T. dabienicus

Hi all

Here are a couple of photos of one of my 6 T. dabienicus. They were acquired originally as T. wenxianensis, but, given the longer body shape and red cloacal borders, I think they are actually D. dabienicus. This is mainly based on the new Raffaelli book; FrogEyes, your input would be much appreciated!

I'm sorry the pics aren't of the highest quality...the very dark, matt skin of these animals is a bit too much for my camera phone to deal with!

C

Gorgeous! And they look so healthy too.
Looking forward to you breeding them xDD

Dabie Shan is the closest location of the complex to Shanghai, which is also near the habitats of the other three common pet trade newts from China. I have recently seen a steady supply of "wenxianensis", so I would not be surprised if that's what these are.

Based on morphology, it appears you're correct. Higher resolution images I could run through PSP would help. I would recommend taking dorsal, ventral, and lateral shots against a neutral or contrasting color, with a visible ruler. This would allow indirect measurement and calculation of proportions, as well as color-correction.

I have a source somewhere which questions the accuracy of cloaca color as a defining character in this complex. Nishikawa et al suggest that T.dabienicus and T.broadoridgus are insignificantly divergent from T.wenxianensis and might best be considered synonyms. On the other hand, there seem to be broad pockets of this complex, including a number of unanalyzed populations in Chongqing [which also renders any ID tentative].

For your own reference, the description of T.broadoridgus is most useful and can be downloaded free from the publisher. Description of T.dabienicus is also free from the publisher. T.a.pingwuensis is free from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. I think T.hainanensis and T.wenxianensis used to be free from the publisher, but multiple organizational changes to that journal have resulted in no viable link that I can find. I do have descriptions stashed away however, for almost all oriental salamandrids

I'll dig out those descriptions. These are CB 2011/2012, so the parents would have been imported a few years ago. Of course, being siblings, it increases the chance of all of them sharing the red cloacae. They are certainly not T. broadoridgus (I hate that name!) as the dorsal ridge is, well not broad. As you say, ID is going to be tentative at best, given the disagreement about which forms are actually separate and also unstudied populations. Hopefully I have at least one of each sex in amongst the six so I don't have to worry about tracking down more of the same type. Unfortunately, they came to me via two people so at the moment I can't find out who the breeder was. A few others have CB 'wenxianensis' that are a similar age and look alike, so it may be that they all come from the same person... I will have to start investigating.

I will get some more useful pics when I next have to disturb them - they are very highly strung so i don't want to man handle them too often. I spend half my life at the moment photographing salamanders against scales so i'll try to get some morphologically useful ones of these animals. Of course, they are juveniles, which will complicate the issue.

You know, I kind of hated that name to begin with as well, but then I put in perspective:

All kinds of things are given names in languages other than ancient Latin or Greek:
Tylototriton shanjing ["Chinese"]
Pseudoeurycea kuautli [Nauatl]
Phelsuma masohoala [Malagasy]
Pachydactylus geitje [Afrikaans]

Those are great if you speak English...or French...but what if you speak Cantonese or Malagasy? I imagine the names look somewhat silly then, and there is no rule or sound reason for a name to only seem 'scientificy' to those who speak European languages [Alain Dubois not withstanding]. In a way, I think this is just, fair, and somewhat elegant, for zoological nomenclature to reach an age in which all languages are 'fair game' for species names.

BTW, I am sure you don't have T.broadoridgus. The description is useful because it is in English and provides comparative data for all named Yaotriton to that point [even though some of the traits for T.notialis and T.asperrimus are not actually diagnostic, such as nodule and parotid color].