Interesting. If you can provide a copy or a link to that information, it could be helpful and certainly would be appreciated. It is my suspicion that T.pseudoverrucosus is of hybrid origin between T.taliangensis and T.shanjing. The morphology suggests a significant connection with T.shanjing, but the mitochondrial DNA [the only DNA studied] indicates a close but not recent ancestry shared with T.taliangensis. To me this strongly suggests and ancient hybridization in which the strongest connection is actually with T.shanjing, but the mitochondria have all descended from a small founding group of T.taliangensis females.
A similar situation would explain the whole T.shanjing/T.verrucosus discussion: The type locality of the latter is very near to populations of T.shanjing, so it is quite possible that at the type locality of T.verrucosus, female mitochondria have been recently obtained by hybridization with T.shanjing. Since morphology was not considered and nuclear DNA was not studied, the conclusion, the evidence of them being a single species is extremely weak. Apparently, some brown populations of T.verrucosus may be under consideration as new species. This could well be simply a result of the above confusion: if T.shanjing and T.verrucosus at the type locality are one species, then orange populations and ONE population of brown specimens would have the name T.verrucosus, while potentially any other population of brown animals would need a new name if their mtDNA or other data indicate them to be different. On the other hand, if the type specimens of T.verrucosus are first generation hybrids, then the species name T.verrucosus would no longer be valid for ANY species. This would leave T.shanjing valid while pure brown populations would need a new name. Overall, I think some erroneous conclusions have been reached and further compounded, and the type locality of T.verrucosus is simply introgressed with mtDNA from a separate species.
