FrogEyes
Active member
I have been anticipating the following paper (1), which was just published and is freely available for download:
Yunke WU, Yuezhao WANG, James HANKEN, 2012. Comparative Osteology of the Genus Pachytriton (Caudata: Salamandridae) From Southeastern China. Asian Herpetological Research 2012, 3(2): 83–102.
I have a number of disagreements with the approach taken and taxonomy adopted, and was thus disappointed, although not surprised, given that a similar taxonomy was adopted online by the lead author, on the Salamanders of China Lifedesk. I was planning to delay posting this, as I have been [and still am] discussing those disagreements with Yunke. He did ask that I convey his thoughts to this community. I will do so, at least in part, as some of our disagreements have more or less become moot today. Yunke has concerns that several new species have been diagnosed primarily by mtDNA, and with sample sizes too small to be sure that morphological traits are consistant and distinctive. Basically, in my own words, it is possible for a single species to have multiple deeply divergent sets of mtDNA, simply by chance of female inheritance or because males disperse more widely. Pending better data, Yunke prefers to treat P.granulosus, P.feii, and an undescribed species as part of a single P.brevipes complex. Since he can find any given color and pattern in any of the named species, they are in essence indistinguishable by current data. However, he does feel that there is data to indicate multiple species with ranges limited to small montane regions...it's just not sufficient or published yet [more on that later]. If I have miscommunicated his thoughts, I will add a correction later in another post.
The paper adopts an extremely conservative taxonomy with regard to species diversity of Pachytriton, formally treating all of the eastern forms as P.brevipes. It also formally transfers northeastern populations [P.granulosus] of P.inexpectatus to P.brevipes P.inexpectatus has never been described as including those populations [P.labiatus included those, P.inexpectatus was specificlly described to the exclusion of those populations].
Currently available here, but when the next issue comes out, you will need to go to past issues and find volume 3, number 2, 2012:
ahr
Yunke WU, Yuezhao WANG, James HANKEN, 2012. Comparative Osteology of the Genus Pachytriton (Caudata: Salamandridae) From Southeastern China. Asian Herpetological Research 2012, 3(2): 83–102.
I have a number of disagreements with the approach taken and taxonomy adopted, and was thus disappointed, although not surprised, given that a similar taxonomy was adopted online by the lead author, on the Salamanders of China Lifedesk. I was planning to delay posting this, as I have been [and still am] discussing those disagreements with Yunke. He did ask that I convey his thoughts to this community. I will do so, at least in part, as some of our disagreements have more or less become moot today. Yunke has concerns that several new species have been diagnosed primarily by mtDNA, and with sample sizes too small to be sure that morphological traits are consistant and distinctive. Basically, in my own words, it is possible for a single species to have multiple deeply divergent sets of mtDNA, simply by chance of female inheritance or because males disperse more widely. Pending better data, Yunke prefers to treat P.granulosus, P.feii, and an undescribed species as part of a single P.brevipes complex. Since he can find any given color and pattern in any of the named species, they are in essence indistinguishable by current data. However, he does feel that there is data to indicate multiple species with ranges limited to small montane regions...it's just not sufficient or published yet [more on that later]. If I have miscommunicated his thoughts, I will add a correction later in another post.
The paper adopts an extremely conservative taxonomy with regard to species diversity of Pachytriton, formally treating all of the eastern forms as P.brevipes. It also formally transfers northeastern populations [P.granulosus] of P.inexpectatus to P.brevipes P.inexpectatus has never been described as including those populations [P.labiatus included those, P.inexpectatus was specificlly described to the exclusion of those populations].
Currently available here, but when the next issue comes out, you will need to go to past issues and find volume 3, number 2, 2012:
ahr