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Comparative osteology of the plethodontid salamander genus Aneides
Author(s) -
Wake David B.
Publication year - 1963
Publication title -
journal of morphology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.652
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1097-4687
pISSN - 0362-2525
DOI - 10.1002/jmor.1051130106
Subject(s) - salamander , osteology , biology , citation , wake , library science , zoology , computer science , engineering , aerospace engineering
The genus Aneides is one of 26 genera of highly specialized lungless salamanders in the family Plethodontidae. Within the family, members of the genus have been considered specialized and advanced by virtue of their loss of the aquatic larval stage and their climbing and arboreal tendencies. This report is an attempt to present information concerning osteological variation within the species of Aneides, to make detailed osteological comparisons of the species, and to compare the genus with closely related genera. Of the five species of Aneides, three occur in far western North America: Aneides ferreus, Aneides flavipunctatus, and Aneides lugubris. Aneides hardii occurs at high elevations in south-central New Mexico, and Aneides aeneus is found in the Appalachian highlands of eastern United States. Recently a trend has developed in the direction of comparative osteological studies of salamanders. The study of the family Ambystomatidae by Tihen ( '58) , Baird's ('51) anatomical study of the plethodontid genus Pseudoeurycea, and the osteological approach used by Hansen and Tanner ('58) in studying several species of the plethodontid genus Bolitoglossa are examples of such work. No previous comparative studies have dealt with Aneides, however, and none have considered all of the species of a genus. Some information concerning the osteology of Aneides may be found in the published works of Wiedersheim (1877), Cope (1889), Dunn ('26), and Hilton ('45). These studies contain no information concerning inter-specific variation and it is apparent that lugubris was the species studied. Lowe ('50) utilized some osteological characters in delimiting the genus. His characters are also those used by Cope, Dunn, and Bishop ('43) and include: premaxillae fused, maxilla with posterior portion knife-edged and edentulous, and terminal phalanges Y-shaped. These have remained the major characters differentiating Aneides from its close plethodontid relatives Plethodm and Ensatina. In the following account each bone is described in detail for the genus Aneides and comparisons are made with the condition seen in the related genera Plethodon and Ensatina. A discussion of evolutionary relationships of the various species of Aneides and of the phylogenetic position of the genus within the family Plethodontidae has been prepared on the basis of the analysis presented here, and will be published elsewhere.