Observations on the genus Salamandra : and description of a new genus of quadrupeds, of the order Edentata / by Richard Harlan.
- Richard Harlan
- Date:
- [1825]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations on the genus Salamandra : and description of a new genus of quadrupeds, of the order Edentata / by Richard Harlan. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
3/42 page 223
![It will be readily presumed, that it was only after consider- able attention, and minute anatomical investigation extended to a variety of these animals, that I have ventured to give publicity to the following observations. The Siren, the Proteus, the Amphiuma, the Triton lateralis (Say) the Salamandra gigantea (Barton) or Alleghaniensis (Michaux) must form a family of reptiles distinct from all others, and these will again be naturally separated into such as have branchiae, and such as have none; all being furnish- ed with nostrils and spiracula. Those which are provided with persistent branchiae having the skull composed of many separate bones, as the Proteus and Siren—those which have spiracula, without branchiae or gills, having the skull composed of a solid piece, as the Amphiuma and Salamandra gigantea. The Triton lateralis must not be confounded with the Tri- tons* of Laurenti, or water-newts, (the Salamandra aquatica of Cuvier) as, in the first place, these animals are furnished with five toes to the posterior extremities and four to the ante- rior : the Triton lateralis having only four toes to each extre- mity. 2d. The T. lateralis is furnished with persistent gills— in the Salamandrce these organs are deciduous. 3d. The T. lateralis has one rib less than the Tritons of Laurenti, and the Salamandrce proper. This difficulty could not escape the minute observation of Mr. Say, who, in his paper on the Triton lateralis, (in the first Vol. Major Long’s Expedition) expressly states : “ These four or five species [viz. the Axolotl or Siren piscifonnis (Shaw) the tetradactyla (Lacepede) the Sirene operculee (Beauvois) and the Proteus JYeo-Ccesariensis (Green)] might with pro- priety be separated from the genus to which they are referrible * Triton, as a generic term, should be discarded, it having been originally established by Laurenti, who mistook the larvae of Salamandrce for perfect animals, as was remarked by Cuvier, in his essay “ Sur le Protee.” (Voyage de MM. Humboldt et Bonpland.)](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22397607_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
