 Salamanders are found only in the Holarctic and Neotropical regions , not reaching south of the Mediterranean Basin , the Himalayas , or in South America the Amazon Basin . They do not extend north of the Arctic tree line , with the northernmost Asian species , <unk> <unk> occurring in the Siberian larch forests of Sakha and the most northerly species in North America , Ambystoma laterale , reaching no farther north than Labrador and Taricha granulosa not beyond the Alaska Panhandle . They had an exclusively Laurasian distribution until Bolitoglossa invaded South America from Central America , probably by the start of the Early Miocene , about 23 million years ago . They also lived on the Caribbean Islands during the early Miocene epoch , confirmed by the discovery of <unk> <unk> , found trapped in amber in the Dominican Republic . However , possible salamander fossils have been found on the Australian sites of Riversleigh and <unk> . 
