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

Plethodon punctatus Highton, 1972

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

Plethodon punctatus Highton, 1972 "1971", Res. Div. Monogr. Virginia Polytech. Inst. State Univ., 4: 176. Holotype: USNM 190224, by original designation. Type locality: "between 0.1 and 0. 2 mile north-northwest of the top of Cow Knob, Pendleton County, West Virginia state line", USA.

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

Common Names

Cow Knob Salamander (Conant, 1975, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. Cent. N. Am., Ed. 2: 278; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 28; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 30; Highton, Bonett, and Jockusch, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 32).

White-spotted Salamander (Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 8; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 33; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 9; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 14).

Distribution

Higher elevations (over 1000 m) on Shenandoah Mountain in Pendleton County, West Virginia, and Augusta and Rockingham counties, Virginia, and on North Mountain (over 900 m), Hardy County, West Virginia, and Shenandoah County, Virginia, USA.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: United States of America, United States of America - Virginia, United States of America - West Virginia

Endemic: United States of America

Comment

In the Plethodon wehrlei group of Highton and Larson, 1979, Syst. Zool., 28: 579–599. See accounts by Highton, 1988, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 414: 1–2, and Petranka, 1998, Salamand. U.S. Canada: 390–392. Mitchell and Pauley, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 834–835, provided a detailed account that summarized the biology and conservation literature. See statement of geographic range, habitat, and conservation status in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 640. Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 395, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. Kuchta, Brown, and Highton, 2018, Zool. Scripta, 47: 285–299, demonstrated that this taxon is phylogenetially imbedded within Plethodon wehrlei. See also discussion by Felix, Wooten, Pierson, and Camp, 2019, Zootaxa, 4609: 429–448, who discussed this species and partitioned Plethodon wehrlei to correct this problem. Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 393, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. Raffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 906, provided an account summarizing morphology, life history, population status, and distribution (including a polygon map). Kuchta, Waldron, Watts, Lemmon, and Lemmon, 2024, Herpetologica, 80: 165–176. suggested that substantially more dense geographic sampling is required to firmly elucidate the status of this nominal species and others in the Plethodon wehrlei group.

External links:

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For access to general information see Wikipedia
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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.