Abstract
The tribe Hemidactyliini (Caudata: Plethodontidae: Plethodontinae) is a morphologically conservative taxon, comprising about 25 species distributed over eight genera (Conant and Collins, 1998). Despite significant attention over the last 30 years, there are many problems regarding the phylogeny and taxonomy of the Hemidactyliini. Wake (1966, 1993) has questioned the monophyly of this group, and recent phylogenetic analyses have failed to resolve the question (e.g., Rose, 1995; Sever, 1994). Hemidactyliines are relatively generalized salamanders, lacking the degree of morphological specialization found in the other three plethodontid lineages; e.g., the skeletomuscular adaptations for feeding and burrowing of the desmognathines (Schwenk and Wake, 1993), the specializations of the tongue projection mechanism of bolitoglossines (Deban et al., 1997; Lombard and Wake, 1977), and the derived morpho-genetic features associated with direct development in both bolitoglossines and plethodontines (Collazo and Marks, 1994). Furthermore, all hemidactyliines have a larval stage and the majority exhibit a complex life cycle (Wilbur, 1980), and thus differ from the other members of the subfamily Plethodontinae, their closest relatives. A complex life cycle is considered ancestral for the family Plethodontidae and is shared with most members of the subfamily Desmognathinae (Wake, 1966).
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Ryan, T.J., Bruce, R.C. (2000). Life History Evolution and Adaptive Radiation of Hemidactyliine Salamanders. In: Bruce, R.C., Jaeger, R.G., Houck, L.D. (eds) The Biology of Plethodontid Salamanders. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4255-1_15
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