Critically Endangered
Anderson's salamander
Ambystoma andersoni
Anderson's salamander is a neotenic salamander from Zacapu Lagoon in the Mexican state of Michoacán.
Appearance
The mature salamander has medium-sized external gills with bright red filaments, and a prominent caudal fin. Its coloration is a strange pattern of black blotches on a red-brown base. Females lay dark yellowish-brown eggs that are approximately 2.2–2.3 mm in diameter, and hatchlings measure about 12–13 mm in total length and lack balancers, a trait common among members of the Ambystoma tigrinum group.
This salamander is a relatively recent discovery, first described by Branden and Krebs in 1984.
Range and habitat
Lake Zacapu is a small lake near Zacapu, sitting at an altitude of 2000 meters. The lake is located within the Mesa Central portion of Mexico, an area home to many neotenic Ambystoma species. Anderson's salamander is a neotenic salamander from Zacapu Lagoon in the Mexican state of Michoacán.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Life history
Like all neotenic Ambystoma species, A. Andersoni retains its larval features into adulthood. The salamanders are totally aquatic and spend their whole lives in the same body of water.
In crisis
Salamanders disappear when seeps are capped, caves are disturbed, or a pathogen moves through a mountain range.
Anderson's salamander is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Anderson's salamander, Wikidata item Q491418. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
