Desmognathus
Desmognathus is a genus of lungless salamanders in the family Plethodontidae known as dusky salamanders. They range throughout the eastern United States as far west as Texas, and north to southeastern Canada.
Todd Pierson · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- DesmognathinaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Temnospondyli
- Life habit
- amphibiousPBDB, for Temnospondyli
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Temnospondyli
- Environment
- brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda
Time the record covers
At least 1.2 million years on record.
The record covers at least 1.4 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 9.4 Mya to 11.7 ka.
8 occurrences of Desmognathus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
8 occurrences- Miocene6%
- Pliocene4%
- Pleistocene89%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Desmognathus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Desmognathus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
334 taxa- Rana5 sites
- Amblystoma4 sites
- Bufo americanus4 sites
- Crotalus horridus4 sites
- Elaphe4 sites
- Blarina brevicauda3 sites
- Carphophis amoenus3 sites
- Castor canadensis3 sites
- Coluber constrictor3 sites
- Ectopistes migratorius3 sites
- Eptesicus fuscus3 sites
- Hyla3 sites
- Marmota monax3 sites
- Meleagris gallopavo3 sites
- Microtus pennsylvanicus3 sites
- Neotoma floridana3 sites
- Passeriformes3 sites
- Pekania pennanti3 sites
- Perimyotis subflavus3 sites
- Peromyscus3 sites
- Rana pipiens3 sites
- Sceloporus undulatus3 sites
- Sorex cinereus3 sites
- Storeria3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Desmognathus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
5 references- The fossil herpetofauna (Pleistocene; Irvingtonian) of Hamilton Cave, Pendleton County, West Virginia3
- A late Pleistocene herpetofauna from Bell Cave, Alabama2
- First Mio-Pliocene salamander fossil assemblage from the southern Appalachians1
- A Pleistocene herpetofauna from Ladds, Georgia1
- The Pleistocene local fauna of the Natural Chimneys, Augusta County, Virginia1
Each of the 8 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Desmognathus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Todd Pierson
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Desmognathus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itDesmognathinae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Baird 1850