Proteus anguinus
Laurenti, 1768 · speciesAt a glance
Sources11 archives
Databases and archives Proteus anguinus's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation20 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility276 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI55 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics191 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 olm or proteus (Proteus anguinus) is an aquatic salamander in the family Proteidae, the only exclusively cave-dwelling chordate species found in Europe. In contrast to most amphibians, it is entirely aquatic, eating, sleeping, and breeding underwater. Living in caves found in the Dinaric Alps, it is endemic to the waters that flow underground through the extensive limestone bedrock of the karst of Central and Southeastern Europe in the basin of the Soča River () near Trieste, Italy, southwestern Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Introduced populations are found near Vicenza, Italy, and Kranj, Slovenia. It is also called the "human fish" by locals because of its fleshy skin color (translated literally from , , , ), as well as "cave salamander" or "white salamander". In Slovenia, it is called močeril (from *močerъ 'earthworm, damp creepy-crawly'; moča 'dampness'). It was first mentioned in 1689 by the local naturalist Valvasor in his Glory of the Duchy of Carniola, who reported that, after heavy rains, the olms were washed up from the underground waters and were believed by local people to be a cave dragon's offspring. This cave salamander is most notable for its adaptations to a life of complete darkness in its underground habitat. The olm's eyes are undeveloped, leaving it blind, while its other senses, particularly those of smell and hearing, are acutely developed. It also lacks any pigmentation in its skin. It has three toes on its forelimbs, but only two toes on its hind feet. It exhibits neoteny, retaining larval characteristics like external gills into adulthood, like some American amphibians, the axolotl and the mudpuppies (Necturus). The olm is the only species in the genus Proteus and the only European species of the family Proteidae, whose other extant genus is Necturus.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology2
Life cycle & reproduction11
Diet & foraging1
Habitat & environment1
Other traits6
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 Proteus anguinus 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 Proteus anguinus 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 periods (Jurassic, Cretaceous…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. The dashed rules marked ✦ are the five great mass extinctions. 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 type276 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 institutions7 of 8 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Cambridge, US | 5 |
| Berkeley, US | 5 |
| 4 | |
| Ann Arbor, US | 3 |
| South Kensington, GB | 2 |
| Barcelona, ES | 1 |
| Washington, US | 1 |
| Chongqing Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
Where the DNA of Proteus anguinus 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.