Plethodon grobmani Allen and Neill, 1949

Class: Amphibia > Order: Caudata > Family: Plethodontidae > Subfamily: Plethodontinae > Genus: Plethodon > Species: Plethodon grobmani

Plethodon glutinosus grobmani Allen and Neill, 1949, Herpetologica, 5: 112. Holotype: ERA-WTN 19220, by original designation; supposed to be deposited at UF. Type locality: "Half-mile Creek Swamp, about one-half mile northeast of Silver Springs, Marion County, Florida, at a spot roughly one-quarter mile west of the junction of the creek and Florida State Highway 40". 

Plethodon grobmani —Highton in Highton, Maha, and Maxson, 1989, Illinois Biol. Monogr., 57: 69.

Plethodon (Plethodon) grobmani — Vieites, Nieto-Roman, Wake, and Wake, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 59: 632, by implication.

Common Names

Grobman's Slimy Salamander (Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 34).

Florida Slimy Salamander (Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 175).

Southeastern Slimy Salamander  (Highton in Highton, Maha, and Maxson, 1989, Illinois Biol. Monogr., 57: 69; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 33; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 8; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 26; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 20; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 14; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 29; Highton, Bonett, and Jockusch, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 31).

Distribution

Coastal plain of southeastern Alabama and southern Georgia into central Florida, below 145 m elevation. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: United States of America, United States of America - Alabama, United States of America - Florida, United States of America - Georgia

Endemic: United States of America

Comment

In the Plethodon glutinosus group of Highton and Larson, 1979, Syst. Zool., 28: 579–599. See comment under Plethodon glutinosus for access to literature that treats this species and Plethodon glutinosus as conspecific. Data presented by Carr, 1996, Herpetologica, 52: 56–65, suggest that nominal Plethodon grobmani is a composite. Petranka, 1998, Salamand. U.S. Canada: 355, rejected the distinction of Plethodon grobmani from Plethodon glutinosus on the basis of overall similarity. Joyce, Hayes, Potter, and Guyer, 2019, Copeia, 107: 701–707, included this species in the synonymy of Plethodon glutinosus on the basis of rDNA evidence, However,  Kozak, Weisrock, and Larson, 2006, Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. B, Biol. Sci., 273: 539–546.  Fisher-Reid and Wiens, 2011, BMC Evol. Biol., 11 (300): 1–20, and Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 41, (who rejected the synonymies) did not recover Plethodon mississippi and Plethodon grobmani as adjacent in their molecular trees. Guyer, Goetz, Folt, Joyce, and Hayes, 2019, Copeia, 107: 694–700, demonstrated that no morphological distinction can be drawn between Plethodon mississippi and Plethodon grobmani in Alabama, suggesting the lack of a species boundary. Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 399–400, provided brief accounts, photographs, and range maps for nominal Plethodon grobmani, Plethodon mississippi. Joyce, Hayes, Potter, and Guyer, 2019, Copeia, 107: 701–707, took issue with the genetic distance approach employed by Highton, Maha, and Maxson, 1989, Illinois Biol. Monogr., 57: 1–153, which is the basis upon which most of the species within the Plethodon glutinosus complex were named. They presented a molecular analysis that suggested no recognizable historical entities consistent with recognized species boundaries in Alabama and suggested they embraced the pre-Highton et al (1989) taxonomy also embraced by Petranka, 1998, Salamand. U.S. Canada. However, Joyce, Hayes, Potter, and Guyer, 2019, Copeia, 107: 701–707, only addressed via phylogenetic analysis of mt- and nu-DNA markers the apparently illusory previously hypothesized species boundaries within Alabama, USA. Raffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 921–922, provided an account summarizing morphology, life history, population status, and distribution (including a polygon map).

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