Description
A very large salamander with a stout body, broad head, and small eyes. It is covered with yellow to olive spots or blotches irregularly scattered over the back and sides.

Distribution and Habitat

Country distribution from AmphibiaWeb's database: Mexico

	View distribution map in BerkeleyMapper.
	View Bd and Bsal data (62 records).

A Mexican salamander whose distribution reaches as far north as the New Mexico border. Its range extends through central Mexico as far south as Mexico City , avoiding either coast.

Comments
Formerly included as a subspecies of A. tigrinum known as A. t. velasci, it is now generally recognized to be an independent species.

This species was highlighted in News of the Week, 8 February 2021:

Salamanders differ from all other vertebrates in the ability to regenerate lost parts and in their very large and highly variable genomes. Amazingly, salamanders not only can regenerate tails, digits and limbs but also virtually everything else, including much of the brain and the heart. Salamanders long have been known to have gigantic genomes, but what has been missed or ignored is the impact of genome size on the structure and function of genes. These phenomena are directly interrelated, and Session and Wake (2020) proposes dynamic interactions between growth and differentiation affecting morphogenetic processes, pattern formation and regeneration in unique ways. There probably is no specific genetic regulation of regeneration beyond processes normal for salamanders. Regeneration is an extension of their normal development. Salamanders are, in essence, much younger, especially at the cellular level, than implied by their chronological age; they are "forever young”. (David Wake)

References

Petranka, J. W. (1998). Salamanders of the United States and Canada. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C. and London.

Species Account Citation: AmphibiaWeb 2021 Ambystoma velasci: Mexican Tiger Salamander <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/5886> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Dec 25, 2024.

Citation: AmphibiaWeb. 2024. <https://amphibiaweb.org> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed 25 Dec 2024.

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