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

Hydromantes platycephalus (Camp, 1916)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Caudata > Family: Plethodontidae > Subfamily: Plethodontinae > Genus: Hydromantes > Species: Hydromantes platycephalus

Spelerpes platycephalus Camp, 1916, Univ. California Publ. Zool., 17: 11. Holotype: MVZ 5693, by original designation. Type locality: "head of Lyell Cañon, 10,800 ft. altitude, Yosemite National Park, [Tuolumne County,] California", USA. Placed on the Official List of Specific Names in Zoology by Opinion 1866, Anonymous, 1997, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 54: 72-74.

Eurycea platycephala — Stejneger and Barbour, 1917, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept.: 20; Grinnell and Storer, 1924, Animal Life in the YosemiteG: 652.

Hydromantes platycephalus — Dunn, 1923, Proc. New England Zool. Club, 8: 40.

Hydromantoides platycephalus — Lanza and Vanni, 1981, Monit. Zool. Ital., N.S., Suppl., 15: 120.

Hydromantoides (Hydromantoides) platycephalus — Dubois, 1984, Alytes, 3: 108.

Hydromantes (Hydromantes) platycephalus — Wake, Salvador, and Alonso-Zarazaga, 2005, Amphibia-Reptilia, 26: 543–548.

English Names

Mount Lyell Salamander (Grinnell and Storer, 1924, Animal Life in the Yosemite: 652; Storer, 1925, Univ. California Publ. Zool., 27: 43; Slevin, 1928, Occas. Pap. California Acad. Sci., 16: 76; Bishop, 1943, Handb. Salamanders: 451; Stebbins, 1951, Amph. W. North Am.: 146; Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 56; Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 174; Stebbins, 1966, Field Guide W. North Am. Rept. Amph.: 51; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 7; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 32; 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; Stebbins, 2003, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 3: 195; 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

High elevations (1220–3660 m) in the Sierra Nevada from Sierra and Placer counties south to Tulare and Inyo counties, California, USA.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: United States of America, United States of America - California

Endemic: United States of America, United States of America - California

Comment

See accounts by Gorman, 1964, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 11: 1, and Petranka, 1998, Salamand. U.S. Canada: 237–238. Stebbins, 2003, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 3: 195-196, and Raffaëlli, 2007, Les Urodèles du Monde: 318–319, provided brief accounts. Wake and Papenfuss, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 783–784, provided a detailed account that summarized the biology and conservation literature. Richardson and Gienger, 2007, Herpetol. Rev., 38: 213, discussed the range and provided the first record for Placer County, California, USA. Rovito, 2010, Mol. Ecol., 19: 454–457, implied that the differentiated, allopatric populations of this nominal species might be considered distinct species but did not make a taxonomic change. See related comment under Hydromantes brunus. Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 442–443, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. Raffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 1033–1025, provided an account summarizing systematics, morphology, life history, population status, and distribution (including a polygon map).

External links:

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For access to general information see Wikipedia
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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
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.