Santeetlah dusky salamander
Desmognathus santeetlah
 
ITIS Species Code:   173643         NatureServ Element Code:   AAAAD03110
 
Taxa: 
Order: 
Family: 
Amphibia
Caudata
Plethodontidae
NatureServe Global Rank: 
NatureServe State (NC) Rank: 
 
G3Q
S2S3
 
Federal Status: 
NC State Status: 
 
---
SR
 
 
HEXAGONAL KNOWN RANGE:PREDICTED DISTRIBUTION:
 
SUMMARY OF STATEWIDE PREDICTED DISTRIBUTION:
 
Land Unit
US Fish & Wildlife Service
US Forest Service
US National Park Service
US Department of Defense
NC State Parks
NC University System
NC Wildlife Res. Com.
NC Forest Service
NC Div. of Coastal Mgmt.
Local Governments
Non-Governmental Org.
Other Public Lands
Private Lands
GAP Status 1-2
All Protected Lands
Statewide
 
Hectares
0.00
9,788.76
0.00
8,574.30
0.00
0.00
110.97
2.13
0.00
0.00
86.85
0.00
9,007.83
10,232.52
18,563.01
27,570.84
 
Acres
0.00
24,188.55
0.00
21,187.55
0.00
0.00
274.21
7.78
0.00
0.00
214.61
0.00
22,258.83
25,287.62
45,872.71
68,131.54
% of Dist. on
Prot. Lands
0.0 %
52.7 %
0.0 %
46.2 %
0.0 %
0.0 %
0.6 %
< 0.1 %
0.0 %
0.5 %
0.5 %
0.0 %
0.0 %
55.1 %
-----   
-----   
% of Dist. on
All Lands
0.0 %
35.5 %
0.0 %
31.1 %
0.0 %
0.0 %
0.4 %
< 0.1 %
0.0 %
0.0 %
0.3 %
0.0 %
32.7 %
37.1 %
-----   
-----   
 
HABITAT DESCRIPTION:
Populations are restricted to the Unicoi, Great Smoky, Great Balsam mountains of the southern Appalachians (Petranka 1998).

Found near streams in mid and high-elevation hardwood and conifer forests (Wilson 1995).

NATURE SERVE GLOBAL HABITAT COMMENTS:

Stream headwaters and seepage areas, where ground water percolates to surface through muck, mossy rocks, impatians, and nettles. Under rocks in a few mm of water at margins of seeps, among gravel and cobble where water percolates. Eggs are laid mostly beneath mosses growing on rocks, on logs, or on soil surface. Nest sites 16-83 cm from nearest open water, commonly beneath mosses on logs lying in and around seepage areas (Jones 1986).

 
MODELING DESCRIPTION:
Occupied Landcover Map Units:
Code NameDescription NC Natural Heritage Program Equivalent
521 Spruce/Fir Forest High Elevation Frazer-Fir - Red Spruce, Red Spruce and Red-Spruce-Yellow Birch Forests. Tree densities included here include both woodland to forest density. Highly intermixed with Northern Hardwoods, Grassy Balds, and Shrub Balds. Red Spruce--Fraser Fir Forest, Fraser Fir Forest
522 Northern Hardwoods High Elevation forests including yellow birch, American beech, and yellow buckeye. Includes forests with Hemlock and Yellow Birch. Northern Hardwoods Forest, Boulderfield Forest
525 Appalachian Oak Forest A variety of oak forest types including Black, White, Scarlet Oaks in dry to mesic situations. Includes forests historically co-dominated by American Chestnut. High Elevation Red Oak Forest, Montane White Oak Forest
526 Appalachian Cove Forest Mixed Mesophytic forests of the mountains. Includes tuliptree, basswood, yellow buckeye and surgar maple. This class is mapped to include cove forests dominated or co-dominated by hemlock. Rich Cove Forest, Acidic Cove Forest
527 Appalachian Hemlock Upland hemlock forests of the moutains region. Vary from side slopes to steep slope positions. Canada Hemlock Forest
View Entire Landcover Legend
 
Additional Spatial Constraints:
Exclude all area outside of known range.
Exclude all land greater than 50 meters from an open water feature.
Exclude all water greater than 50 meters from land.
Limited to elevation range: 2220 - 5920 ft.
 
CITATIONS:
Tilley, S. G. 1988. Hybridization between two species of DESMOGNATHUS (Amphibia:Caudata:Plethodontidae) in the Great Smoky Mountains. Herpetol. Monogr. 2:27-39.

Wilson, L. A. 1995. The Land Manager's Guide to the amphibians and reptiles of the South. Chapel Hill, NC: The Nature Conservancy.

Petranka, J. W. 1998. Salamanders of the United States and Canada. Washington DC: Smithsonian Inst. Press.

Tilley, S. G. 1981. A new species of DESMOGNATHUS (Amphibia:Caudata:Plethodontidae) from the southern Appalachian Mountains. Univ. Michigan Mus. Zool., Occas. Pap. 695:1-23.

Jones, R. L. 1986. Reproductive biology of DESMOGNATHUS FUSCUS and DESMOGNATHUS SANTEETLAH in the Unicoi Mountains. Herpetologica 42:323-334.
10 March 2005
 
This data was compiled and/or developed by the North Carolina GAP Analysis Project.

For more information please contact them at:
NC-GAP Analysis Project
Dept. of Zoology, NCSU
Campus Box 7617
Raleigh, NC 27695-7617
(919) 513-2853
www.basic.ncsu.edu/ncgap