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

Ensatina Gray, 1850

Class: Amphibia > Order: Caudata > Family: Plethodontidae > Subfamily: Plethodontinae > Genus: Ensatina

1 species

Ensatina Gray, 1850, Cat. Spec. Amph. Coll. Brit. Mus., Batr. Grad.: 48. Type species: Ensatina eschscholtzii Gray, 1850, by monotypy.

Heredia Girard, 1856, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 8: 140. Type species: Heredia oregonensis Girard, 1856, by monotypy. Synonymy (along with Ensatina) with Plethodon by Cope, 1868 "1867", Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 19: 167. Synonymy by Dunn, 1923, Proc. New England Zool. Club, 8: 39.

Urotropis Jiménez de la Espada, 1875, An. Soc. Esp. Hist. Nat., 4: 70. Type species: Urotropis platensis Jimenez de la Espada, 1875, by monotypy. Preoccupied by Urotropis Rafinesque, 1822 (= Cryptobranchus Leuckart, 1821). Synonymy by Dunn, 1926, Salamanders Fam. Plethodontidae: 181, and Myers and Carvalho, 1945, Bol. Mus. Nac., Rio de Janeiro, N.S., Zool., 35: 1–24.

Common Names

Ensatinas (Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 174; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 6; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 31; Liner, 1994, Herpetol. Circ., 23: 12; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 6; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 22; Stebbins, 2003, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 3: 174; Liner and Casas-Andreu, 2008, Herpetol. Circ., 38: 31; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 12; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 26; Highton, Bonett, and Jockusch, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 26).

Distribution

Southwestern British Columbia and Vancouver I. (Canada), south through mesic western Washington, Oregon, and California (USA), to extreme northern Baja California, Mexico.

Comment

Considered the sister-taxon of Aneides + Plethodon by Larson, Wake, Maxson, and Highton, 1981, Evolution, 35: 405-422. Macey, 2005, Cladistics, 21: 194–202, considered Ensatina to be the sister taxon of Hydromantes. Vieites, Min, and Wake, 2007, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 104: 19903–19907, within a larger study of plethodontid relationships regarded Ensatina as the sister taxon of (Desmognathus + Phaeognathus) + Aneides. Raffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 945–946, provided an account summarizing systematics (and noting the the philosophical divergence of various authors, from suggesting that the complex is composed of up to 13 species by some accountings while others preferring to posit a ring species composed of subspecies/semispecies), morphology, life history, population status, and distribution (including a polygon map).

Contained taxa (1 sp.):

Ensatina eschscholtzii Gray, 1850

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