-Silva, 2018, Mesoam. Herpetol., 5: 174–175, provided a record from the Municipio de Acaxochitlán, Hidalgo, Mexico. 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. See account by Cázares-Hernández, Molohua Tzitzihua, Méndez Quiahua, Quiahua Colotl, Temoxtle Marquez, Rodriguez Merino, and Apale Pacheco, 2018, Tlaconetes: 1–92, for photos, habitat, life history, and conservation status. Lemos-Espinal and Dixon, 2016, Amph. Rept. Hidalgo: 339–340, provided a brief account and map for Hidalgo, Mexico. Vásquez-Cruz and Reynoso-Martínez, 2020, Herpetol. Rev., 51: 767, provided a record from the Municipality of Orizaba, Veracruz, Mexico, and briefly discussed the range. Raffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 642–643, provided an account summarizing systematics, life history, population status, and distribution (including a polygon map).

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