Salamandra salamandra - Fire Salamander

Classification 

 

                  

 

Domain: Eukarya- All organisms containing a true nucleus and membrane bound orgenelles.

Kingdom: Animalia- All animals are eukaryotic, multicellular, heterotrophic, and are motile at some stage in life.

Phylum: Chordata- All vertebrates (animals with a backbone).  All chordates share five unique features: a notochord, a dorsal tubular nerve chord, pharyngeal gills, an endostyle, and a postanal tail.

Class: Amphibia- The word amphibia refers to double life, in water and on land.  This group includes around 3000 species of salamanders, toads, frogs, and caecilians.  All members in this group are ectothermic and possess both gills and lungs at some stage in life.

Order: Caudata- Salamanders, with four limbs, an elongated body, and a tail, their skin is smooth and glandular for poisonous mucous secretions, and all are predaceous.  The spotted salamander and the tiger salamander are a few more examples of a salamander in the caudata order.  

Family: Salamandridae- Consists of all true salamanders and newts. True salamanders are considered to be medium sized, in both terrestrial and aquatic habitats.  Most of the 98 species in this family are venomous.  

         Subfamily: Salamandrinae- A total of 18 species, coming         from 4 different genuses: Chioglossa, Lyciasalamandra, Mertensiella, and Salamandra. 

Genus: Salamandra- This genus consists of 6 different Salamandra species of European, North African, and Asian salamanders.  Some of which include Salamandra algira, Salamandra alta, Salamandra corsica, and Salamandra salamandra.

Species: Salamandra salamandra- European venomous species, which is black with yellow spots or stripes.  This scientific name is in Latin, when translated to English, it simply means Salamander salamander. However, in Greek, the word salamander means "fire-lizard".

Common name: Fire Salamander

  

Phylogenetic Trees
 

The image above is the Phylogenetic Tree of Life, based off of RNA data, and originally proposed by Carl Woese.  This tree shows in general where every living organism comes from.  Each branch on the tree depicts a different grouping of organisms.  Every branch will also tell how closely related organisms are, as well as how primitive or derived they are (how far away from one common ancestor).  Salamanders can be found in the kingdom Animalia within the domain Eukarya.

Below is a much more specific phylogenetic tree that I created, based off of taxonomic information and a species list found on amphibiaweb.org, in order to better show the classification of Salamandra salamandra.  This phylogeny also includes two of its closest relatives, Salamandra atra and Salamandra corsica.

                                                                                                           

Pictures in the above phylogeny (from left to right):
Photo of Salamandra atra, photo by Kabóca via Wikimedia Commons. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Salamandra_atra
Photo of Salamandra salamandra, photo by Michael Linnenbach via Wikimedia Commons.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Feuersalamander_portrait.jpg
Photo of Salamandra corsica, photo by Andre de Saint-Paul via Wikimedia Commons.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Salamandra_corsica            

                             

Now that we have learned how to classify the fire salamander, let us go take a look at its Habitat.

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