Menopoma

Menopoma “ Alleghaniensis ” (Sonnini de Manoncourt and Latreille, 1801b)

Holbrook (1842e:95, pl. 32) gave an account of the Hellbender ( Cryptobranchus alleganiensis), misspelled with an “h.” The description is detailed, mostly taken from previous authors as Holbrook stated he has never seen this species alive. The illustration by T. R. Peale was copied and colored silver from de Kay 1842)’s plate 18, fig. 44 by J.W. Hill. A skeleton of C. alleganiensis from Holbrook (MCZ A-256) is extant with the locality “Charleston, S.C.” (in error), but it postdates North American Herpetology, having been donated by Agassiz in 1852. Holbrook restricted his concept of this species to the Alleghany, Ohio, and Mississippi River drainages, placing populations from the Tennessee into a new species (see below). While genetic and other data now actually support this division (Hime 2017), this taxon properly bears the name Salamandra horrida Barton, 1807 as noted by Frétey and Raffaëlli (2021).