Two new Pachytriton from China

Thanks Mian. I already posted the description of P.xanthospilos.

One of these is almost certainly a synonym of the other, since P.changi appears to be based on Nishikawa et al's lineage 1d, which appears in exactly the same phylogenetic position as P.xanthospilos, sister to P.feii + P.brevipes.

P.xanthospilos was submitted on June 26, 2012 and published on July 13, 2012.
P.changi was "released" on June 30, 2012, but it's not clear to me what date that journal was distributed in print and I have not seen the abstract before today.

It is unusual these days to describe a species without an accurate type locality, especially in a group where precise origin often makes a big difference in identity [genetics not withstanding]. I'll have to see what the Code currently says about this.

Full citation [one more paper to get my hands on]:
Kanto NISHIKAWA, Masafumi MATSUI, Jian-Ping JIANG, 2012. A New Species of Pachytriton from China (Amphibia: Urodela: Salamandridae). Current Herpetology 31(1):21-27.
A new species of the salamandrid genus Pachytriton is described based on two individuals purchased from pet shops in Japan. The original locality of these specimens is known only as “China”, and further details are not known. Morphologically, this species differs from all other congeners in the combination of coloration, body size, snout length, head width, tail length and width, and length of upper jaw tooth series and vomerine tooth series. Genetically, this species is separated from all other congeners by substantial genetic distances in mitochondrial DNA sequences.
 
These two newt not in same, have more different, but the images in the paper all too bad, so can not show further details to reader. And this two author all not expert for morphologic just specialty in molecular systematics, therefore the morphological description all not on point.
 
The morphology is problematic because of the limited number of specimens. Some photos of P."D", generally treated as P.archospotus, look exactly like P.xanthospilos [see Flickr account of Henk Wallays]. Yunke points out that P.archospotus may be spotless, just as all color variants seem to be present in populations of P.brevipes, P.feii, and P.granulosus.

The other problem is that there is no direct comparison with P.xanthospilos, and no type locality which is usable.

A correction on my part: Yunke pointed out that the June 26 date for his paper was not the submission date, but the acceptance date. It was submitted months earlier and on June 26 was deemed ready for publishing.

It is certainly possible that the two species are distinct. They could be sister to one another, or one sister to the other plus P.feii and P.brevipes. There are plenty of small mountain ranges which could be home to one or more localized species in the complex. Since I haven't yet seen or read the description P.changi I have no choice but to accept two species for the time being. The question I will have when I do read it is "are there any traits which distinguish P.changi from P.xanthospilos?" The second will be "is there any evidence that they are independant clades?"

The Japanese authors certainly seem to focus on molecular, especially mtDNA traits. The Harvard team does not, and has extensively used morphometrics, morphology, and both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA traits.
 
I haven't had a chance to compare very much...

The two nominative forms are subtly different in appearance, though overall rather similar. The sizes are also similar. There is mtDNA cytB data registered with GenBank for P.changi, but the description of P.xanthospilos makes no mention of similar data. I will have to run a search on GenBank, which could then possibly allow direct data comparison. The problems remain: P.changi has no locality and a sample size of two. P.xanthospilos has one known locality, plus a sample of unknown origin. At the moment, there is nothing to indicate how much variation there is in P.xanthospilos at localities other than Mangshan, and there is no indication of variation within P.changi within even a single population. They appear to be different...but that's about it. If mtDNA data shows them to be distinct, it still might only indicate divergent matrilineal descent within a single species. I hope that they both prove distinct, and the locations of P.changi and other unknown species are discovered.
 
The new book on Chinese amphibians and their distributions uses Yunke Wu's photos and localities of Pachytriton xanthospilos in the account for Pachytriton changi, suggesting that these authors consider the two names to be a single species. If Yunke provided photos, it also suggests that he accepts this change as well and he or someone else has finally been able to run a BLAST comparison of the two sets of specimens.
 
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