Another new species? <i>Hynobius guanbanshanensis</i>

This is what I found today (spelling errors intact):

<font color="aa00aa">Three habitats of Hymobius were discovered in South China

�@�@Three new habtats of Hymobiu were discovered in south China. They are in
Qiyang County and Xinshao County of Hunan Province and in Jiaolin County of
Guandong Province. Hymobius sp in the habitat of Guabangshan Forest Center in Qiyang County was appraised to be a new species as Hymobius guabanshanensis by Prof SHEN Youhui in Hunan Normal University in 2004. Its total length is 125-150mm and body colour is grey with small white speckles latter composed of very small white dots of great number.

�@�@On Twentith July 2004 Hymobius was discovered in Zhushan and Xiaohe
Villagy of Pingshan Town in Xinshao County.On Eightieth November 2004 Hymobius
was also discovered in Baishui Hole of Yentang Town in the same county which is
apart 50km from Pingshan Town. Their total length is 80-150mm. There are two kinds
of Hymobius with different body colour. One is grey and the other is grey with 1-10 yellow dots.

�@�@Hymobius was also discovered in Jiaolin County of Guandong Province.Its
total length is 100-150mm. Particularly its body colour is light yellow.

�@�@It is not appraised that Hymobius discovered in Xinshao County and Jiaoli
County is Hymobius chinensis or the new species Hymobius guanbanshanensis. </font>

Source: http://www.giant-salamander.com/view_en.asp?id=497

Henk-san, any information on this?

Just reading this with my open mouth ...

Suugoinaaaaa.....

Hontouni!

But then again It does not surprise me. Mother Nature has always something new in store for us. And Father Culture is often close by...

( imagines some european speeding his way to china... post haste)

Ok, I found the paper I was looking for at:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:5Zg7ybfGXeQJ

It's in Chinese, but here are some extracts from the English abstract:

----------------------------------------------------------
<font size="-2">(start)</font>

New Hynobiid Species Hynobius guabangshanensis from Hunan Province China (Amphibia: Hynobiidae)
SHEN You Hui, DENG Xue Jian, WANG Bin
College of Life Sciences, Hunan Normal University

This paper described a new species of the family Hynobiidae from Hunan, China. The type specimen is deposited in the College of Life Sciences, Hunan Normal University.

Diagnosis: The new species has many traits similar to Hynobius amjiensis, such as large size, 13 costal grooves, long legs, and tips of fingers and toes mostly meet when adpressed; their metacarpal and metatarsal tubercles are distinguished. However, it differs in the following characters:

1) size smaller than H. amiiensis, the total length of adult male is 139 (125-151) mm;

2) vomerine teeth thinner and closely range together, the outside twigs with 9-11 teeth, inside twigs with 25-27 teeth, the latter terminal connected with each other

3) tail length shorter, the rate to snout body length 70%;

4) egg sac not longer than 200 mm, and curve...

<font size="-2">(end)</font>
---------------------------------------------------------

This paper seems to be from:

Acta Zoologica Sinica
50(2):209-215, 2004

That link doesn't work for me anymore, but this one does:

http://www.actazool.org/downloadpdf.asp?id=1203

I've since managed to download and print out the full paper, original fonts intact. There's an interesting drawing of this animal, but regrettably no photos. There's also a nice chart comparing its morphological characters with those of other species of Hynobius.