Critically Endangered
Sarrabus' cave salamander
Speleomantes sarrabusensis
Sarrabus' cave salamander is a salamander in the family Plethodontidae (order Caudata) — Speleomantes sarrabusensis, recorded as Critically Endangered.
The salamander
Salamanders are tailed amphibians. Many are lungless as adults and breathe through skin; others keep gills or use lungs.
Amphibians need damp skin or water at some point in the life cycle. Habitat loss and chytrid fungus sit behind many of the badges in this class.
Range and habitat
It is found in southeastern Sardinia, east of Cagliari, in the Sarrabus region. The species was thought to have been a part of Speleomantes imperialis but was found to be a separate species.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Salamanders hide under logs, in seeps, or in caves. They do not commute across a dry valley.
Eggs and damp skin make amphibians quick to vanish from a drained wetland or a forest stripped of litter.
In crisis
Salamanders disappear when seeps are capped, caves are disturbed, or a pathogen moves through a mountain range.
Sarrabus' cave 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 Sarrabus' cave salamander — often a short stub, Wikidata item Q4665983. 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.
