East American newts
| East American newts | ||||||||||||
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Greenish water newt ( Notophthalmus viridescens ) with a reddish color before sexual maturity |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Notophthalmos | ||||||||||||
| Rafinesque , 1820 |
The Ostamerikanischen newts ( Notophthalmus ) are a poor genus of salamanders in North America (southeastern Canada , the eastern United States , northeastern Mexico ). The very small animals (maximum length 11 centimeters) live mainly aquatic , especially in their youth but also terrestrial .
features
The species of the East American newts are similar in shape to the European newts (see Triturus ). As a distinct characteristic of their own, both sexes have three to four large pores, which lie in a row on the temple . The skin is smooth and soft in the water form and the tail is strongly flattened laterally. The back bar, on the other hand, is only narrow. Particularly during the mating season, there is a clear sexual dimorphism : the males have very strong rutting calluses consisting of 10 to 12 horn platelets on the inside of the hind legs, a strongly thickened tail, horny toe tips and a spherically arched cloaca . The latter is truncated conical in the females.
species
The genus of the East American newts consists of three recognized species:
- Black-spotted Newt ( Notophthalmus meridionalis Cope, 1880)
- Striped newt ( Notophthalmus perstriatus Bishop, 1941)
- Greenish water newt ( Notophthalmus viridescens Rafinesque, 1820)
literature
- ↑ Description according to Günther Peters: Family Salandridae - real salamanders and newts in Urania animal kingdom. Fish, amphibians, reptiles. Urania Verlag, Berlin 2000; Page 351.
- ↑ Species list according to ITIS.
