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New Species Description
Spotted Tailed Warty Newt Trituroides caudopunctatus
(illustration II, 5)
Liu et Hu, new species
Translated by Ian Choi
Main sample:
63 II # 0303, Male Adult, Guizhou Prov. Thunder Mtd Prefecture ????, Sea level 1158 meters; 1963 May 8th, collected by Ng Guk Fu and Gai Yau Ming.
Matching sample:
63 II #0314, Female Adult, collected at the same time and location as the main sample.
Secondary sample:
97 Males, 137 Females and eggs; Thunder Mtd, Sea level 860 - 1800 meters.
Distinguishing Features:
Body shape and the warts on the body is very similar to the Chinese Warty Newt Trituroides chinensis (Gray). The main distinctions are the new species’ mouth width, distinguishably wider than the width between the eyes, and the feet digits are extremely flat and wide. Male has tail with violet colour eye-shape marking or elongated marking with dark outline. This sex distinction with colour marking has not been observed from other species.
Figure 2 Spotted Tailed Warty Newt, Trituroides caudopunctatus, Liu et Hu, new species Male, Anal Region x 3
Main Sample Specimen Description:
Overall length is 143 mm, body and head length is 77 mm. The length between the bases of the forelimbs and hind limbs is 45.5% of body and head length. The head was slightly flat. Head length was greater than head width. It resembled a trapezoid shape, front width shorter than rear width. Jaw width is long and the tip of the jaw is flat, more outward than the lower jaw. Nostrils are located under the tip of the head; can not be seen from the rear. The edges of the lip are noticeable with the cheek region slightly outward. The head is slightly bumped up behind the eyes and connected to the neck. The corners of the jaw are located under the outer corners of the eyes with the upper lip lining very noticeable. Upper and lower jaws have small teeth with vomerine teeth as “^” shape. The tongue is long, round and small, with the two sides detached while the front and back ends attached to the floor of the mouth.
Forelimb is smaller and longer than hind limb. When the forelimbs reached forward along the side of the body, the tips of the digits can reach over the front half of the eyes. When reaching toward the hind limbs, the digits of the forelimbs and hind limbs can touch the palm of the other limbs. It has four forelimb digits and five hind limb digits; all short and flat. There is no web between the bases of the digits. The tips of the digits are round with the first forelimb digits and first hind limb digits being much shorter and smaller. Tail is shorter than the total length of body and head; and gradually thinner and flatter toward the tail end. The dorsal and ventral sides of the tail almost resemble a thin layer with a round edge. The anal section swelled up with an anus opening. At the inner side of the anus opening, digit shaped bumps could be found.
For the measurements of the new species, please refer to table 4.
Table 4 Spotted Tailed Warty Newt Trituroides caudopunctatus
Liu et Hu, new species measurements *
(see next post)
The skin is slightly rough. Its spine bows up, with its anterior end located at the dorsal of the neck where the rear end of the eyes found. Random dorsal-to-ventral linings are found on the body and the anterior half of the tail, with small bumps scattered among the linings. The dorsal side of the head, especially the jaw, head top, upper eyelids and the two sides of the head behind the eyes, toward the sides of the body at the base of the tail, the central spinal region to the dorsal tail fin, and the dorsal of the four limbs are abundantly filled with bumps; the bigger of these bumps are called warts. These bumps and warts are of olive color when alive. The folding of the neck is very noticeable and it round toward the dorsal of the neck. The skins of the lips, the ventral linings, the digits of the forelimb and hind limbs, and the palm are smooth. Both sides of each digit have thick skin folding.
When alive, the warts on the head and body are olive color. Thus, the dorsal side of the head is olive color with the back and sides of the body resembling three linear marking of olive color. The sides of the head and the dorsal body is green, this green gradually turn light olive color on the tail. Near the end of tail’s ventral side, the color is light and randomly scattered with small black dots. At the posterior end of the tail, the left side has a 7 x 2 mm and right has an 8 x 2 mm elongated violet marking with dark outline (a nearly broken outline to solid black outline). There is an additional round shape violet marking in front of the left elongated marking. At the center of the tail dorsal sides also have unevenly distributed dark outline violet round marking; left has three, right has four. The ventral throat side is grey green with a bit of purple color with olive color bumps. From the sides of the body to the dorsal side, the light green color turns to an orange red color, scattered with many small black dots. The bumps at the anal region are high in blood pressure and with a pink color. Anal skin is golden yellow color. In preserved specimen, the dorsal side is brown as a sharp contract to the olive color warts. The ventral throat side is a grey purple color or violet. The orange red body abdominal region is turned to white with the anal bumps as light purple grey color.
Secondary Characteristics (Sexual Dimorphism)
Female body section is longer. When the forelimbs reach toward the hind limbs, the digits of the forelimbs and hind limbs came into contact or slightly pass over each other. The dorsal body color is the same as the male. Male tail has violet marking with many digit-like bumps at the anal area Female tail does not have violet marking nor small black dots. When the female specimen is put into the preserving liquid, will this light elongated color marking show up at the posterior end of the tail. The anal region becomes swelled up with a short anal opening and the absence of digit-like bumps.
Color Marking Variations
The markings on the ventral side and the male tail can vary greatly. Examined 93 male and 138 female specimens, both male and female abdominal marking variations can be categorized into four main types (diagram I, 3). For the ratio of each type of marking, see table 5.
A small amount of specimens’ throat region has small black dots as well.
Table 5 Spotted Tailed Warty Newt’s Color Marking Type
(see next post)
The markings at the dorsal of male tail central region have many variations on numbers and shape. From the absence of marking to the most numerous of 6 markings, the markings on left and right are not mirrored and the distribution is not even as well. Most of the specimens have scattered rough marking. There are also cases with two or more rough marking connected together. There are even some cases with elongated markings (Longest has reached 17mm). The posterior end of the tail has elongated markings like that of the primary specimen with no exceptions. However, the round marking closely in front of the elongated marking is not a standard feature. Among the 93 specimens, 46 specimens do not have any round marking on both sides; 12 specimens with markings on both sides; the remaining 35 specimens are having the marking on one side only or having two connected markings.
The types of central tail marking and its amounts are on the following table.
(see next post)
Behavior
Spotted tailed warty newts live in basin, creek and river side. Sometime they are found in calm water of streamside or pond side. They stay at different depths, on a beach of round stones or under fallen logs in the waterside. During the working period at Thunder Mtd, there was no terrestrially active individual ever observed. In the habitats of warty newt, the larvae of Pachytriton brevipes, Megophryidae, Vibrissaphora and ??(lit. Spine Side Frog) can be found. The calm water near by also has the juveniles of Tylototriton asperrimus.
On April 29th, in a basin on the Thunderous Hill (1800 m) found many adult newts, young female (63 II #0825) had a total length of 85mm; features were the same as female adults. Other than the edge of the upper lip, the dorsal tail fin, the posterior of the tail and the palms were smoother, the other body parts had more noticeable warts; abdominal region had bumps as well, not as smooth as the adults. At the same time, eggs were found in the crack of two large rocks. Below water surface from 5 to 40 cm deep, 63 eggs were gathered from the long crack. Eggs were organized together as a chain, laid on the rock orderly. When alive, the egg membrane is transparent. Eggs are elliptical; animal pole is brown, vegetal pole is cream white color. Investigation after stabilizing it, there were three egg envelopes, the outer layer is thick and strong. The eggs were at different embryonic stages; including blastulation, gastrulation and neurulation. Some individuals already developed gills pouch. It seems like they were not laid on the same day. Egg membrane diameter is 4 x 3 ~ 5 x 3.7 mm, embryo is 3 x 2 ~ 3.5 x 2.5 mm. Once dissected female adult 63 II #0095 (29/ IV collected), left ovary had 68 eggs, and 3 eggs already in oviduct; eggs was dark brown, vegetal pole was slightly lighter in color. Egg diameter was 3 x 2 mm.
According to the comparison among 220 specimens, the body size from lower sea level region is bigger than those laid in the higher sea level. The cloacal pores of the specimens collected from April to May were noticeably large, and the specimens collected in June from the same location were smaller. The new species is extremely common in Thunder Mtd, locally known as “xiao3 xi1” (pronunciation) and not edible; rumor said that someone died after eating the newt. The cream white mucus from the skin secretion has a very strong sulphuric odor. The most of the specimens has parasitic Acrina on their skin, usually attached to immobilizing parts of the body, such as neck and the joints.
Skull (63 II #0095, Female): Premaxillary bones joint together, it had a pair of long nasal processes; maxillary bone and the pterygoid bone do not attach but rather connected by ligaments. Frontosquamosal arch is present. It had 1 cervical vertebra, 12 trunk vertebras, 1 sacral vertebra and 35 caudal vertebras; a rear-bend-down type; 13 pairs of rib bones, behind the third and fourth pairs of rib bones had small unicinate process; sacral rib was strong and stiff. The skeletal structure was identical to the other Trituroides species. Previously there was a warty newt subspecies of the Trituroides chinensis, distributed in Anhui, Zhejiang and Guangdong; Herre (1939) those from Zhejiang coastal region were classified as new subspecies Triturus (Trituroides) sinensis boringi, distinguished from those in Hong Kong (Trituroides hongkongensis (Myers & Leviton, 1962)). The new species Spotted tailed warty newt’s body shape and color markings both are different than the Chinese warty newt; such species distributed region due west till the south-eastern Guizhou region. The new species is the dominant species on Thunder Mtd and still not found in other region.
(Message edited by achiinto on April 26, 2006)
(Message edited by achiinto on April 26, 2006)
