Salamandridae is a family of salamanders consisting of true salamanders and newts. Salamandrids are distinguished from other salamanders by the lack of rib or costal grooves along the sides of their bodies and by their rough skin. Their skin is very granular because of the number of poison glands. They also lack nasolabial grooves. Most species of Salamandridae have moveable eyelids but lack lacrimal glands.

Nearly all salamandrids produce a potent toxin in their skin, with some species being deadly to many other animal species. With a few exceptions, salamandrids have patterns of bright and contrasting colours, most of these are to warn potential predators of their toxicity. They have four well-developed limbs, with four toes on the fore limbs, and (in most cases) five toes on the hind limbs. They vary from in length.

Many species within this family reproduce by method of internal fertilization. Additionally, there are many species-specific courtship rituals that males perform to attract mates. These courtship rituals often employ pheromones to induce mating behavior in females. Pheromones have been discovered to be the driving force behind female mating responses in Alpine newts. These pheromones can induce behavior even when male visual epigamic characters and courtship dances are absent. All species within the genus Lyciasalamandra are viviparous, meaning they give birth to live young, without a tadpole stage. There are some species within the genus Salamandra are known to be viviparous too. Some newts are neotenic, being able to reproduce before they are fully metamorphosed. The females of many species can store sperm for up to 6 months at a time.

Toxicity

The genus Taricha use the poison tetrodotoxin (TTX) that binds and blocks voltage-gated sodium channels (Nav) in nerves and muscles. This blockage causes the cessation of action potentials, leading to paralysis and death. The rough-skinned newt (Taricha granulosa) uses tetrodotoxin and is considered the most poisonous species of newt. There are species and sub-species of Taricha that live in concurrent regions with a garter snake (Thamnophis) that has developed a resistance to the TTX poisoning. Species that inhabit regions with resistant Thamnophis snakes have evolved to increase their concentrations of TTX in an evolutionary arms race of predator versus prey.

Conservation status (IUCN Redlist) +Conservation Status of Salamandridae IUCN ClassificationNumber of SpeciesLeast Concern32Near Threatened12Vulnerable16Endangered14Critically Endangered3Lack of Data1

Phylogeny Cladograms based on the work of Pyron and Wiens (2011) and modified using Mikko Haaramo

Taxonomy The genus Salamandrina is the only member of the subfamily Salamandrininae, and the genera Chioglossa, Lyciasalamandra, Mertensiella, and Salamandra are grouped in the subfamily Salamandrinae, with sixteen other genera comprising the subfamily Pleurodelinae. Those with a more thoroughly aquatic lifestyle are referred to as "newts", but this is not a formal taxonomic description.

Family SALAMANDRIDAE

Subfamily Pleurodelinae Genus Calotriton - two species Calotriton arnoldi Carranza & Amat, 2005 Calotriton asper (Dugès, 1852) Genus Cynops (fire belly newts) - ten species Cynops chenggongensis Kou and Xing, 1983 Cynops cyanurus Liu, Hu, and Yang, 1962 Cynops ensicauda (Hallowell, 1861) Cynops fudingensis Wu, Wang, Jiang, and Hanken, 2010 Cynops glaucus Yuan, Jiang, Ding, Zhang, and Che, 2013 Cynops orientalis (David, 1873) Cynops orphicus Risch, 1983 Cynops pyrrhogaster (Boie, 1826) Cynops wolterstorffi (Boulenger, 1905) Cynops yunnanensis Yang, 1983 Genus Echinotriton - three species Echinotriton andersoni (Boulenger, 1892) Echinotriton chinhaiensis (Chang, 1932) Echinotriton maxiquadratus Hou, Wu, Yang, Zheng, Yuan, and Li, 2014 Genus Euproctus - two species Euproctus montanus (Savi, 1838) Euproctus platycephalus (Gravenhorst, 1829) Genus Ichthyosaura - one species Ichthyosaura alpestris (Laurenti, 1768) Genus Laotriton - one species Laotriton laoensis (Stuart & Papenfuss, 2002) Genus Lissotriton - ten species Lissotriton boscai (Lataste, 1879) Lissotriton graecus (Wolterstorff, 1906) Lissotriton helveticus (Razoumovsky, 1789) Lissotriton italicus (Peracca, 1898) Lissotriton kosswigi (Freytag, 1955) Lissotriton lantzi (Wolterstorff, 1914) Lissotriton maltzani (Boettger, 1879) Lissotriton montandoni (Boulenger, 1880) Lissotriton schmidtleri (Raxworthy, 1988) Lissotriton vulgaris (Linnaeus, 1758) Genus Neurergus - five species Neurergus barani Öz, 1994 Neurergus crocatus Cope, 1862 Neurergus derjugini (Nesterov, 1916) Neurergus kaiseri Schmidt, 1952 Neurergus strauchii (Steindachner, 1887) Genus Notophthalmus - three species Notophthalmus meridionalis (Cope, 1880) Notophthalmus perstriatus (Bishop, 1941) Notophthalmus viridescens (Rafinesque, 1820) Genus Ommatotriton - three species Ommatotriton nesterovi (Litvinchuk, Zuiderwijk, Borkin, and Rosanov, 2005) Ommatotriton ophryticus (Berthold, 1846) Ommatotriton vittatus (Gray, 1835) Genus Pachytriton - ten species Pachytriton airobranchiatus Li, Yuan, Li, and Wu, 2018 Pachytriton archospotus Shen, Shen, and Mo, 2008 Pachytriton brevipes (Sauvage, 1876) Pachytriton changi Nishikawa, Matsui, and Jiang, 2012 Pachytriton feii Nishikawa, Jiang, and Matsui, 2011 Pachytriton granulosus Chang, 1933 Pachytriton inexpectatus Nishikawa, Jiang, Matsui, and Mo, 2011 Pachytriton moi Nishikawa, Jiang, and Matsui, 2011 Pachytriton wuguanfui Yuan, Zhang, and Che, 2016 Pachytriton xanthospilos Wu, Wang, and Hanken, 2012 Genus Paramesotriton - fourteen species Paramesotriton aurantius Yuan, Wu, Zhou, and Che, 2016 Paramesotriton caudopunctatus (Liu and Hu, 1973) Paramesotriton chinensis (Gray, 1859) Paramesotriton deloustali (Bourret, 1934) Paramesotriton fuzhongensis Wen, 1989 Paramesotriton guangxiensis (Huang, Tang, and Tang, 1983) Paramesotriton hongkongensis (Myers and Leviton, 1962) Paramesotriton labiatus (Unterstein, 1930) Paramesotriton longliensis Li, Tian, Gu, and Xiong, 2008 Paramesotriton maolanensis Gu, Chen, Tian, Li, and Ran, 2012 Paramesotriton qixilingensis Yan, Zhao, Jiang, Hou, He, Murphy, and Che, 2014 Paramesotriton wulingensis Wang, Tian, and Gu, 2013 Paramesotriton yunwuensis Wu, Jiang, and Hanken, 2010 Paramesotriton zhijinensis Li, Tian, and Gu, 2008 Genus Pleurodeles - three species Pleurodeles nebulosus (Guichenot, 1850) Pleurodeles poireti (Gervais, 1836) Pleurodeles waltl Michahelles, 1830 Genus Taricha - four species Taricha granulosa (Skilton, 1849) Taricha rivularis (Twitty, 1935) Taricha sierrae (Twitty, 1942) Taricha torosa (Rathke, 1833) Genus Triturus (crested newts) - nine species Triturus anatolicus Wielstra & Arntzen, 2016 Triturus carnifex (Laurenti, 1768) Triturus cristatus (Laurenti, 1768) Triturus dobrogicus (Kiritzescu, 1768) Triturus ivanbureschi Arntzen & Wielstra, 2013 Triturus karelinii (Strauch, 1870) Triturus macedonicus (Karaman, 1922) Triturus marmoratus (Latreille, 1800) Triturus pygmaeus (Wolterstorff, 1905) Genus Tylototriton (crocodile newts) - twenty-five species Tylototriton anguliceps Le, Nguyen, Nishikawa, Nguyen, Pham, Matsui, Bernardes, and Nguyen, 2015 Tylototriton anhuiensis Qian, Sun, Li, Guo, Pan, Kang, Wang, Jiang, Wu, and Zhang, 2017 Tylototriton asperrimus Unterstein, 1930 Tylototriton broadoridgus Shen, Jiang, and Mo, 2012 Tylototriton dabienicus Chen, Wang, and Tao, 2010 Tylototriton hainanensis Fei, Ye, and Yang, 1984 Tylototriton himalayanus Khatiwada, Wang, Ghimire, Vasudevan, Paudel, and Jiang, 2015 Tylototriton kachinorum Zaw, Lay, Pawangkhanant, Gorin, and Poyarkov, 2019 Tylototriton kweichowensis Fang and Chang, 1932 Tylototriton liuyangensis Yang, Jiang, Shen, and Fei, 2014 Tylototriton lizhengchangi Hou, Zhang, Jiang, Li and Lu, 2012 Tylototriton ngarsuensis Grismer, Wood, Quah, Thura, Espinoza, Grismer, Murdoch, and Lin, 2018 Tylototriton notialis Stuart, Phimmachak, Sivongxay, and Robichaud, 2010 Tylototriton panhai Nishikawa, Khonsue, Pomchote, and Matsui, 2013 Tylototriton podichthys Phimmachak, Aowphol, and Stuart, 2015 Tylototriton pseudoverrucosus Hou, Gu, Zhang, Zeng, and Lu, 2012 Tylototriton shanjing Nussbaum, Brodie, and Yang, 1995 Tylototriton shanorum Nishikawa, Matsui, and Rao, 2014 Tylototriton taliangensis Liu, 1950 Tylototriton uyenoi Nishikawa, Khonsue, Pomchote, and Matsui, 2013 Tylototriton verrucosus Anderson, 1871 Tylototriton vietnamensis Böhme, Schöttler, Nguyen, and Köhler, 2005 Tylototriton wenxianensis Fei, Ye, and Yang, 1984 Tylototriton yangi Hou, Zhang, Zhou, Li, and Lu, 2012 Tylototriton ziegleri Nishikawa, Matsui, and Nguyen, 2013 Subfamily Salamandrinae Genus Chioglossa - one species Chioglossa lusitanica Bocage, 1864 Genus Lyciasalamandra - seven species Lyciasalamandra antalyana (Başoğlu and Baran, 1976) Lyciasalamandra atifi (Başoğlu, 1967) Lyciasalamandra billae (Franzen and Klewen, 1987) Lyciasalamandra fazilae (Başoğlu and Atatür, 1975 "1974") Lyciasalamandra flavimembris (Mutz and Steinfartz, 1995) Lyciasalamandra helverseni (Pieper, 1963) Lyciasalamandra luschani (Steindachner, 1891) Genus Mertensiella - one species Mertensiella caucasica (Waga, 1876) Genus Salamandra (fire salamanders) - seven species Salamandra algira Bedriaga, 1883 Salamandra atra Laurenti, 1768 Salamandra corsica Savi, 1838 Salamandra infraimmaculata Martens, 1885 Salamandra lanzai Nascetti, Andreone, Capula, and Bullini, 1988 Salamandra longirostris Joger and Steinfartz, 1994 Salamandra salamandra (Linnaeus, 1758) Subfamily Salamandrininae Genus Salamandrina- two species Salamandrina perspicillata (Savi, 1821) Salamandrina terdigitata (Bonnaterre, 1789)

Fossil record Salamandrids have a substantial fossil record spanning most of the Cenozoic. The oldest known fossils date from the Campanian (Late Cretaceous), but these, and most other known fossil salamandrids apparently belong to the crown group. The sole known stem-salamandrid is Phosphotriton sigei, from the Quercy Phosphorites Formation, which apparently dates from the Middle to Late Eocene.

References

External links

Tree of Life: Salamandridae Living Under World Tylototriton.org