Category: Amphibians

Wolterstorff-Molch (Cynops woltertorffi) - Natural History Museum (London)
The Yunnan lake newt was named by George Albert Boulenger (1905) in honor of the German geologist and zoologist Willy Wolterstorff, who worked extensively on the systematics of salamanders and newts. (© "1946.9.6.32-pic1" - Cynops wolterstorffi (Boulenger, 1905) Collected in China by The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London, CC BY 4.0, via GBIF)

Yunnan lake newt—a poorly documented extinction

A newt with a fish-like appearance At the beginning of the 20th century, John Graham collected several animal species previously unknown to science in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan. He sent the finds to London, where they were examined by George Albert Boulenger at the Natural History Museum. Boulenger,

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Ainsworth's Salamander
This is what remains of the holotype of Ainsworth's salamander. The specimen is kept at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. (© DesmognathusFuscus, via Wikimedia Commons)

Ainsworth’s Salamander

Last seen in 1964: Plethodon ainsworthi, sp. nov. Ainsworth’s Salamander is known only from two specimens collected by biologist Jackson Harold Ainsworth in 1964, two miles south of Bay Springs in Jasper County, Mississippi. Ainsworth assumed that the two individuals were Slimy Salamanders (Plethodon glutinosus). More than 30 years later,

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