The Systematics of Desmognathus imitator
Tilley SG. 2000. The Systematics of Desmognathus imitator. Pages 121-147. In Tilley SG. The Biology of Plethodontid Salamanders. Kluwer Academic, Plenum Publishers
ABSTRACT: Desmognathus imitator was originally described, as Desmognathus fuscus imitator, by Dunn (1927). Dunn correctly perceived that two correlated color pattern characters, chromatic cheek patches and wavy dorsolateral stripes, distinguish D. imitator from other sympatric desmognathines. The species was subsequently placed in synonymy under Desmognathus fuscus carolinensis by Pope (1928), who believed that red-cheeked Desmognathus from the Great Smokies and elsewhere in the southern Appalachians represented color morphs of that form. Desmognathus imitator owes its rescue from synonymy to Richard Highton, whose decision to include a series of Desmognathus from Siler’s Bald in the Great Smoky Mountains on his Plethodon blood protein gels revealed that two reproductively isolated forms of the Desmognathus ochrophaeus complex inhabit that locality. Subsequent electrophoretic analyses (Tilley et al., 1978) revealed that one of these distinct species was clearly the form described by Dunn (1927), and that D. imitator is endemic to the Great Smoky and adjacent parts of the Great Balsam Mountains. The other member of the Desmognathus ochrophaeus complex with which D. imitator is sympatric is now referred to Desmognathus ocoee Nicholls (Tilley and Mahoney, 1996).
- Type
- Book Chapter
- Authors
- Tilley, Stephen
- Units
- GRSM
- Keywords
- amphibian, APHN, Appalachian Highlands Network, Batesian Mimicry, Caudata, Color Pattern, Desmognathus imitator, Geographic Distance, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, GRSM, GRSM-00254, imitator salamander, Peripheral Population, Plethodontidae, salamander, SER, Southeast Region