plethodontid

noun

Etymology: From scientific Latin Plethodontidae (family name), from Plethodon (genus name), from Ancient Greek πλῆθος (plêthos, “great number”) + ὀδούς (odoús, “tooth”).

1. Any of the Plethodontidae, a family of lungless salamanders.

   “The family of salamanders known as plethodontids are unusual in many ways.”

   “In Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri, for example, they are—if you count them by weight—the dominant form of life, with 1400 tonnes of plethodontids lurking in the leaf litter and wetlands of its 600,000 hectares.”