Proteus parkelj Sket and Arntzen, 1994

Class: Amphibia > Order: Caudata > Family: Proteidae > Genus: Proteus > Species: Proteus parkelj

Proteus anguinus parkelj Sket and Arntzen, 1994, Bijdr. Dierkd., 64: 37. Holotype: ULBF J8, by original designation. Type locality: "Na Trati, Jelsevnik near Crnomelj, Slovenia". 

Proteus parkeljDufresnes, Monod-Broca, Jelić, Šunje, Manenti, Barzaghi, Zimić, Chouchane, Denoël, Ohler, and Jablonski, 2026, Amphibia-Reptilia, Published online ahead of print: 32. 

Common Names

Black Olm (Proteus anguinus parkeljRaffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 491). 

Črni Močeril (Slovenian: Dufresnes, Monod-Broca, Jelić, Šunje, Manenti, Barzaghi, Zimić, Chouchane, Denoël, Ohler, and Jablonski, 2026, Amphibia-Reptilia, Published online ahead of print: 32).

Distribution

Restricted to a very small area of Bela krajina in southeastern Slovenia, west of Črnomelj, where it occupies the Dobličica-Jelševniščica spring system at the margin of the Kočevski Rog plateau. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Slovenia

Endemic: Slovenia

Comment

The Parkelj lineage of  Dufresnes, Monod-Broca, Jelić, Šunje, Manenti, Barzaghi, Zimić, Chouchane, Denoël, Ohler, and Jablonski, 2026, Amphibia-Reptilia, Published online ahead of print: 32, where comparative morphology, molecular markers (mt- and nuDNA), a dot map of the distribution, habitat, and conservation status were provided. Grillitsch and Tiedemann, 1994, Herpetozoa, Wien, 7: 139–148, rejected subspecies, but Arntzen and Sket, 1996, Herpetozoa, Wien, 8: 165–166, and Arntzen and Sket, 1997, J. Zool., London, 241: 699–707, rejected the findings of Grillitsch and Tiedemann. Lanza, 2006, Atti Mus. Civ. Stor. Nat. Trieste, 52: 235–237, suggested that Proteus anguinus parkelj was the surfacial ancestral population from which the troglobitic populations were derived. 

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