Salamandra erythronota

Salamandra erythronota Rafinesque, 1818

[= S. cinerea Green, 1818]

Holbrook (1838b:113, pl. 27) gave a brief description of the Red-backed Salamander ( Plethodon cinereus) and cited only Green (1818) for the names “ Salamandra cinerea ” and “ S. erythronota,” along with Harlan (1835) for his expanded accounts thereof. Holbrook (1842e:43, pl. 16) expanded the account slightly, and both editions used the same drawing by T.W. Hill, which Holbrook clarified in the second edition was facilitated by De Kay showing Hill a live animal. In both editions, Holbrook stated that he has never seen this species alive, which seems unusual given its widespread distribution and exceptional abundance. Accordingly, we found no evidence of any Red-backed Salamanders among Holbrook’s extant collections.

Holbrook was aware that Green (1818) credited Rafinesque (1818) for the name S. erythronota but stated that “he [Green] informed me that Rafinesque afterwards told him that the Salamandra erythronota was not the animal he (Rafinesque) had in view, and which, indeed, he had published, under some other name.” It is unclear what Rafinesque meant by this, as no “other name” has ever been uncovered to our knowledge, and Red-backed Salamanders are the only species of this description found in “the state of New York on the Highlands, etc.,” the type locality of S. erythronota Rafinesque, 1818 . Regardless, this statement by Holbrook was offered by Huheey in Huheey and Smith (1962) in support of Highton’s (1961) petition to the ICZN for the suppression of S. erythronota Rafinesque, 1818 in favor of S. cinerea Green, 1818 . The nomenclatural history of this species is complex (see Dunn 1926; Goodwin 1960; Highton 1960, 1962; Reed 1960; Smith 1963; Pyron and Beamer 2020) and need not be revisited here.