Animalia > Chordata > Amphibia > Caudata > Ambystomatidae > Ambystoma > Ambystoma andersoni | Ambystoma andersoni (Anderson's salamander) | |
Language: Spanish Anderson's Salamander (Ambystoma andersoni) is a neotenic salamander from Laguna de Zacapú in the Mexican state of Michoacán.This salamander is a relatively recent discovery, first described by Branden and Krebs in 1984. Ambystoma andersoni is named after James Anderson, a herpetologist with the American Museum of Natural History, who did extensive fieldwork studying Ambystoma and other amphibians and reptiles in Mexico. Like all neotenic Ambystoma species, A. |
Andersons salamander exhibits some highly unusual and distinct features, indicative of its evolutionary distinctiveness, including its rare neotenous life history, whereby the species never develops into an adult but instead retains its juvenile characteristics throughout life, essentially achieving reproductive maturity whilst still in its undeveloped larval form. This would be akin to a tadpole being able to breed without ever turning into a frog. The species is totally aquatic, spending its whole life in the same body of water (Lake Zacapu). This lake is currently suffering from pollution which poses a major threat to the survival of the species. Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) Unique (100) Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) Unique & Vulnerable (100) ED Score: 42.62 EDGE Score: 6.55 |
Female Maturity [1] | 1 year | Male Maturity [1] | 1 year |  | Adult Length [1] | 8 inches (21.4 cm) | Litters / Year [1] | 1 |
|
Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) Sites |
Institutions (Zoos, etc.) | Maps Middle America; Attributes / relations provided by ♦ 1Oliveira, Brunno Freire; São-Pedro, Vinícius Avelar; Santos-Barrera, Georgina; Penone, Caterina; C. Costa, Gabriel. (2017) AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits. Sci. Data. ♦ 2Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 WWF WildFINDER |
|