Ensatina

Ensatina is a genus of lungless salamanders. They are a complex of subspecies of Ensatina  eschscholtzii, found in forests in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California and Baja California,  Mexico.

 Ring species 
The Ensatina salamander is a ring species in the mountains around the Californian Central Valley.Wake D. 1997. Incipient species formation in salamanders of the Ensatina complex Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 94:7761-7767 The complex forms a horseshoe shape around the mountains. Though interbreeding can happen between each of the 19 populations around the horseshoe, the Ensatina eschscholtzii subspecies on the western end of the horseshoe cannot interbreed with the Ensatina klauberi on the eastern end.Dawkins R. 2004. The Ancestor's Tale: a pilgrimage to the dawn of life: Ring species (the salamander's tale).  It is an illustration of "nearly all stages in a speciation process" (Dobzhansky).Dobzhansky T. 1958. A century of Darwin, ed Barnett S.A. Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, MA. pp 19–55. Richard Highton argued that Ensatina is a case of multiple species and not a continuum of one species.

Subspecies
Yellow Blotched Ensatina — E. e. croceater (Cope, 1868)
Monterey Ensatina — E. e. eschscholtzii Gray, 1850
Large Blotched Ensatina — E. e. klauberi Dunn, 1929
Oregon Ensatina — E. e. oregonensis (Girard, 1856)
Painted Ensatina — E. e. picta Wood, 1940
Sierra Nevada Ensatina — E. e. platensis (Jiménez de la Espada, 1875)
Yellow Eyed Ensatina — E. e. xanthoptica Stebbins, 1949

 References 

Category:Salamanders