Now to some of the current research involving these salamanders in Mississippi.

These were all previously thought to be other already named species. and Joyce et al.), and the Pearl and Pascagoula map turtles. Cryptic species are often overlooked, and may not be described or known to exist for decades! Some other cryptic species examples found in Mississippi are the Southern Gray Treefrog, the Mississippi Slimy Salamander (although recently brought into question by Guyer et al. This is commonly referred to as a cryptic species: a distinct species that looks very similar or even identical to another close relative, and is often only distinct through reproductive or geologic isolation instead of also looking different. We don’t need to worry about confusing this species in Mississippi as only the Webster’s Salamander ranges in the state. In other words, the species looked too similar to Plethodon dorsalis (Northern Zigzag Salamander), the salamander it was previously thought to be. It was the first salamander species to be solely described by molecular characters (things we can only detect using laboratory techniques such as genetics or chemistry). Plethodon websteriwas first described in 1979 by Richard Highton.

Without the help of these researchers and volunteers, hundreds of salamanders would perish to the unforgiving impacts of vehicle traffic speeding through critical habitat on rainy nights each year. I’ve had the privilege of helping on Tom Mann’s long-term salamander site, where he tracks moving amphibians on a busy road. The protection of these outcrops, the surrounding forested habitat, and area for their breeding migration is crucial for their survival. In Mississippi, where the species is listed as S2 (imperiled), they require natural, rocky outcrops for their persistence in the small areas of habitat they have left (Mann and Mann, 2017). The pattern on the back is most often a wide, jagged orange stripe but individuals found in Winston often exhibit a spotted variation. Here, they are mostly associated with rocky geologic formations in the western part of the state, though another group exists in mixed pine hardwood forests in the southeast plains ecoregion in Winston County. For those not familiar with this secretive salamander species, they are small (2-3 in 70 – 80 mm) reddish woodland salamanders that inhabit wet or mesic forests in the southeast US (Petranka, 1998).

Lots of snakes and amphibians