Brown-backed Salamander (Eurycea aquatica)

Atlas of Amphibians in Tennessee - Austin Peay State University
AmphibiaWeb - University of California
Wikipedia
Caudata Culture
Encyclopedia of Life
Global Species - Bruce Myers
Tennessee Amphibians & Reptiles - Matthew Niemiller

The Brown-backed Salamander is another example of fun with taxonomy. The Society for the Study of Amphibians & Reptiles includes it on its most recent checklist, and this has been mostly accepted, but some people still consider it to be a variant of the Southern Two-lined Salamander (Eurycea cirrigera). The key difference between the two species is that the Brown-backed Salamander specifically occurs around springs, whereas the Southern Two-lined Salamander is found in all manner of flowing creeks.

These guys just barely reach from Georgia into southeastern Tennessee, in Bradley County. There's also an old record from the 1960s in Davidson County, where salamanders were found that appeared to be this species. Nobody really knows what they were for sure, and that population has probably gone extinct since.

Photos by Pierson Hill (top) & R.D. Bartlett (bottom)