Necturus louisianensis Viosca, 1938

Class: Amphibia > Order: Caudata > Family: Proteidae > Genus: Necturus > Species: Necturus louisianensis

Necturus louisianensis Viosca, 1938, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 51: 143. Holotype: USNM 104238, by original designation. Type locality: "Big Creek a few miles east of Pollock, [Grant Parish,] Louisiana", USA.

Necturus maculosus louisianensis — Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 13.

Necturus louisianensis — Collins, 1991, Herpetol. Rev., 22: 43.

Necturus (Necturus) louisianensis — Dubois and Raffaëlli, 2012, Alytes, 28: 147. 

English Names

Louisiana Mudpuppy (Necturus louisanensis: Bishop, 1943, Handb. Salamanders: 32).

Louisiana Waterdog (Necturus louisanensis: Viosca, 1949, Pop. Sci. Bull., Louisiana Acad. Sci., 1: 9).

Red River Waterdog (Necturus maculosus louisianensis: Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 13; Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 175).

Red River Mudpuppy (Necturus maculosus louisianensis: Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 7; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 34; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 34; 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: 25; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 19; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 28; Highton, Bonett, and Jockusch, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 30). 

Distribution

East-central Kansas to extreme southern Missouri, eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas east to the Mississippi and thence east to extreme southwestern New York, western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, western Virginia, eastern Tennessee, extreme northern Georgia, northern Alabama, and northwestern Mississippi and south into north-central Louisiana, USA.

Comment

See Guttman, Weigt, Moler, Ashton, Mansell, and Peavy, 1990, J. Herpetol., 24: 163-175, for geographic variation in allozymes. Removed from the synonymy of Necturus maculosus, where it had been placed by Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 13, by Collins, 1991, Herpetol. Rev., 22: 43, who considered the two subspecies to be different species on the basis of their allopatry and diagnosability. See comments under Necturus maculosus for relevant literature. Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 220, provided a brief account, photograph, and map. Chabarria, Murray, Moler, Bart, Crother, and Guyer, 2018, J. Zool. Syst. Evol. Res., 56: 352–363, discussed the range and phylogenetics of this species, redelimiting it to include many populations formerly associated with Necturus maculosus. 

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