The Tennessee cave salamander (''Gyrinophilus palleucus'') is a species of

salamander Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All ten ...

in the family

Plethodontidae Plethodontidae, or lungless salamanders, are a family of salamanders. Most species are native to the Western Hemisphere, from British Columbia to Brazil, although a few species are found in Sardinia, Europe south of the Alps, and South Korea. In ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

in the United States. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are streams in

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

s. It is threatened by

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

Distribution

The Tennessee cave salamander inhabits the southern

Cumberland Plateau The Cumberland Plateau is the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. It includes much of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and portions of northern Alabama and northwest Georgia. The terms "Alle ...

in the

in the United States. Its range includes south-central Tennessee, western North Carolina, northeastern Alabama, northwestern Alabama and northwestern Georgia. The salamander lives in cave systems, and is probably present in some systems as yet unexplored.

Ecology

The salamander's diet consists of

amphipods Amphipoda is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods range in size from and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 9,900 amphipod species so far descri ...

and other small aquatic invertebrates that live in caves. It occurs on sand, gravel, mud or rock, in streams, in

rimstone Rimstone, also called gours, is a type of speleothem (cave formation) in the form of a stone dam. Rimstone is made up of calcite and other minerals that build up in cave pools. The formation created, which looks like stairs, often extends into fl ...

pools and in isolated pools. It prefers clear water without sediment. It is occasionally seen outside caves but it is thought that this occurs when it has been accidentally washed out by floodwater. This species is usually

paedomorphic Neoteny (), also called juvenilization,Montagu, A. (1989). Growing Young. Bergin & Garvey: CT. is the delaying or slowing of the physiological, or somatic, development of an organism, typically an animal. Neoteny is found in modern humans compared ...

. This means it remains in the larval state for all of its life. Paedomorphic individuals breed as larvae, but some individuals continue to develop and undergo

metamorphosis Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops including birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation. Some inse ...

in the usual way.

Status

''G. palleucus'' lives in caves and is dependent on the quality of the water in the streams that flow through them. Threats it faces include pollution, siltation, flooding, increased water flow and the filling of sinkholes and dumping of trash. This salamander is known from about two dozen sites but probably occurs in other cave systems. Its total area of occupancy is less than and its population in Custard Hollow Cave in Tennessee seems to be decreasing. For these reasons, the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

has rated its conservation status as "

threatened Threatened species are any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of ''critical depensat ...

" and advocates protection of the watersheds that drain into the caverns in which it lives.

References

Citations

External links

NewScientist.com: Salamanders formed new species despite interbreedingDistribution and relative abundance of Tennessee cave salamanders (''Gyrinophilus palleucus'' and ''Gyrinophilus gulolineatus'') with an emphasis on Tennessee populations
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2212561 Cave salamanders Gyrinophilus Endemic fauna of the United States Amphibians of the United States Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Amphibians described in 1954