Siren lacertina Österdam, 1766

Class: Amphibia > Order: Caudata > Family: Sirenidae > Genus: Siren > Species: Siren lacertina

Siren lacertina Österdam, 1766, Siren Lacertina Diss. Acad.: 15. Types: Not stated or known to exist. Type locality: "australi habitat Carolina Americes [sic]". Given by Linnaeus, 1767, Syst. Nat., Ed. 12, 1(2) Addenda: sign. Rrrr 5 (not paged), as "Habitat in Carolinae paludosis"; restricted to "vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina", USA, by Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 14. This restriction regarded as invalid by Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 58. 

Muraena siren Gmelin, 1789, Syst. Nat., Ed. 13, 1(3): 1136. Substitute name for Siren lacertina Linnaeus, 1767. 

Syren lacertina —Custis In Freeman and Custis, 1807, Account Red River Louisiana: 23. Incorrect subsequent spelling of generic name. 

Sirene lacertina — Oken, 1816, Lehrb. Naturgesch., 3(2): 187. Incorrect subsequent spelling of generic name. 

Phanerobranchus dipus Leuckart, 1821, Isis von Oken, 9: 260. Substitute name for Siren lacertina Linnaeus, 1767.

Siren lacertina — Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Grad. Batr. Apoda Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 87.

Common Names

Common Siren (Gray, 1831, in Cuvier, Animal Kingdom (Griffith), 9—Appendix: 108).

Mud Iguana (Gray, 1831, in Cuvier, Animal Kingdom (Griffith), 9—Appendix: 108).

Mud Eel (Yarrow, 1876, List Skeletons and Crania: 40; Yarrow, 1882, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 24: 20; Strecker, 1915, Baylor Univ. Bull., 18: 57; Carr, 1940, Univ. Florida Biol. Sci. Ser., 3: 51).

Siren (Yarrow, 1876, List Skeletons and Crania: 40; Yarrow, 1882, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 24: 20; Rhoads, 1895, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 47: 406).

Great Siren (Jordan, 1878, Man. Vert. North. U.S., Ed. 2: 198; Davis and Rice, 1883, Bull. Chicago Acad. Sci., 1: 26; Brimley, 1907, J. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc., 23: 150; Strecker, 1915, Baylor Univ. Bull., 18: 57; Strecker, 1928, Contr. Baylor Univ. Mus., 16: 8; Bishop, 1943, Handb. Salamanders: 464; Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 14).

Greater Siren (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: 247; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 9; Liner, 1994, Herpetol. Circ., 23: 15; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 36; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 10; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 30; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 22; Liner and Casas-Andreu, 2008, Herpetol. Circ., 38: 35; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 16; Tilley, Highton, and Wake, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 31; Highton, Bonett, and Jockusch, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 34).

Distribution

The coastal plain from the vicinity of Washington, D.C., south to southern Alabama and peninsular Florida, USA. See comment. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: United States of America, United States of America - Alabama, United States of America - District of Columbia, United States of America - Florida, United States of America - Georgia, United States of America - Maryland, United States of America - North Carolina, United States of America - South Carolina

Comment

Reviewed by Martof, 1973, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 128: 1–2. See comment under Siren. Harris, 1975, Bull. Maryland Herpetol. Soc., 11: 98, provided records for Washington, D.C. The report from from South Texas and adjacent Mexico is of Flores-Villela and Brandon, 1992, Ann. Carnegie Mus., 61: 289–291, based largely on maximum body size and egg diameter. Dixon, 2000, Amph. Rept. Texas, Ed. 2: 51–52, hs applied the name Siren texana to this large-Siren taxon in South Texas, although the rationale for this is unclear. See discussion regarding this issue under Siren intermedia. See Frost and Lannoo, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 914, for more detailed discussion. Hendricks, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 912–914, provided a detailed account that summarized the biology and conservation literature (in the sense of only applying to the Florida population). Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 58, suggested that in the absence of any specimen examination by them or evidence, that the Lower Rio Grande, Texas and Mexico component of the range was doubtful or the result of an introduction. Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 43, provided a brief account and considered the existence of a Siren lacertina population in the Lower Rio Grande to be confusing and the evidence for it uncertain. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada: 140–141, provided an account of larval morphology and biology. See account of biology and life history in southern Florida by Meshaka and Lane, 2015, Herpetol. Conserv. Biol., 10 (Monogr. 5): 18–20. Raffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 9–10, provided an account in the sense of excluding the lower Rio Grande Valley from the distribution. Fedler, Enge, and Moler, 2023, Zootaxa, 5258: 351–378, suggested that only Siren nettingi occurs in the Lower Valley of Texas (and presumably down into Tamaulipas) and rejected the presence of Siren lacertina in South Texas and Mexico, referencing an unpublished MS Thesis (LaFortune, 2015, M.S. Thesis, University of Texas at Brownsville) for this conclusion although LaFortune (2015) did discuss evidentiary problems with the South Texas two-species model but did not address the egg-diameter evidence presented by Flores-Villela and Brandon, 1992, Ann. Carnegie Mus., 61: 289–291). 

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