Slender Dwarf Siren (Pseudobranchus striatus spheniscus)
Description: Adult P. striatus have a brownish to black dorsal ground color with parallel yellow or tan stripes running along the back and sides from head to tail tip. Pseudobranchus s. spheniscus, the slender dwarf siren, is smaller and more slim-bodied. This subspecies has a narrow, wedge-shaped head and two (rarely three) narrow tan or yellow lateral stripes.
Habitat: The preferred habitats are cypress ponds in acid pine flatwoods and other permanent and semipermanent bodies of water.
Range: This species is distributed through Atlantic Coast Plain regions of eorgia, and northern to mid-peninsular Florida, excluding the westernmost portion of the Florida panhandle.
Found in these States:
FL |
GA
Diet: Diet consists of aquatic invertebrates, including earthworms, amphipods, chironomids, and ostracods.
Reproduction: Courtship and mating have not been observed (Petranka 1998). Fertilization is presumed to be external. Eggs are deposited singly, and the oviposition period lasts from early November through March.
Status: There is no evidence that populations of this species are declining. However, the habitat of dwarf sirens is threatened, and therefore populations are at risk, by development and agriculture which lead to the destruction of wetlands.
»» Kingdom: Animalia - Animals
»» Phylum: Chordata - Chordates
»» Subphylum: Vertebrata - Vertebrates
»» Class: Amphibia - (Amphibians)
»» Order: Caudata - Salamanders
»» Family: Sirenidae - Sirens
»» Genus: Pseudobranchus
»» Species: Pseudobranchus striatus - Northern Dwarf Siren
»» Subspecies: Pseudobranchus striatus spheniscus - Slender Dwarf Siren
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Northern Dwarf Siren", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0. Content may have been omitted from the original, but no content has been changed or extended.
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