Coastal Plain Dwarf Salamander (Eurycea quadridigitata)
Description: The southeastern dwarf salamander grows from 2.0 to 3.5 inches in length. It has a slender body and a long tail. It is typically yellow-brown in color with darker brown blotching and dark stripes down each side, but the pattern and coloration can vary widely. The epithet quadridigitata is to denote that each of its feet has four toes.
Habitat: The southeastern dwarf salamander prefers habitats of swampy pine woods. It is nocturnal and spends most of its time under leaf litter or forest floor debris.
Range: In 2017 this species was re-delineated following their analysis of the Eurycea quadridigitata group. It is now thought to occur from southeastern North Carolina, through only the eastern half of South Carolina, south throughout Florida and portions of Alabama, and a disjunct subpopulation west in extreme southeastern Louisiana, noting that further work may detect the species in the coastal cypress wetlands of southern Alabama and Mississippi.
Diet: Various small invertebrates
Reproduction: Breeding occurs in the fall, with 12 to 48 eggs being laid singly or in small clutches attached to submerged debris in shallow, slow moving or still water.
Status: Listed as Least Concern in view of its wide distribution, presumed large population, and because it is unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a more threatened category.
»» Kingdom: Animalia - Animals
»» Phylum: Chordata - Chordates
»» Subphylum: Vertebrata - Vertebrates
»» Class: Amphibia - (Amphibians)
»» Order: Caudata - Salamanders
»» Family: Plethodontidae - Lungless Salamanders
»» Genus: Eurycea
»» Species: Eurycea quadridigitata - Coastal Plain Dwarf Salamander
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Southeastern dwarf salamander", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0. Content may have been omitted from the original, but no content has been changed or extended.
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