A new species of Crocodile Newt, genus Tylototriton (Amphibia, Caudata, Salamandridae) from the mountains of Kachin State, northern Myanmar

Abstract

We describe a new species of the genus Tylototriton from Ingyin Taung Mt., Mohnyin Township, Kachin State, Myanmar, based on morphological and molecular evidence. The new species is assigned to the subgenus Tylototriton s. str. and is clearly distinct from all known congeners by the following characters: medium body size; thin, long tail, lacking lateral grooves; rough skin; truncate snout; wide, protruding supratemporal bony ridges on head, beginning at anterior corner of orbit; weak, almost indistinct sagittal ridge; long, thin limbs, broadly overlapping when adpressed along body; distinct, wide, non-segmented vertebral ridge; 13 or 14 rib nodules; brown to dark-brown background coloration with dull orange-brown to yellowish-brown markings on labial regions, parotoids, rib nodules, whole limbs, vent, and ventral tail ridge. We also briefly discuss biogeography and species diversity of the genus Tylototriton in Myanmar.

Integrative taxonomy reveals three new taxa within the Tylototriton asperrimus complex (Caudata, Salamandridae) from Vietnam

“…The population from Baise, which according to Hernandez (2018) is distributed in Napo and Jingxi counties, China, was also recovered as a sister taxon to T. hainanensis in previous studies (Yuan et al 2011;Phimmachak et al 2015a;Hernandez 2016). Moreover, the studies by Wang et al (2018) and Zaw et al (2019) did not support the monophyly of both, T. wenxianensis and T. dabienicus species Table 7. Examples of integrative taxonomy in other species of the genus Tylototriton.…”

“…asperrimus, based Figure 1. Current distribution map of the genus Tylototriton, from South and Central China, to northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, India, Bhutan and Nepal (Hernandez 2016;Qian et al 2017;Grismer et al 2018;Wang et al 2018;Grismer et al 2019;Hernandez et al 2019;Zaw et al 2019). In red the distribution areas belonging to the subgenus Tylototriton, and in blue the distribution areas belonging to the sub-genus Yaotriton (Dubois and Raffaëlli 2009).…”

The discovery of Rock Geckos Cnemaspis Strauch, 1887 (Squamata: Gekkonidae) in the Tanintharyi Region, Myanmar with the description of two new species

“…Our collective knowledge of Myanmar's herpetofauna remains incomplete. Because major portions of the country remain unexplored, there is tremendous potential for both new species discoveries and range extensions (Wogan et al 2008;Wilkinson et al 2012;Lee et al 2015Lee et al , 2018Connette et al 2017;Grismer et al 2017a,b;Grismer et al 2018a,b,c;Mulcahy et al 2017Mulcahy et al , 2018Zug et al 2017;Zaw et al 2019). Recent surveys in remote and understudied areas of Myanmar, such as the Tanintharyi, have yielded numerous herpetofaunal specimens that increase our knowledge of biodiversity in that region (Zug et al 2017;Lee et al 2018;Mulcahy et al 2018), a region under studied since the late 19 th century (Theobald 1868).…”

Cranial shape evolution of extant and fossil crocodile newts and its relation to reproduction and ecology

“…Tylototriton Anderson, 1871 includes 25 species divided into two subgenera: Tylototriton Anderson, 1871 and Yaotriton Dubois and Raffaëlli, 2009 (Dubois and Raffaelli, 2009). Tylototriton is widely distributed from east Nepal to east and central China, southwards to Myanmar, central Vietnam, Laos and Thailand (Wang et al, 2018; Zaw et al, 2019). Apparently, crocodile newts have a quite conservative morphological evolution (Hernandez et al, 2018), leading to a high number of species mainly recognized by genetic studies in recent years.…”

“…On the other hand, distinct diagnostic morphological characters are only sparsely available (e.g. Nishikawa et al, 2013; Phimmachak et al, 2015a; Qian et al, 2017; Grismer et al, 2018; Zaw et al, 2019).…”