Yonahlossee Salamander

Plethodon yonahlossee

Yonahlossee Salamander

YOSA

Status

The Yonahlossee Salamander is common throughout its limited range.

Description

The Yonahlossee Salamander is a large (11–22.1 cm), dark gray to black salamander with a broad chestnut brown stripe extending from its neck to beyond its tail. The sides and throat have many gray or white spots. Specimens from the southern population at Bat Cave, North Carolina, have less brown on the back. The Bat Cave population in some literature is recognized as a separate species, Plethodon longicrus (Conant 1975).

Distribution

The Yonahlossee Salamander is found in the southern Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia through eastern Tennessee and North Carolina, east and north of the French Broad River (Martof and others 1980).

Habitat

Plethodon yonahlossee occurs from the mountain valleys (430 m) to the peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia (1,700 m). It inhabits hillsides and ravines, often where rocks are thickly covered with moss and ferns. It often digs long burrows under rocks and logs.

Special Requirements

This species requires forested mountain slopes and ravines with deep organic soils, abundant leaf litter, logs, and rocks.

Breeding Habits

Little is known about the reproductive habits of this secretive salamander. They have direct development and it is presumed that females nest in summer and attend the eggs until they hatch.

Food Habits

This large Plethodon species eats a variety of arthropods, snails, and slugs.

Management Suggestions

Care should be taken if any construction of roads or cutting is to take place on or near this species’ steep slope habitats. Destruction or disturbance of moss layers, topsoils, and surface debris could easily lead to erosion and greatly impact this salamander.

Additional References

Bishop 1943.