Plethodon wehrlei Fowler and Dunn, 1917

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

Plethodon wehrlei Fowler and Dunn, 1917, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 69: 23. Holotype: ANSP 19123, by original designation. Type locality: "Two Lick Hills, Indiana County, Pennsylvania", USA.

Plethodon wehrlei wehrlei — Bogert, 1954, Amph. Rept. World, 2: 1195; Conant, 1958, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. Cent. N. Am.: 234.

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

English Names

Wehrle's Salamander (Plethodon wehrlei: Bishop, 1943, Handb. Salamanders: 281; Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 35; Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 175; Conant, 1975, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. Cent. N. Am., Ed. 2: 277; 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; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 29; 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: 30; Highton, Bonett, and Jockusch, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 32).

Wehrle's Salamander (Plethodon wehrlei wehrlei [now coextensive with Plethodon wehrlei]: Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 175). Conant, 1958, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. Cent. N. Am.: 233).

Roanoke Salamander (Plethodon wehrlei: Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 175). Conant, 1958, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. Cent. N. Am.: 233;

Distribution

From southwestern New York to southwestern West Virginia, presumably into adjacent Virginia and far west Maryland, and west to southeastern Ohio, USA. See comment. 

Comment

In the Plethodon wehrlei group of Highton and Larson, 1979, Syst. Zool., 28: 579–599. See accounts by Highton, 1987, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 402: 1–3, and Petranka, 1998, Salamand. U.S. Canada: 409–411. See Cupp and Towles, 1983, Trans. Kentucky Acad. Sci., 44: 157–158, for Kentucky record. Pauley and Watson, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 853–854, provided a detailed account that summarized the biology and conservation literature. Kozak, Weisrock, and Larson, 2006, Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. B, Biol. Sci., 273: 539–546, provided molecular evidence of shared mtDNA characteristics of one of the populations of Plethodon punctatus. Highton, Hastings, Palmer, Watts, Hass, Culver, and Arnold, 2012, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 63: 278–290, noted evidence that suggests that this nominal species contains cryptic species for which names are likely available, one of these being what is now Plethodon dixi. Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 394, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map.  Kuchta, Brown, and Highton, 2018, Zool. Scripta, 47: 285–299, discussed the molecular phylogeography of the nominal species, demonstrating analytic paraphyly with Plethodon punctatus, and also recognizing Plethodon dixi, formerly a cavernicolous race in southwestern Virginia. See also discussion by Felix, Wooten, Pierson, and Camp, 2019, Zootaxa, 4609: 429–448, who removed Plethodon jacksoni from synonymy and named Plethodon pauleyi from the southern part of the original range, restricting the name Plethodon wehrlei to  their "northern wehrlei". 

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