Russian Journal of Herpetology Vol.3, No. 2, 1996, pp. 196-198 ON RECORDS OF Salamandra salamandra IN THE SOUTH-EASTERN PART OF THE BALTIC REGION S. N. Litvinchuk 1 Submitted September 20, 1996. Salamandra salamandra was found in Bagrationovsk, a town in the Kaliningrad region, Russia. Records of this species in the south-eastern part of the Baltic region are discussed. Key words: Salamandra salamandra, Kaliningrad Province, Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia. Since the last century, records of the spotted sala- mander (Salamandra salamandra) in the south-east- ern part of the Baltic region are debatable. About twenty animals have been registered here. However, most records were based on single individuals. More- over, this region is at the distance of several hun- Fig. 1. Records of Salamandra salamandra in the south-eastern part of the Baltic region. 1 ) Wejherowo, 2) Gdansk, 3) Paslęk, 4) Olsztyn, 5) Mrągowo, 6) Kẹtrzyn, 7) Rapa, 8) Kaliningrad, 9) Bagrationovsk, 10) Landwarowo, 11) Asmuss, 12) Ķarbižos, 13) Riga. The triangle (▲) denotes Byсzyna near Charzanow, the nearest confirmed locality of salamanders. Two shaded areas are the compact distribution in the Polish Carpathians (after Berger and Michalowski, 1963). dreds kilometers from the main range of the species (Fig. 1). The earliest records of salamanders were publish- ed in the first descriptions of fauna of the Baltic coun- tries and the former Prussia. For instance, Eichwald (1831) and later Siedlitz (1854) indicated the species for Lithuania, and Lorek (1834) for Prussia. The latter author (Lorek, 1837, p. 9) reported about the animal which was found in a garden of a children's home (without more exact locality). Rathke (1846, p. 21) caught a salamander in the vicinity of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia). Another specimen was found in Neustadt, a town in Western Prussia (Treichel, 1889, p. 257), now Wejherowo, Poland. One more sa- lamander was kept in the Provincial Museum of Dan- zig (Wolterstorff, 1889, p. 267). This specimen was supplied by a label "Danzig" (now Gdansk, Poland). Wolterstorff (1904) believed that these both records from Western Prussia might be occasional introduc- tions from terraria. Later, Dahms (1913, p. 141) again mentioned an additional salamander in Danzig. In 1893, a salamander was caught in Riga, the capital of Latvia (Schweder, 1894, p. 78). This author also considered that this animal ran away from a ter- rarium. The specimen from "Livland" (now part of Latvia and Estonia), which was mentioned by Doro- vatovsky (1913, p. 264) and later Nikolsky (1918, p. 189) was the same individual found by Schweder in Riga (according to Silins and Lamsters, 1934, p. 91). This Latvian record was not the first one. Formerly, E. Dzimpelmanis in 1806 in Ķarbižos (near Lielupes) 1 Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1 Universi- tetskaya nab., St. Petersburg 199034, Russia. 1026-2296/96/0302-0196 © 1997 Folium Publishing Company