Taxonomic History
Olms from different cave systems differ substantially in body measurements, color and some microscopic characters. Earlier researchers used these differences to support the division into five different species, while modern herpetologists understand that external morphology is not reliable for amphibian systematics and can be extremely variable, depending on nourishment, illness, and other factors even varying among individuals in a single population. Proteus anguinus is now considered a single species. The length of the head is the most obvious difference among various populations – individuals from Stična, Slovenia, have shorter heads on average than those from Tržič, Slovenia, and the Istrian peninsula, for example.
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