HERMAPHRODITISM IN EURYCEA BISLINEATA. 1 



INEZ WHIPPLE WILDER AND ELIZABETH BARRETT PEABODY. 



The occurrence of hermaphroditism among anurans seems to 

 be an accepted fact. Crew ('21) summarized all the recorded 

 cases of abnormal sexual organs in frogs and states that there 

 are forty such cases. To this Swingle ('22) has recently added 

 one more, but finds that of his list of forty-one abnormalties only 

 twenty-seven can be considered hermaphrodites, a sufficient num- 

 ber, however, coming from the hands of so severe a critic, to 

 warrant the statement that hermaphroditism in anurans does 

 occur. Cerruti ('07) and King ('10) following numerous earlier 

 writers, have investigated the occurrence of the anomaly in toads 

 with results which, though possibly subject to differences in in- 

 terpretation, tend nevertheless to substantiate the existence of 

 hermaphroditism in these forms. 



No one has done for the urodeles the service which Crew has 

 performed for the frogs, but from the paucity of published re- 

 ports upon anomalies in urodeles this would not seem to be an 

 arduous task. Thus Chapin ('15) in reporting a case of her- 

 maphroditism found by her in Spelerpes bislincatus (Eurycea bis- 

 Uneata) cited reports of only two other cases of this anomaly in 

 urodeles which had come to her attention, one that of La Valette 

 St. George ('95) in Triton taniatus, the other that of Knappe 

 ('86) in a young Salamandra maculata. Since the publication of 

 Chapin's paper a third case has been reported by Krizenecky ('17) 

 in Triton cristatus. Although the cases of La Valette St. George 

 and of Krizenecky in Triton are unquestionably to be accepted as 

 genuine, there is doubt concerning the nature of the anomaly re- 

 ported by Knappe in Salamandra. Its interpretation as an her- 

 maphrodite is apparently that of King fio) who in summing up 

 the reported cases of the occurrence of hermaphroditism in uro- 

 deles says that "Knappe ('86) noted the presence of a Bidder's 

 organ in a young salamander." In the paper in question, however, 

 following the enumeration of the species of Amphibia which he 



i Contribution from the Department of Zoology of Smith College, No. 116. 



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