Necturus punctatus (Gibbes, 1850)

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

Menobranchus punctatus Gibbes, 1850, Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1850: 159. Syntypes: 10 specimens, of which 1 was subsequently lost according to Gibbes, 1853, Boston J. Nat. Hist., 6: 367; USNM 11813 in error considered holotype by Yarrow, 1882, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 24: 145, and Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 29. This specimen considered a syntype by Cochran, 1961, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 220: 16. Dunn, 1918, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 62: 445-471, and Barbour and Loveridge, 1929, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 69: 308, considered MCZ 1553 as a syntype. Other syntypes not traced or lost according to Tighe, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 654: 65. Type locality: "discovered by Mr. Augustus Schoolbred, on the South Santee River, a few miles from its mouth . . . . [and] from the same neighborhood, by Dr. A. Gadsden . . . . all discovered in cleaning rice-field ditches", South Carolina, USA.

Necturus punctatusGarman, 1884, Bull. Essex Inst., 16: 36, by implication; Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 27.

Necturus punctatus punctatusNeill, 1954, Publ. Res. Div. Ross Allen’s Rept. Inst., 1: 75–96; Hecht, 1958, Proc. Staten Island Inst. Arts Sci., 21: 13; Brode, 1970, Dissert. Abstr. Internatl., Ser. B, 30: 5288.

Necturus (Parvurus) punctatusDubois and Raffaëlli, 2012, Alytes, 28: 147.

English Names

Gibbes' Proteus (Yarrow, 1882, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 24: 20).

Southern Water Dog (Brimley, 1907, J. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc., 23: 151; Bishop, 1943, Handb. Salamanders: 46).

Carolina Water Dog (Bishop, 1943, Handb. Salamanders: 46).

Dwarf Waterdog (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: 244; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 7; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 34; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 8; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 15; 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

Coastal plain from southeastern Virginia to central Georgia, USA; see comment regarding unnamed species associated with this name outside of this range. 

Geographic Occurrence

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

Endemic: United States of America

Comment

See accounts by Dundee, 1998, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 663: 1–4 and Petranka, 1998, Salamand. U.S. Canada: 429–431. See also Ashton, Braswell, and Guttman, 1981 "1980", Brimleyana, 4: 43–46. Guttman, Weigt, Moler, Ashton, Mansell, and Peavy, 1990, J. Herpetol., 24: 163–175, suggested that the nearest relative is Necturus lewisi. Dundee, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 871–873, provided a detailed account that summarized the biology and conservation literature. Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 220, provided a brief account, photograph, and map. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada: 129–130, provided an account of larval morphology and biology.. Chabarria, Murray, Moler, Bart, Crother, and Guyer, 2018, J. Zool. Syst. Evol. Res., 56: 352–363, discussed an unnamed species, their Necturus cf punctatus Apalachicola clade, which extends from north-central to southwestern Georgia into southeastern Alabama and the central part of the Florida panhandle. See also comment under Necturus lodingiRaffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 478, provided an account, summarizing systematics, life history, population status, and distribution (including a polygon map). Tighe, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 654: 65, noted that additional syntypes appear to have been lost. 

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