La Palma Salamander

The Bolitoglossa subpalmata clade occurs in the mountains of Costa Rica and extreme western Panama. These salamanders inhabit humid cloud forests and paramo-like habitats, at moderate to high elevation (1500m). Four clades within the main clade have been defined by allozyme and mtDNA data, and two disjunct geographic units have been categorized. The northern geographic unit, which comprises the species B. subpalmata (sensu stricto), includes populations ranging from Volcan Cacao to Volcan Turrialba, in the Cordillera Guanacaste, Cordillera de Tilaran, Cordillera Central, and Cordillera de Aguacate. The second unit is found in the Cordillera Talamanca, and runs from Cerros de Escazu in Costa Rica to Chiriqui in western Panama (Wake and Lynch 1976; Garcia-Paris et al. 2008).

The inferred incubation period is about 4-5 months.

This salamander is threatened from habitat loss and fragmentation due to increasing agricultural encroachment. It appears to be gone from Parque Nacional Poas and has become extremely rare at Monteverde. Declines that occur in more suitable habitat could be the result of other threats such as climate change or disease, possibly chytridiomycosis. However, chytridiomycosis normally impacts aquatic or semi-aquatic species (IUCN 2006).

The La Palma salamander (Bolitoglossa subpalmata) is a species of salamander in the family Plethodontidae. It is found in Costa Rica and western Panama.

Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist montane forests, pastureland, plantations, rural gardens, and heavily degraded former forest. The species occur at high elevations and cold temperatures atypical of habitats for most other plethodontids. It is threatened by habitat loss.