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P. fuzhongensis again

J

jesper

Guest
I am getting more and more sure that I have four fuzhongensis... Another irritating thing is that three are males judging from their tail-sheens, haven't had the time to investigate the fourth one yet. I saw a pic, on cc, of a juvie belonging to Ralf that had tail-sheen.... Eh, are that small male juvies suppose to have male characteristics or is this not a male charcteristics for this species??

Think I have seen every guanxiensis/fuzhongensis pic on the internet now - they sure don't look as separate species to me.... I am going to ignore mentioning guanxiensis anymore since I do not believe it is a separate species.
 
Jesper, good to hear that at least one person is certain about P. guanxiensis not being a separate species. Maybe you can also clear up some of that T. verrucosus-mess for us
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.

Jesper, please forgive me this sarcastic remark. I know you can take it though and the systematics of Paramesotriton is still uncertain. It will take a lot more field-work to shed some light on the matter.

Seriously, tail sheens are typical for Paramesotriton males. Can't tell you at what age they get it in the wild though. I just know that one of my aquatic male P. fuzhongensis juveniles has one.

Ralf
 
Hehe Ralf, I expected to get showered with sarcasm. Hey, even though I don't really have a clue I've got to form an opinion eh?
As I have got quite a big mouth I also have to post about my opinions. Around here you got to stick the nose out to get attention.

Got your attention eh?
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Yes certainly, by tomorrow I am sure I can clear up the verrucosus mess - Sorry that I haven't got around to it yet - been busy trying to save the world.

Are you sure it is fuzhongensis and not guanxiensis you have then Ralf?
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Do you know how old he was when he got the sheen?
I thought the sheen correlated with the male being sexually mature. He didn't look very mature to me
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So all this talk without telling what your opinion of the matter is Ralfie?
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Jesper,
you mentioned my animals which certainly got my attention. Not a matter of opinions (in my opinion
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), but unfortunately still huge gaps of knowledge. Can't say for sure if my animals are P.f. and not P.g. since I didn't catch them myself and I don't have any locality data. However, the parents were given to me by a very knowledgeable person and they fit the original description.
The animal developed the sheen after approximately 2.5 yrs., which isn't that unusual for male salamandrids to reach maturity. You can still find the original thread in the archive. It was Erik Keyster who originally posted it. Surprisingly the animal is still the size of an adult C.o.. We don't know the age of the bigger wc animals that appear in pet shops, but we can be sure that these animals are collected selectively and do not necessarily represent the sexually mature wild population. Also animal size is a result of interaction with the environment, so maybe they are bigger in their natural suuroundings at that age.
Maybe I shouldn't call my 3-yr. old offspring juveniles any longer. The sheen on a newt tail is a secondary sexual trait. On the other hand, I wouldn't consider every bearded human as being necessarily sexually mature.

Stay away from that Kryptonite, Jesper.

Ralf
 
ABout Guanxiensis. I don't think that anyone can separate species from pics of petshop-bought animals. You may be right, but probably half the animals you saw were probably misidentified. To really be sure, you would have to go see the two 'species' in the wild so you know exactly what they are...
Chris
 
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