Cheat Mountain salamander
Conservation status
Near Threatened  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Threatened (ESA)[2][3]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Amphibia
Order:	Urodela
Family:	Plethodontidae
Subfamily:	Plethodontinae
Genus:	Plethodon
Species:	P. nettingi
Binomial name
Plethodon nettingi Green, 1938
Synonyms[4]
Plethodon richmondi nettingi — Highton & Grobman, 1956 Plethodon nettingi nettingi — Thurow, 1968

The Cheat Mountain salamander (Plethodon nettingi) is a species of small woodland salamander found only on Cheat Mountain, and a few nearby mountains, in the eastern highlands of West Virginia.^[1][4] It and the West Virginia spring salamander (Gyrinophilus subterraneus) are the only vertebrate species with geographic ranges restricted to that state.

The Cheat Mountain salamander 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).

Description

The Cheat Mountain salamander is smallish, similar in size to the red-backed salamander, 3 to 4¾ inches (7½ to 12 cm) in total length (including tail), 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).

Taxonomy

P. nettingi 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.^[5] 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 geographic ranges were both probably much larger in the past. (The circumstances surrounding the discovery and formal description of P. nettingi are related by Maurice Brooks in his classic natural history book, The Appalachians (1965).)

Geographic range

P. nettingi is restricted to a small portion of the high Allegheny Mountains in eastern West Virginia. Initially, in the 1930s and '40s, its range was thought to be limited to Cheat Mountain at elevations above 3,500 feet (1,100 m) in Randolph County — and in Pocahontas County, where it was also found at Thorny Flat (Cheat's highest point). Later inventories, conducted in the 1970s and ‘80s, expanded the known range to include Pendleton and Tucker Counties (e.g., Backbone Mountain, Dolly Sods). More recently, the range has been shown to include the eastern edge of Grant County where it is found as low as 2,640 feet (800 m) elevation. Most populations are found above 3,500 feet (1,100 m). The entire P. nettingi range encompasses only about 935 square miles (2,420 km²), but not continuously throughout even this area (about 60 isolated populations are known). Much of this range is within the Monongahela National Forest.

Habitat

Originally, the Cheat Mountain salamander was probably restricted to red spruce forests of West Virginia's higher mountains. Most of these forests were cut down by 1920, and so several populations today occur in mixed deciduous forests that have replaced red spruce stands. These include yellow birch, American beech, sugar maple, striped maple and eastern hemlock trees. The salamander's occurrence, however, is not dependent upon any particular type of vegetation, but is often associated with boulder fields, rock outcrops, or steep, shaded ravines lined with a dense growth of rhododendron. It is more abundant adjacent to large emergent rocks where soil and litter are more moist and cooler than the surrounding hillsides. It may be that it was protected in these refugia (emergent rocks) when the original forests were cut and in some areas burned. Typically, it is found where the ground cover consists of bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, etc. – especially the liverwort Bazzania) and an abundance of leaf litter, fallen logs and sticks.

Life history and behavior

P. nettingi in Canaan Valley

Conservation

Populations of the Cheat Mountain salamander probably plummeted when its original habitat (red spruce forests) was destroyed by logging in the early 20th century. It is now on the U.S. Endangered Species List and it has been protected under the Federal Endangered Species Act since 1989 as a threatened species.^[2][3] Any disturbance exposing the forest floor to sunlight changes the cool, moist conditions on which these animals depend for nest sites as well as food and respiration. Alterations as minor as clearing service roads or hiking or skiing trails can fragment and isolate populations since these salamanders do not cross bare surfaces. As populations become divided, gene pools decline as does the likelihood of viability. Such habitat alterations probably also favor the encroachment of mountain dusky and red-back salamanders which out-compete the Cheat Mountain salamander for food, cover and moisture.

Fortunately, much of the Cheat Mountain salamander's range (46 of 60 known populations) falls within the Monongahela National Forest. A recovery plan was developed for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and annual surveys are conducted by Thomas K. Pauley (Marshall University), an authority on this species. He indicates that its numbers appear to be stable except where habitats have been altered. The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources has also conducted population monitoring and surveys. Since both the salamander and its habitat are monitored and protected in the National Forest and the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge, its future looks hopeful.

References

External links