T. verrucosus or T. shanjing...?

Yahilles

Yahilles

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Janusz Wierzbicki
As some of you remember, in catfish_dude's thread i posted photos from Wrocław/Breslau Zoo in Poland, where "some" Tylototritons have been bred. I'm pretty sure that they're verrucosus, but people from zoo think they're shanjing, and under this name they sale the offsprings to keepers.
I encountered one keeper who thought that "if they're zoo, they have to be right!", i got her round that these have to be verrucosus - my main points of reference are colors (verrucosus should be darker, and "their orange is more yellow") and the small ridge on the shanjing head.
But after speaking with other, more experienced friend, i recieved answer that there are no sure ways to distinguish them as both species have "dark" and "light" variants, no mention about that they're in fact very similiar or same in genetics (i'm not sure if i understood texts properly).
This is animal from the zoo - is it verrucosus?
tylo.jpg
 
AW: T. verrucosus or T. shanjing...?

This is verrucosus allright. No doubt about it.
 
Yes, it looks exactly like my verrucosus. But they used to go by the same name (both were shanjing), and then were split into two species, and now there are some who are saying they're only one species again. So they can justify doing whatever they want.
 
But they used to go by the same name (both were shanjing)
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Vice versa, T. verr was described first in 1871 and shanjing in 1995.
 
Yahilles said:
But after speaking with other, more experienced friend, i recieved answer that there are no sure ways to distinguish them as both species have "dark" and "light" variants, no mention about that they're in fact very similiar or same in genetics (i'm not sure if i understood texts properly).
Click to expand...

Hahaha! What "more experienced" friend is that, that told you they were no sure ways to distinguish them?! LOL. You have verrucosus witch haves a huge distribution (makes him have a great genetic variability) and shanjing who dont have almost variability at all (thus having a way more smaller distribution): i mean that individuals studied and in the hobby, have basically the same oranges tones, length of their spine, limbs/digits sizes, coloration in body..
Only verrucosus have a more talented way to variability existing several total black ones and others almost having T.shanjing colours. At my eyes they are...Well....Too easy to distinguish and like Joost and Dawn said and well that guy is clearly one verrucosus.
Cheers,
Jorge
 
I'm sure in the hobby we would call them verrucosus. I don't know what is correct taxonomically. I think eventually shanjing and verrocusus will be considered the same species with subspecies or types listed.
 
michael said:
I'm sure in the hobby we would call them verrucosus. I don't know what is correct taxonomically. I think eventually shanjing and verrocusus will be considered the same species with subspecies or types listed.
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Indeed. Several studies point that shanjings are going to be considered subspecies (like Tylo. verrucosus shanjing and then there will be the nominals, Tylo verrucosus verrucosus) Even that way I dont know why these relations and even those in paramesotriton are still so unclear. Today I was with a biologist in a laboratory of madeira university that told me DNA tests are easy things to do. They have only to extract it, select a sequential nucleotide portion and then ship to Lisbon university where the "ferraris" read the sequential ATCTTAG and send info back to this biologist. Then he compares the sequential bases between close taxa (in this case mosses from genus Fissidens) e voilá. Done. The computer gives him a phylogenetic tree showing the closest species and dividing those in several sub-genus all based in genetic. Genetic is the step to follow and if there was more research done by these means then I would really know if shanjing are subspecies of verrucosus and i would know if the rare paramesotritons I hold and breed are really guanxiensis or a new species/subspecies.
Greetz,
Jorge Góis
 
It makes no sense that some would consider them the same species. They look so different and certainly lead different life styles. I love my t.verr. even though they are quite shy.
 
Just because they look somewhat different and the have different adaptations it doesn´t mean they can´t be the same species. Just think about the subspecies of I.alpestris for example. I.a.alpestris is much more terrestrial then I.a.apuanus, and there are some color differences just like with T.verrucosus and T.shanjing. I see no reason why they couldn´t be the same species. I gues, once again, we´ll have to hear what the next study says.
 
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I agree with Rodrigo at 100%. Thats nonsense . Appearance its just a small portion of the deal. Genetic is almost all.

Azhael said:
we´ll have to hear what the next study says.
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Rodrigo why don't do this by ourselves? I have both species i could take them to university to they do them a DNA test and them my biologist friend could possibly see in witch nucleotide sequence they differ and take some conclusions. He done it with plants a hundred times. I´m sure he can do this with amphibians? It´s just a tough...I guess maybe there are people here that work at labs, bigger labs that could do this as well and more easily.
 
How is your Chinese?

Abstract

It has been done already and shanjing is not a monophyletic group. Therefore the current split verrucosus/shanjing is invalid.
 
Hi, everybody,

The paper dealt with mitochondrial DNA, which introgresses easily between close species (plants, insects, amphibia).

This paper may only show that T. verrucosus and T. shanjing are close from each other and that mtDNA from some T. shanjing populations introgressed to chinese T. verrucosus.

After all, we have no data from the nuclear genome of these two species, especialy non-chinese T. verrucosus.
 
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