New Species of Plethodon 3 



Paratypes. — USNM 238342-51, topotypes, same collecting data as 

 the holotype. 



Other material. — Plethodon aureolus from 31 localities (Table 1) 

 have been identified electrophoretically, and preserved specimens from 

 all of these sites will be deposited in the National Museum of Natural 

 History (USNM). 



Description of holotype. — Before preservation, the length from the 

 tip of the snout to the anterior angle of the vent was 54 mm, to the 

 posterior angle of the vent 58 mm, and the total length 122 mm. There 

 are 16 costal grooves (equivalent to 17 trunk vertebrae) and the vomer- 

 ine teeth number 8 on the right side and 9 on the left. In life there were 

 abundant dorsal white iridophore spots with much associated brassy 

 flecking scattered on a black ground color. Similar spots were also pres- 

 ent on the dorsal surfaces of the legs and the top of the head. There 

 were abundant yellow iridophore spots on the sides of the head and 

 body and a few yellow iridiphore spots were also present on the chin 

 and belly. The chin is lighter than the belly. 



Distribution. — Plethodon aureolus is known from southern and east- 

 ern Monroe and northeastern Polk counties, Tennessee, and also occurs 

 in northwestern Cherokee and western Graham counties, North Caro- 

 lina (Fig. 1). 



Variation in P. aureolus. — There is little morphological variation in 

 P. aureolus throughout its small range, except that at higher elevations 

 in the northeastern part of its range the dorsal spotting may be very 

 reduced or absent in some individuals. 



Remarks. — Although I had collected several P. aureolus during my 

 earlier study of variation in southern Appalachian large Plethodon 

 (Highton 1970), it was not recognized as distinct from other brassy- 

 spotted P. glutinosus until recently when we obtained new material for 

 our electrophoretic studies. The results have indicated that the large- 

 sized, brassy-spotted, dark-chinned populations from eastern Tennessee 

 are closely related to P. glutinosus from the northern part of its range 

 (New York west to Illinois and south through Kentucky, West Virginia, 

 western Virginia and eastern Tennessee). Since the type locality (Prince- 

 ton, New Jersey) of P. glutinosus is within this area, this form will 

 retain the name P. glutinosus regardless of the eventual taxonomic sta- 

 tus of the other geographic variants. These northern populations of P. 

 glutinosus are characterized by possessing much darker chins than those 

 of the white-spotted populations (Highton 1962), P. kentucki (Highton 

 and MacGregor 1983) and P. aureolus. However, in the immediate vi- 

 cinity of the range of P. aureolus, many individuals of otherwise geneti- 

 cally typical P. glutinosus possess unusually light chins, making it very 

 difficult to distinguish the two species without an analysis of their pro- 

 teins. The two have been found sympatrically only at locality 4, along 



