Neurergus kaiseri Schmidt, 1952

Class: Amphibia > Order: Caudata > Family: Salamandridae > Subfamily: Pleurodelinae > Genus: Neurergus > Species: Neurergus kaiseri

Neurergus crocatus kaiseri Schmidt, 1952, Nat. Hist. Misc., 93: 1. Holotype: ZMUC 03184, by original designation. Type locality: "Shah Bazan, Luristan, Iran", Zagros Mountains, 1200 meters, from 10 to 15 km south of the junction of the Ab-I-Cesar and Ab-I-Diz rivers. Museum records give locality as "Locality 70: 'Good Springs' 11km N of Shah Bazan, 8 km SW of junction with Ab-i-Diz and Ab-i-Cezar river" (personal commun., H. Kristensen, 24 Nov. 2010).

Neurergus crocatus kaiseri — Thorn, 1968, Salamand. Eur. Asie Afr. Nord: 273.

Neurergus kaiseri — Schmidtler and Schmidtler, 1970, Senckenb. Biol., 51: 49; Schmidtler and Schmidtler, 1975, Salamandra, 11: 93.

Neurergus (Neurergus) kaiseri — Dubois and Raffaëlli, 2009, Alytes, 26: 54, 66.

Common Names

Luristan Newt (Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 32; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 35).

Lorestan (Mountain) Newt (Baloutch and Kami, 1995, Amph. Iran: 96).

Kaiser's (Lorestan) Mountain Newt (Safaei-Mahroo, Ghaffari, Fahimi, Broomand, Yazdanian, Najafi-Majd, Hosseinian Yousefkhani, Rezazadeh, Hosseinzadeh, Nasrabadi, Mashayekhi, Motesharei, Naderi, and Kazemi, 2015, Asian Herpetol. Res., 6: 267).

Kaiser's Spotted Newt (Dufresnes, 2019, Amph. Eur., N. Afr., & Middle East: 146). 

Kaiser's Mountain Newt (Safaei-Mahroo, Ghaffari, and Niamir, 2023, Zootaxa, 5279: 41).

Distribution

Southern Zagros Mountains, along the Lorestan–Khozestan border in southwestern Iran, 500 to 1500 m elevation.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Iran

Endemic: Iran

Comment

Schmidt, 1955, Vidensk. Medd. Dansk Naturhist. Foren., 117: 193-197, provided an augmented description. Schmidtler and Schmidtler, 1970, Senckenb. Biol., 51: 49, and Schmidtler and Schmidtler, 1975, Salamandra, 11: 93, showed Neurergus kaiseri to be a distinct species. Thorn and Raffaëlli, 2000, Salamand. Ancien Monde: 347, and Baloutch and Kami, 1995, Amph. Iran: 96-98, provided accounts. Raffaëlli, 2007, Les Urodèles du Monde: 119, provided a brief account, map, and photograph. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 604. Sharifi, Rastegar-Pouyani, Akmali, and Narenji, 2008, Russ. J. Herpetol., 15: 169-172, detailed the range and habitat. Özdemir, Üzüm, Avcı, and Olgun, 2009, Herpetologica, 65: 280-291, suggested that Neurergus kaiseri is the sister taxon of Neurergus microspilotus. Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 141–142, provided a brief account, photo, and map. Sparreboom, 2014, Salamanders Old World: 260–262, reviewed the biology, characteristics, distribution, reproduction, and conservation of the species. Khoshnamvand, Malekian, and Keivany, 2018, Basic & Appl. Herpetol., 32: 5–17, discussed the morphological distinctiveness of the different (and mostly unnamed) clades. Rancilhac, Goudarzi, Gehara, Hemami, Elmer, Vences, and Steinfartz, 2019, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 133: 189–197, discussed molecular phylogenetics within Neurergus and suggested that this species may contain unnamed lineages. Khoshnamvand, Malekian, Keivani, and Goudarzi, 2019, J. Wildl. Biodivers., Arak, 3(2): 11–17, discussed barcoding of populations, identifying a northern (Kerser, Daregol and Bozorgab) and a southern population (Vegenab, Mongare and Tove ) that are ecologically and genetically distinct, confirming the suppositions of Rancilhad et al. (2019). Khoshnamvand, Malekian, Keivany, Zamani-Faradonbe, and Amiri, 2019, Acta Herpetol., Firenze, 14: 51–56, described the osteology. Malekian, Khoshnamvand, and Keivany, 2019, Herpetol. J., 29: 237–244, discussed the morphological and genetic data in support of this nominal species being composed of at least two lineages. See Dufresnes, 2019, Amph. Eur., N. Afr., & Middle East: 146, for brief summary of identifying morphology and biology, a range map, as well as a photograph. Raffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 399–401, provided an account, summarizing systematics, life history, population status, and distribution (including a polygon map). Safaei-Mahroo, Ghaffari, and Niamir, 2023, Zootaxa, 5279: 1–112, provided for Iran an identification key including this species, photographs, habitat and conservation threats, a review of the literature, discussion of nomenclature and systematics, as well as dot and modeled distribution maps. Hosseinian Yousefkhani, Shafiei Bafti, Rezazadeh Mashizi, and Moeinadini, 2024, North-West. J. Zool., Romania, 20(e242501): 85–89, discussed the possible effects of climate change on the range in Iran and provided a current dot map for that country. Safaei-Mahroo, Ghaffari, and Anderson, 2025, In Heatwole, Das, and King (eds.), Amphibian Biology. Volume 11, Part 8 (Status of Conservation and Decline of Amphibians: Eastern Hemisphere): 195–233, provided photographs and reported on the conservation, morphology, systematics, and distribution of the species in Iran. Koster, Polanen, Avcı, Bogaerts, Bozkurt, Goudarzi, Hemami, Olgun, Pasmans, Steinfartz, Üzüm, de Visser, France, Theodoropoulos, and Wielstra, 2025, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 211(108386): 1–9, dsuggested that the northern and southern populations are separate species, but did not provide the taxonomic solution. Presumably that will appear elsewhere (DRF). 

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