Necturus maculosus stictus

[peter]

I was recently reading a really out of date book on salamanders (Handbook of Salamanders by Sherman Bishop 1962) and they had mention to a n. m. stictus, and several pages on this. I searched a bit online but didn't find anything, and I'm wondering what happened to this salamander, and if it was simply reclassified as necturus maculosus maculosus. If anyone knows anything about the history of this salamander or where I could go to find this, I'd appreciate it, thanks.

 

[mike]

"Two subspecies are generally recognized, N.m.maculosus and N.m.louisianensis. The line through the eye is inconspicuous or lacking in large specimens of Mudpuppies in northeastern Wisconsin and the adjacent upper peninsular of Michigan. These populations are treated by Hecht (1958) as a poorly defined subspecies (N.m.strictus) that often resembles N.m.maculosus from elsewhere. A broadscale analysis of genetic variation in populations referable to N.maculosus has not been conducted."
(Salamanders of the United States and Canada. Petranka. 1998.)

 

[mike]

Peter, the paper describing this "subspecies" is:

Hecht, M. K. 1958. A synopsis of the mud puppies of eastern North America.
Proceedings of the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences 21:5-38.

 

[peter]

Thanks, I'll have to check that out, I'm really interesting in this kinda stuff. Gives me something local to research, etc.