Cheat Mountain salamander
| Cheat Mountain salamander | |
|---|---|
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Subphylum: | Vertebrata |
| Class: | Amphibia |
| Order: | Caudata |
| Family: | Plethodontidae |
| Genus: | Plethodon |
| Species: | P. nettingi |
| Binomial name | |
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Plethodon nettingi (Green, 1938) |
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The Cheat Mountain salamander (Plethodon nettingi) is a species of small, threatened woodland salamander found only on Cheat Mountain, and a few nearby mountains, in the eastern highlands of West Virginia. It and the West Virginia spring salamander (Gyrinophilus subterraneus) are the only vertebrate species with ranges restricted to that state.
The Cheat Mountain salamander (CMS) has decreased in population due to destruction of its original red spruce forest habitat, as well as by pollution, drought, forest storm damage, and by competition with other salamanders, especially its relative, the red-backed salamander (P. cinereus).
The CMS is smallish, similar in size to the red-backed salamander (3 to 4¾ inches, or 7½ to 12 cm), but is distinct in its black or dark brown dorsum (back) which is boldly marked with numerous small brassy, silver or white flecks. It lacks a dorsal stripe. The belly is dark gray to black. The tail is about the same length as its body, which has 17 to 19 costal grooves (vertical grooves along its sides).
The CMS was discovered by M. Graham Netting and Leonard Llewellyn on White Top, a summit of Cheat Mountain in Randolph County in 1935. It was described (and named) by N. Bayard Green in 1938. This salamander and the Peaks of Otter salamander (P. hubrichti), which has a similarly restricted range in Virginia, were once considered subspecies of a single species -- Netting's salamander—but since 1979 they (along with the Shenandoah salamander, P. shenandoah) have been considered separate, full species. Their ranges were both probably much larger in the past. (The circumstances surrounding the discovery and formal description of the CMS are related by Maurice Brooks in his classic natural history book, The Appalachians (1965).)
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