FrogEyes
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The Vegas Valley leopard frog has been shown to be alive and well in Arizona!
Believed extinct [from Las Vegas] for many decades now, Lithobates fisheri, has been demonstrated to be alive and fairly widespread. Museum specimens from Las Vegas were genetically tested [now possible for preserved specimens] and compared to a number of other living leopard frog species. They have been demonstrated as firmly part of a population of leopard frogs distributed along the Mogollon rim of Arizona. This population has been treated as L.chiricahuensis, but with the knowledge that they were probably NOT the same species as true L.chiricahuensis from the southern edge of the state and Mexico. Thus, Mogollon "chiricahuensis" are properly L.fisheri.
http://www.naherpetology.org/pdf_files/1838.pdf
As an aside, there are many species pairs which have one species on the Mogollon Rim, and another in the Madrean Sky Islands which extend into Mexico. These include Lampropeltis pyromelana on the Rim and L.knoblochi in the Sky Islands. It also includes Pseudoeurycea bellii in the Sky Islands of Mexico, and two specimens from Prescott Arizona [western Rim]. So if there ARE lungless salamanders somewhere near Prescott, and in Sonora, then Arizona is likely home to TWO species of Pseudoeurycea, with one of those being an unnamed endemic. So who gets to re-discover them?
Believed extinct [from Las Vegas] for many decades now, Lithobates fisheri, has been demonstrated to be alive and fairly widespread. Museum specimens from Las Vegas were genetically tested [now possible for preserved specimens] and compared to a number of other living leopard frog species. They have been demonstrated as firmly part of a population of leopard frogs distributed along the Mogollon rim of Arizona. This population has been treated as L.chiricahuensis, but with the knowledge that they were probably NOT the same species as true L.chiricahuensis from the southern edge of the state and Mexico. Thus, Mogollon "chiricahuensis" are properly L.fisheri.
http://www.naherpetology.org/pdf_files/1838.pdf
As an aside, there are many species pairs which have one species on the Mogollon Rim, and another in the Madrean Sky Islands which extend into Mexico. These include Lampropeltis pyromelana on the Rim and L.knoblochi in the Sky Islands. It also includes Pseudoeurycea bellii in the Sky Islands of Mexico, and two specimens from Prescott Arizona [western Rim]. So if there ARE lungless salamanders somewhere near Prescott, and in Sonora, then Arizona is likely home to TWO species of Pseudoeurycea, with one of those being an unnamed endemic. So who gets to re-discover them?