Like the Santa Lucia Mountains Slender Salamander, this is another species recently split out from the older species Batrachoseps pacificus. We ran across this one while looking for the extremely rare Santa Cruz Long-toed Salamander.

I am not certain why the scientific name for this salamander is spelled with a "v" but the common name is spelled with a "b". A reader suggests that the Gabilan range was named after the Spanish name Gavilan but the spelling error crept in due to a misunderstanding caused by the pronunciation of "v" in Spanish, which sounds like "b".