Miscellaneous Notes on Oriental Fire Salamanders ( Salamandra infraimmaculata Martens, 1885) (Lissamphibia: Urodela: Salamandridae)

We report on several aspects concerning Oriental fire salamanders (Salamandra infraimmaculata). (1) Color pattern variability in S. i. semenovi: A barcode test (mtCOI) demonstrates that there is practically no genetic distance between semenovi samples from Iraq, Iran and easternmost Turkey, but only a slight one between these and a SE Turkish sample of S. i. orientalis. (2) Due to the difficulty to reliably distinguish between S. L infraimmaculata and S. i. orientalis on morphological grounds, the latter cannot be characterized as being smaller than the former. If specimens from Karamanmaras are allocated to S. L orientalis, this taxon would reach the same dimensional level as does S. i. infraimmaculata. (3) The latter as an unusual prey of the dice snake (Natrix tessellate). (4) We point on a so far overlooked character suitable to distinguish between the marginal southwestern (S. algira) and southeastern (S. infraimmaculata) species-level fire salamander taxa from true S. salamandra and we discuss the diagnostic value of this character. As a result, also-based on this character, the published Tunisian record of S. algira should be regarded as wrong.