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 welleri Walker, 1931

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

Plethodon welleri Walker, 1931, Proc. Junior Soc. Nat. Hist. Cincinnati, 2: 48. Holotype: CSNH 776.1 (now USNM 84135), by original designation. See comment. Type locality: "Grandfather Mountain, above 5,000 feet, near Linville, [Avery County], North Carolina", USA.

Plethodon welleri welleri — Thurow, 1956, Am. Midl. Nat., 55: 343.

Plethodon welleri ventromaculatum Thurow, 1956, Am. Midl. Nat., 55: 344. Holotype: AMNH 54448, by original designation. Type locality: "Mt. Rogers at 5500′ altitude, Grayson County, Virginia", USA. Status rejected by Highton, 1962, Bull. Florida State Mus., Biol. Sci., 6: 274.

Plethodon welleri ventromaculatus — Thurow, 1968, Ser. Biol. Sci., W. Illinois Univ., 6: 36.

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

English Names

Weller's Salamander (Plethodon welleri: Bishop, 1943, Handb. Salamanders: 285; Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 38; 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: 276; 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).

Spot-bellied Salamander (Plethodon welleri ventromaculatus [no longer recognized]: Conant, 1958, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. Cent. N. Am.: 233; Conant, 1975, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. Cent. N. Am., Ed. 2: 276).

Spotbelly Salamander (Plethodon welleri ventromaculatus [no longer recognized]: Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 8).

Distribution

From Mount Rogers and White Top Mountain, Virginia, south to Yancey County, North Carolina, at higher elevations (750 to more than 1500 m) and into extreme eastern Tennessee, USA.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: United States of America, United States of America - North Carolina, United States of America - Tennessee, United States of America - Virginia

Endemic: United States of America

Comment

In the Plethodon welleri group of Highton and Larson, 1979, Syst. Zool., 28: 579–599. See accounts by Thurow, 1964, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 12: 1–2, and Petranka, 1998, Salamand. U.S. Canada: 412–414. Beamer and Lannoo, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 854–856, provided a detailed account that summarized the biology and conservation literature. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 585. Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 392, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 393, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. Raffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 902–903, provided an account summarizing morphology, life history, population status, and distribution (including a polygon map). Tighe, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 654: 53–54, briefly discussed current location of types of Plethodon welleri and Plethodon welleri ventromaculatum.

External links:

Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.

For additional sources of general information from other websites search Google
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 observation see iNaturalist
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.