Endangered
Luschan's salamander
Lyciasalamandra luschani
Luschan's salamander is a salamander in the family Salamandridae (order Caudata) — Lyciasalamandra luschani, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
Luschan's salamander is brown with small yellow dots dorsally, yellow or whitish laterally, and flesh-colored ventrally. Males have a protruding "spike" at the base of their tails on the dorsal surface. One study has also shown that females tended to have a larger snout to vent length on average than males, but males had a significantly larger maximum snout-vent-length in comparison.
Adults may grow to 13 cm (5.1 in) in length. Males and females have similar weights.
Range and habitat
L. Luschani's natural habitats are temperate forests and arid Mediterranean environments. L. Lushani populations are threatened by habitat loss. One of its subspecies, L. L. Helverseni, is known to be found within a pine forest on the island of Carpathos.
It is found in the southwestern Anatolia in Turkey and adjacent Greece, in the island of Kastellorizo and its satellites.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
When comparing adult and juvenile L. Luschani basoglui salamanders, scientists found that there were statistically significant differences in the measurements of body length, body weight, snout to vent length, head width, mean prey length, and mean prey volume. This study showed that juvenile salamanders tended to have a diet heavily centered on collembolans and gastropods, whereas adult males tended to mostly eat beetles, and adult females mostly ate beetles and Hymenoptera.
The researchers also discovered that L. L basoglui's snout-vent-length and the head with were significant predictors of both mean prey length and mean prey volume.
In crisis
One source, the Red Data Book of Threatened Animals of Greece, classifies the salamander, particularly L. Luschani basoglui, as vulnerable. Another source, the Red Data Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) considers the salamander as an endangered species.
Salamanders disappear when seeps are capped, caves are disturbed, or a pathogen moves through a mountain range.
Luschan's salamander is 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 Luschan's salamander, Wikidata item Q2343974. 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.
