Necturus maculosus
(Rafinesque, 1818) · speciesAt a glance
Sources13 archives
Databases and archives Necturus maculosus's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation10 languages↗
Animal Diversity WebUniv. of Michigan MZspecies account↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility1 790 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI8 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics8 specimens↗
NPASSNat. Product Activity & Species Sourcecompounds↗
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 common mudpuppy (Necturus maculosus) is a species of salamander in the genus Necturus. They live an entirely aquatic lifestyle in parts of North America in lakes, rivers, and ponds. They go through paedomorphosis and retain their external gills. Because skin and lung respiration alone is not sufficient for gas exchange, mudpuppies must rely on external gills as their primary means of gas exchange. They are usually a rusty brown color and can grow to an average length of 13 in.Gans, C., and R. A. Nussbaum (1981). "The Mudpuppy." Vertebrates, a Laboratory Text. Ed. Norman K. Wessells and Elizabeth M. Center. 2nd ed. Los Altos, Calif.: W. Kaufmann, pp. 108–41. Mudpuppies are nocturnal creatures, and come out during the day only if the water in which they live is murky. Their diet consists of almost anything they can get in their mouths, including insects, mollusks, and earthworms (as well as other annelids). Once a female mudpuppy reaches sexual maturity at six years of age, she can lay an average of 60 eggs. In the wild, the average lifespan of a mudpuppy is 11 years.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology2
Life cycle & reproduction12
Diet & foraging2
Habitat & environment4
Other traits4
Compounds documented for Necturus maculosus across natural-product and food-composition databases — not just the ~150 nutrients on a classic label ("nutritional dark matter").
Compound class profile5 classes
Documented compounds14 total
| Compound | Class | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| (2S,5R,5aS,5bS,7aR,9S,10aS,10bS,12aR)-Octadecahydro-5a,7a-dimethyl-2,5-epoxycyclopenta(5,6)naphth(1,2-d)azepin-9-ol | present | NPASS | |
| (3Z,6S)-3-[[5-(2-methylbut-3-en-2-yl)-1H-imidazol-4-yl]methylidene]-6-propan-2-ylpiperazine-2,5-dione | present | NPASS | |
| 4-methoxy-3,5-dimethyl-6-[(2S,3R)-2-methyl-3-[(2E,4E)-4-methyl-5-[(1S,2S,4R,5R)-2,4,5-trimethyl-3,6-dioxabicyclo[3.1.0]hexan-2-yl]penta-2,4-dien-2-yl]oxiran-2-yl]pyran-2-one | present | NPASS | |
| 4-methoxy-5-methyl-6-[(2S,3R)-2-methyl-3-[(2E,4E)-4-methyl-5-[(1S,2S,4R,5R)-2,4,5-trimethyl-3,6-dioxabicyclo[3.1.0]hexan-2-yl]penta-2,4-dien-2-yl]oxiran-2-yl]pyran-2-one | present | NPASS | |
| 6-[(2S,3S,4E,6E)-2,3-dihydroxy-4,6-dimethyl-7-[(1S,2S,4R,5R)-2,4,5-trimethyl-3,6-dioxabicyclo[3.1.0]hexan-2-yl]hepta-4,6-dien-2-yl]-4-methoxy-3,5-dimethylpyran-2-one | present | NPASS | |
| [(2S,3S,4E,6E)-2-hydroxy-2-(4-methoxy-3,5-dimethyl-6-oxopyran-2-yl)-4,6-dimethyl-7-[(1S,2S,4R,5R)-2,4,5-trimethyl-3,6-dioxabicyclo[3.1.0]hexan-2-yl]hepta-4,6-dien-3-yl] acetate | present | NPASS | |
| Anicequol | present | NPASS | |
| Auranomide B | present | NPASS | |
| FYFVFGNTMCARCV-HNNXBMFYSA-N | present | NPASS | |
| IJOMOOCLEPIMNQ-ZDUSSCGKSA-N | present | NPASS |
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 Necturus maculosus 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.
The complete instruction manual Necturus maculosus 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.
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 type1 790 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 33 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 | 215 |
| Museo civico La Terra e l'Uomo di Crocetta del Montellolocation not on record | 169 |
| Washington, US | 151 |
| Ohio State University - Amphibian Division, Columbus, OH (OSUM)location not on record | 61 |
| Wuzhou, CN | 51 |
| Cambridge, US | 49 |
| North Carolina Museum of Natural Scienceslocation not on record | 48 |
| Berkeley, US | 32 |
| Toronto, CA | 31 |
| New Haven, US | 20 |
| Montgomery, US | 19 |
| Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 17 |
| Fort Hays State University, Sternberg Museumlocation not on record | 15 |
| Southeastern Louisiana University, Vertebrate Museumlocation not on record | 14 |
| Saint John, CA | 12 |
| University of Wisconsin, Zoological Museumlocation not on record | 12 |
| Central Michigan University Museum of Cultural and Natural Historylocation not on record | 11 |
| 8 | |
| APSUlocation not on record | 7 |
| München, DE | 7 |
| Mount Pleasant, US | 4 |
| Ugentlocation not on record | 4 |
| University of Nebraska State Museumlocation not on record | 3 |
| Tacoma, US | 2 |
| EL PASO, US | 2 |
| Auckland, NZ | 2 |
| Los Angeles, US | 2 |
| Texas Memorial Museum, Texas Natural History Collectionlocation not on record | 1 |
| San Diego, US | 1 |
| ASNHClocation not on record | 1 |
| Chongqing Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
| ASUlocation not on record | 1 |
| CASlocation not on record | 1 |
Where the DNA of Necturus maculosus 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.