West Virginia spring salamander

West Virginia spring salamander
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Urodela
Family: Plethodontidae
Genus: Gyrinophilus
Species: G. subterraneus
Binomial name
Gyrinophilus subterraneus
Besharse & Holsinger, 1977[2]

The West Virginia spring salamander (Gyrinophilus subterraneus) is a species of salamander in the family Plethodontidae. It is endemic to West Virginia, the United States.[1][3]

The salamander is only found in the General Davis Cave in Greenbrier County and lives in cave stream passages with large amounts of decaying organic matter. It is considered endangered.[1]

General Davis Cave forms the downstream end of the 3.5 mi2 Davis Hollow drainage basin. This cave has been purchased by The Nature Conservancy and is closed to the public in order to protect this salamander and a small bat colony.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Hammerson, G & Beachy, C. (2004). "Gyrinophilus subterraneus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN) 2004: e.T59283A11897278. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2004.RLTS.T59283A11897278.en.
  2. Besharse, J. C.; Holsinger, J. R. (1977). "Gyrinophilus subterraneus, a new troglobitic salamander from southern West Virginia". Copeia 1977: 624–634. doi:10.2307/1443160. JSTOR 1443160.
  3. Frost, Darrel R. (2015). "Gyrinophilus subterraneus Besharse and Holsinger, 1977". Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.0. American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 13 October 2015.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, April 19, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.