Ambystoma texanum
(Matthes, 1855) · speciesAt a glance
Sources11 archives
Databases and archives Ambystoma texanum's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation7 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility4 520 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI4 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics20 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
Paleobiology DatabasePBDB consortiumfossil record↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
Amphibian Species of the WorldAMNHamphibian catalog↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
The small-mouth salamander (Ambystoma texanum) is a species of mole salamander found in the central United States, from the Great Lakes region in Michigan to Nebraska, south to Texas, and east to Tennessee, with a population in Canada, in Pelee, Ontario. It is sometimes referred to as the Texas salamander, porphyry salamander, or the narrow-mouthed salamander. The Kelley's Island salamander (Ambystoma nothagenes) was synonymized with A. texanum in 1995.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology2
Life cycle & reproduction8
Diet & foraging1
Habitat & environment4
Other traits4
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Ambystoma texanum has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Ambystoma texanum carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Chromosomes & ploidyhow the DNA is packaged
2n is the full chromosome count in a normal body cell; n is a gamete (egg or sperm), which carries half. Ploidy is how many complete chromosome sets each cell holds — 2× (diploid) is typical for animals, while higher levels (polyploidy) are common in plants. Click any value below to see the underlying records and sources.
2n 282×GoaT · Amphibian Karyotype Database · GoaT · Animal Genome Size Database
2n 421×GoaT · Amphibian Karyotype Database
2n 561×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 841×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil.
How it livedPBDB
Record type4 520 records
Origin
Range
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions17 of 39 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Ann Arbor, US | 488 |
| Wuzhou, CN | 431 |
| Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 362 |
| Texas Memorial Museum, Texas Natural History Collectionlocation not on record | 193 |
| Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collectionlocation not on record | 148 |
| APSUlocation not on record | 128 |
| Washington, US | 127 |
| Ohio State University - Amphibian Division, Columbus, OH (OSUM)location not on record | 93 |
| Cambridge, US | 60 |
| Fort Hays State University, Sternberg Museumlocation not on record | 59 |
| Chongqing Museumlocation not on record | 51 |
| Berkeley, US | 44 |
| North Carolina Museum of Natural Scienceslocation not on record | 41 |
| Universidad Católica de Manizaleslocation not on record | 40 |
| CASlocation not on record | 38 |
| München, DE | 33 |
| Provo, US | 33 |
| EL PASO, US | 27 |
| ASNHClocation not on record | 26 |
| Museo civico La Terra e l'Uomo di Crocetta del Montellolocation not on record | 15 |
| Los Angeles, US | 14 |
| Mount Pleasant, US | 13 |
| Ohio Wesleyan University Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 13 |
| Montgomery, US | 10 |
| University of Texas at Arlingtonlocation not on record | 9 |
| New Haven, US | 8 |
| Southeastern Louisiana University, Vertebrate Museumlocation not on record | 6 |
| Florida Museum of Natural History- Zoology, Paleontology & Paleobotanylocation not on record | 6 |
| ASUlocation not on record | 4 |
| Central Michigan University Museum of Cultural and Natural Historylocation not on record | 3 |
| 2 | |
| University of Nebraska State Museumlocation not on record | 2 |
| Brussels, BE | 1 |
| Tempe, US | 1 |
| Louisiana State University, Museum of Zoologylocation not on record | 1 |
| RBINS-Scientific Heritagelocation not on record | 1 |
| University of Minnesota, James Ford Bell Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 1 |
| Zacatecas, MX | 1 |
| Tacoma, US | 1 |
Where the DNA of Ambystoma texanum was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.