Thanks for that contribution, Chip. I'd read about the discovery of
Karsenia koreanais a couple of weeks back in a <font color="ff0000">
Nature</font> magazine article sent to me by Henk but was waiting for him to "announce" it here
I hadn't seen the <font color="ff0000">
ScienceDaily</font>article until now though, and it's indeed a good read!
Here's the link to the UC Berkeley press release again in case somebody didn't catch it:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/05/04_korea.shtml
And here's the intro to the <font color="ff0000">
Nature</font> article:
<font face="verdana,arial,helvetica">
Discovery of the first Asian plethodontid salamander</font>
By M. S. Min, S. Y. Yang, R. M. Bonett, D. R. Vieites, R. A. Brandon & D. B. Wake
"Nearly 70% of the 535 species of salamanders in the world are members of a single family, the Plethodontidae, or lungless salamanders1. The centre of diversity for this clade is North and Middle America, where the vast majority (99%) of species are found. We report the discovery of the first Asian plethodontid salamander, from montane woodlands in southwestern Korea. The new species superficially resembles members of North
American genera, in particular the morphologically conservative genus
Plethodon. However, phylogenetic analysis of the nuclear encoded gene Rag-1 shows the new taxon to be widely divergent from
Plethodon. The new salamander differs osteologically from putative relatives, especially with respect to the tongue (attached protrusible) and the derived tarsus. We place the species in a new genus on the basis of the morphological and molecular data. The distribution of the new salamander adds to the enigma of Old World plethodontids, which are otherwise restricted to the western Mediterranean region, suggesting a more extensive past distribution of the family."
Source: NATURE |VOL 435 | 5 MAY 2005
<font size="-2">(anybody wanting the complete article, mail me
)</font>
(Message edited by TJ on May 12, 2005)
