Four-Toed Salamander
Hemidactylium scutatum
Summary 3
The Four-toed Salamander (Hemidactylium scutatum) is a Lungless Salamander native to eastern North America. It is a species of the monotypic Hemidactylium genus. (In Francophone Canada, it is called the salamandre à quatre orteils.)
Distribution 4
Global Range: (200,000-2,500,000 square km (about 80,000-1,000,000 square miles)) Discontinuously distributed from Nova Scotia (Friet and MacDonald 1995), New Brunswick, southern Quebec (e.g., Sharbel 1990), southern Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin (Vogt 1981), and Minnesota (Dorff 1995, Hall et al. 2000) south to southeastern Oklahoma, Louisiana (Dundee and Rossman 1989), Mississippi, Alabama (Mount 1975), Florida panhandle, and Georgia (Conant and Collins 1991). Distribution is fairly continuous in the northeastern part of the range, spotty in the southwestern part.
Conservation status 5
The four-toed salamander is thought to be in a state of decline throughout its range due primarily to its specialized habitat requirements combined with destruction, degradation, and fragmentation of wetlands and forests. Even in the north and east, where the four-toed salamander's range is more continuous, it only occurs in small isolated colonies where suitable wetland-woodland habitats exist.
Hemidactylium_scutatum is currently listed as endangered in Indiana and Minnesota, threatened in Illinios, and has special concern or rare status in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Missouri (Lannoo 1998). To improve conservation efforts, people should be educated on the vulnerability and value of the species.
To improve and increase habitat for the four-toed salamander, mature, closed canopy hardwood forests should be preserved. Downed woody debris should be left in place or added to these forests. Shallow vernal pools can be created within these woodlands and raised hummucks of earth can be added in and around the pool to promote growth of spagnum moss and sedges (Petranka 1998).
Individuals are likely killed crossing roads while migrating to and from breeding sites. As a preventative measure, "'critter-culverts" can be installed in areas of high road kill risk to allow salamanders to pass underneath roads to and from their breeding sites.
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: least concern
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: no special status
State of Michigan List: no special status
Sources and Credits
- (c) batwrangler, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-ND), http://www.flickr.com/photos/40008040@N00/2525475599
- (c) Matthew Niemiller, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), https://calphotos.berkeley.edu/imgs/512x768/0000_0000/0110/2804.jpeg
- Adapted by Marie Studer from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemidactylium_scutatum
- (c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/14622985
- (c) The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/25065038
