Seeing Sad Sal

Walking  this morning, I saw this little desiccated salamander.  I didn't see it the night before when I walked that way.  

The salamander seemed smashed a bit, but I was not sure if that was the cause of death or being dried out.  There was no sign of innards anywhere.  Perhaps it died and then was squished a bit later?

Anyone know what kind of salamander Sad Sal is?

huh.  Sad Sal looks like a del norte salamander.  Wrong habitat area though and the coloring doesn't quite look right.

Beyond Awesome: Salamander Found in Miocene Neogene Dominican Amber

More than 20 million years ago, a short struggle took place in what is now the Dominican Republic, resulting in one animal getting its leg bitten off by a predator just before it escaped. But in the confusion, it fell into a gooey resin deposit, to be fossilized and entombed forever in amber.

The fossil record of that event has revealed something not known before – that salamanders once lived on an island in the Caribbean Sea. Today, they are nowhere to be found in the entire Caribbean area.

The never-before-seen and now extinct species of salamander, named Palaeoplethodon hispaniolae by the authors of the paper, adds more clues to the ecological and geological history of the islands of the Caribbean. Findings about its brief life and traumatic end – it was just a baby – have been published in the journal Palaeodiversity, by researchers from Oregon State University and the University of California at Berkeley.

“I was shocked when I first saw it in amber,” said George Poinar, Jr., a professor emeritus in the OSU College of Science, and a world expert in the study of insects, plants and other life forms preserved in amber, all of which allow researchers to reconstruct the ecology of ancient ecosystems.

“There are very few salamander fossils of any type, and no one has ever found a salamander preserved in amber,” Poinar said. “And finding it in Dominican amber was especially unexpected, because today no salamanders, even living ones, have ever been found in that region.”

link.

Kiyatriton leshchinskiyi: a Cryptobranchoid Salamander From Aptian/Albian Cretaceous Russia

Kiyatriton leshchinskiyi Averianov et Voronkevich, 2001, a crown-group salamander from the Lower Cretaceous of Western Siberia, Russia

Author:

Skutschas

Abstract:

Crown-group salamander Kiyatriton leshchinskiyi, from the Lower Cretaceous (Aptian–Albian) Ilek Formation of the Shestakovo locality in Western Siberia, Russia, was the first “lissamphibian” discovered from the Mesozoic of Russia and it is the only Early Cretaceous salamander from Asia which was found outside China. In this paper a detailed redescription of type and newly collected material on Kiyatriton leshchinskiyi, consisting fragmentary cranial and postcranial bones is presented. The structure of the atlas, trunk vertebrae and femur suggest that Kiyatriton leshchinskiyi may be a member of the Cryptobranchoidea.

Is Lissamphibia Paraphyletic?

(cladogram from here)

If Eocaecilia nests within Lepospondyli...that would mean that Caecilians are not closely related to salamanders and frogs at all.

How accepted (or not) is this?

Tropical Salamander Implosion

Dramatic declines in neotropical salamander populations are an important part of the global amphibian crisis

1. Sean M. Rovitoa,
2. Gabriela Parra-Oleaa,b,
3. Carlos R. Vásquez-Almazánc,
4. Theodore J. Papenfussa and
5. David B. Wakea,1

-Author Affiliations

1.
aMuseum of Vertebrate Zoology and Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3160;
2.
bInstituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, AP 70-153, Ciudad Universitaria, CP 04510 México DF, México; and
3.
cMuseo de Historia Natural, Universidad de San Carlos, Calle Mariscal Cruz 1-56, Zona 10, Cuidad de Guatemala, Guatemala

1.

Contributed by David B. Wake, December 20, 2008 (sent for review November 20, 2008)

Abstract

We document major declines of many species of salamanders at several sites in Central America and Mexico, with emphasis on the San Marcos region of Guatemala, one of the best studied and most diverse salamander communities in the Neotropics. Profound declines of several formerly abundant species, including 2 apparent extinctions, are revealed. Terrestrial microhabitat specialists at mid- to high elevations have declined more than microhabitat generalists. These terrestrial microhabitat specialists have largely disappeared from multiple sites in western Guatemala, including in well-protected areas, suggesting that the phenomenon cannot be explained solely by localized habitat destruction. Major declines in southern Mexican plethodontid salamanders occurred in the late 1970s to early 1980s, concurrent with or preceding many reported frog declines. The species in decline comprise several major evolutionary lineages of tropical salamanders, underscoring that significant portions of the phylogenetic diversity of Neotropical salamanders are at risk. Our results highlight the urgent need to document and understand Neotropical salamander declines as part of the larger effort to conserve global amphibian diversity.

I had hoped that the salamanders et al would not be declining the frogs have been, but that's obviously not the case. In a case of horrifying and hopefully very wrong linear extrapolation, could we be on the verge of
seeing that ancient lineage finally snuffed out? Depressing that thought is.