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Guaranteed, it is biologically not a separate species, but for legal purposes it'll do just fine.

The Scott Bar salamander, classified as Plethodon asupak, had been considered to be a member of the Siskiyou Mountains salamander species, or Plethodon stormi, until genetic analysis showed a distinct evolutionary line

I'm sure the mice on my favorite island in the swamp have been isolated long enough to have developed a distinct evolutionary line.

The genetic analysis was done at Oregon State University

This is a very good example of why the ESA no longer works. This supposed species, just like the Siskiyou Mountain salamander, looks identical to the Del Norte salamder, which is as common as blacktail deer. Several years back, some of these were found on one of our projects....after we had logged. We agreed to let the property, near Scott Bar, be included in a study done by a local timber company. It was ideally suited as I had used several different cutting prescriptions, and thus had created different canopy levels.

While they did not find them in the middle of the small clearcuts we had done, they did find them in the skidtrails, on the edge of the clearcuts, and in the partial cut areas. If there was talus with partial shade - they were there.

Before we had the property surveyed, the landowner and I went with an old (1960's) Audobon book of reptiles and turned over rocks. We found two different types. I called the biologist and reported what we found...we thought it was great because, in our mind, it proved that logging did not kill salamanders. Then the conversation got weird. He said that there was no way to tell which type of salamander we had found out in the woods. How do you tell them apart I asked?

There was a long pause on the phone, he sighed and said, "After you get the special permit from DFG you remove the liver from the salamander and do DNA testing on it. The only way to tell the difference between the Siskiyou Mountain Salamander and the Del Norte salamander is at the mitachondrial DNA level."

This was ten years ago. At that time, AT&T was running a new telephone line thru the area. They had been going down the side of State Highway 96 and burying the line in the roadside ditch. This stopped near Scott Bar because they found salamnders in the roadside ditch. They then trenched down the middle of the highway. The cost went up to AT&T and the taxpayers, who then had to pay to repave the highway. This whole situation is beyond stupid IMHO