New salamander <i>Hynobius maoershanensis</i> described in China!

[houmian]

A new Hynobius species was described, the article appeared in¡¶ACTA ZOOTAXONOMICA SINICA¡·2006.No.3,title is "A new species of the Genus Hynobius from Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region,China(Caudata,Hynobiidae)".
In this article described a new species named Hynobius maoershanensis!This species is a alpine type, inhabit mountaintop everglade about 1700~2100 altitude.

 

[wouter]

Ah yes, I've seen the name on the Amphibiaweb database...

Do you have a copy of this description that you could send by email?

 

[houmian]

OF course I have PDF file£¬ tell me your email I'll send it to you.

 

[TJ]

Hi HouMian, would you please email me one too? the address is between the xxx marks:

xxxtimtim@gol.comxxx

Thanks!

 

[william]

me too please:

XXXwilljnewt@googlemail.comXXX

 

[TJ]

Thanks Mian! Wow, that's really cool. I wouldn't have expected a new hynobiid species to be found so far south, in Guangxi (neighboring Vietnam), of all places (though I notice that Maoershan is way up in the northeastern part of Guangxi, near scenic Guilin). That leads me to wonder if this species is at the extreme southern end of the range of Hynobius? I just know of H. amjiensis and H. yiwuensis occurring Zhejiang and Fujian provinces of southeastern China. A document I have suggests the southernmost hynobiid population known to science as of 1997 was at N27�‹43�Œwhile H. maoershanensis is at N25�‹52. But that may only be for mainland China as there are hynobiids in Taiwan that are pretty far south too...

Source: Genetic divergence of the southeastern Chinese salamanders of the genus Hynobius
Jinzhong FU, Mark HAYES, LIU Zhi-Jun, ZENG Xiao-Mao
Acta Zoologica Sinica 49 (5): 585�`591, 2003

(Message edited by TJ on October 27, 2006)

 

[houmian]

Oh...I have to accept you are very acuteness! Yes you are right the N25¡ãis the extreme southern end of Hynobius species,I already prove it by myself in last winter, in that time I was been to Guangxi,Jiangxi,Hunan and Fujian province to collect these specimens.

 

[TJ]

Hi HouMian. Wow, do show us pictures from that trip sometime!

But it seems what you refer to is only the case for hynobiids on the Chinese mainland, as I've since checked and found that H. arisanensis is found some distance south of Taiwan's southern city of Tainan, which is itself at 22�‹57' N

A quote: "Taiwan is the southernmost region of distribution of hynobiid salamanders in the world (Seto and Utsunomiya 1987, Zhao and Hu 1988)."

Source: Predictive Distribution of Hynobiid Salamanders in Taiwan
By Pei-Fen Lee, Kuang-Yang Lue, Shan-Huah Wu
Zoological Studies 45(2): 244-254 (2006)

I'll send you a copy

(Message edited by TJ on October 19, 2006)

 

[houmian]

Excuse me,very regret,that trip in a disquisition of my friend, all outlay from her, if have not her permission I can not show any photo for anyone.
Tim, maybe you are right, a friend also told me he has a friend already seen salamanders in the field at Nantou city Taiwan province.

 

[TJ]

In the field, sure, in an outdoors sense, and in the city, sure, in an administrative sense, but they'd probably be found up in the mountains as unlike Japan, Taiwan Island has no "lentic" lowland pond breeders, just "lotic" mountain stream breeders, right?

As a mainland Chinese, I'd imagine you'd have great difficulty in being able to see them in their natural habitat, as many areas where they're found -- so I'm told -- are military-restricted zones that would be off-limits to you as PRC passport-holder without special permission. I myself would like to go there to see amphibians someday, but I'm unsure about access...

By the way, are any of the hynobiids on the mainland pond-breeders?

(Message edited by TJ on November 06, 2006)

 

[henk]

Well well ... seems like I have a bit of catching up to do here no ???
I would love to see the pdf too ;-)
For now I am preparing the hynobius for the next breeding season and hop to make some shots along the line (lately was rather out making shots on insects ... the other part of the food chain as to speak.
And I still have that odd white hynobius larvae swimming around and now over 10 cm long (it is developping color now).