Blunt-headed Salamander

The blunt-headed salamander is a mole salamander endemic to a small area of grassland and pine oak forest near Morelia in the Mexican state of Michoacan, at about 2,000 meters elevation. Adult females measure 42 to 93 millimeters and males 45 to 70 millimeters, with coloring from black to olive green above and grey below, sometimes marked with cream spots. Populations that remain neotenic keep their gills and fins and have unusually short, blunt heads with round eyes and short thick gills. It is critically endangered, threatened chiefly by habitat loss from agriculture, logging, and the destruction of the breeding ponds it depends on.