Aneides flavipunctatus flavipunctatus - Speckled Black Salamander

In a study published in 2007 ¹, Rissler and Apodaca determined that even though there is little morphological divergence across the species, the use of mtDNA analyses and ecological modeling indicates that there are four separate main lineages of A. flavipunctatus which eventually should be given full species status: A Southern Disjunct lineage on the San Francisco Peninsula and in the Santa Cruz Mountains; a Shasta lineage in the Mount Shasta region; a Central lineage on the north coast and north coast ranges north of San Francisco Bay; and a Northwest lineage in the northwest corner of the state including Humboldt, Del Norte, and Siskiyou Counties. There is another population within the Central Lineage which is also distinct, but they do not discuss this in detail. They recommended that the Shasta and Southern lineages be elevated to species status, but that more work is needed to determine the southern extent of the Northwest lineage. Once that has been determined, they recommend that the Northwest lineage also be elevated to species status. The new names will most likely be Aneides flavipunctatus for the Central Lineage, Aneides niger, for the Southern Disjunct lineage, and Aneides iëcanus, for the Shasta lineage. A new name or names will be given to the other lineage(s).

Tentative map of the four main lineages of Black Salamanders.