Tylototriton verrucosus Anderson, 1871

Class: Amphibia > Order: Caudata > Family: Salamandridae > Subfamily: Pleurodelinae > Genus: Tylototriton > Species: Tylototriton verrucosus

Tylototriton verrucosus Anderson, 1871, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1871: 423. Types: Not designated although syntypes evident. Sclater, 1892, List Batr. Indian Mus.: 36, considered  ZSIC 10397, 11396, 10366–81 to be syntypes, as is BMNH 1874.6.1.3 (according to Fei, Hu, Ye, and Huang, 2006, Fauna Sinica, Amph. 1: 280) and museum records; see discussion by Nussbaum, Brodie, and Yang, 1995, Herpetologica, 51: 264, who designated as neotype KIZ 74II0061 VI.6. Type locality: "Nantin, Momien, and Hotha valleys, Western Yunan [sic], China." Neotype from "Gongwa, 1600 m elevation, Longchuan County, Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China".

Triturus (Tylototriton) verrucosus — Boulenger, 1878, Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 3: 308.

Tylotriton verrucosus — Boettger, 1885, Ber. Offenbach. Ver. Naturkd., 24–25: 165; Bourret, 1927, Fauna Indochine, Vert., 3: 255. Spelling error.

Glossolega verrucosa — Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 201. Incorrect subsequent spelling of generic name.

Tylototriton verrucosus — Dunn, 1918, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 62: 450; Wolterstorff and Herre, 1935, Arch. Naturgesch., Leipzig, N. F., 4: 224.

Tylototriton (Tylototriton) verrucosus — Zhao and Hu, 1984, Stud. Chinese Tailed Amph.: 9.

Pleurodeles (Tylototriton) verrucosus — Risch, 1985, J. Bengal Nat. Hist. Soc., N.S.,, 4: 141; Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 11.

Tylototriton verrucosus verrucosus — Yang, 2008, in Yang and Rao (ed.), Amph. Rept. Yunnan: 19.

Tylototriton (Tylototriton) verrucosus — Dubois and Raffaëlli, 2009, Alytes, 26: 68.

Tylototriton (Tylototriton) verrucosus verrucosus — Hou, Li, and Lü, 2012, J. Huangshan Univ., 14: 63.

Common Names

Crocodile Newt (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 36; Chan-ard, 2003, Photograph. Guide Amph. Thailand: 72; Zug, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 653: 7).

Crocodile Salamander (Nutphund, 2001, Amph. Thailand: 50).

Himalayan Newt (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 68; Schleich, Anders, and Kästle, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 78; Ahmed, Das, and Dutta, 2009, Amph. Rept. NE India: 52; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 123; Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 123).

Red Knobby Newt (Fei, 1999, Atlas Amph. China: 44).

Orange-warted Salamander (Nutphund, 2001, Amph. Thailand: 50).

Inthanon Salamander (Nutphund, 2001, Amph. Thailand: 50).

Crocodile Newt (Nguyen, Ho, and Nguyen, 2005, Checklist Amph. Rept. Vietnam: 10).

Himalayan Salamander (Sparreboom, 2014, Salamanders Old World: 373). 

Yunnan Crocodile Newt (Poyarkov, Nguyen, Popov, Geissler, Pawangkhanant, Neang, Suwannapoom, and Orlov, 2021, Russ. J. Herpetol., 28 (3A): 67). 

Longchuan Crocodile Newt (Raffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 302).

Verrucose Crocodile Newt (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 15; see comment regarding status of Indian populations).

Distribution

Provisional, with only the northeastern Myanmar, (but see comment) and adjacent western Yunnan, China; Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai Provinces, northern Thailand, populations as well as other populations from southeastern Tibet (China), Bhutan, hills of Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal, and Manipur in India; Danaga, Punakha, Wangdue Phodrang, and Sarpang Districts, are controversially assigned or assignable to other named and unnamed species. See comment. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: China, People's Republic of, Myanmar

Likely/Controversially Present: Bhutan, Thailand

Comment

With the recognition of Tylototriton shanjing, Tylototriton panhai, and Tylototriton yangi, and the recognition that additional species remain to be named, it is not clear what the geographic limits of Tylototriton verrucosus actually are. Inasmuch as the type locality of Tylototriton verrucosus is in Yunnan, China, hard on the border of northeastern Myanmar, within or near the range of Tylototriton shanjing, it is entirely possible that we will see significant taxonomic rearrangements in the future (DRF). See accounts (all of which may include taxa that were subsequently named) by Taylor, 1962, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 43: 279–282; Anders, Schleich, and Shah, 1998, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Contr. Herpetol. S. Asia Nepal India, 4: 1–26; Ye, Fei, and Hu, 1993, Rare and Economic Amph. China 79; Fei, 1999, Atlas Amph. China: 44; and Thorn and Raffaëlli, 2000, Salamand. Ancien Monde: 222–226. Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 183, provided a brief account for India. Wongratana, 1984, Nat. Hist. Bull. Siam Soc., 32: 107–110, discussed the range in Thailand. Zhang and Wen, 2000, Amph. Guangxi: 31, provided an account (for Guangxi), although this record requires verification. Panigrahi, 2000, Indian Biol., 32: 41–43, noted that the Darjeeling population differed distinctly in morphology and coloration from populations elsewhere in Asia. Anders, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 134–140, provided an extensive account for Nepalese population. See account by Shrestha, 2001, Herpetol. Nepal: 62–71. Seglie, Roy, Giacoma, and Mushahiddunnabi, 2003, Russ. J. Herpetol., 10: 157–162, discussed range in the Darjeeling District of India. Palden, 2003, Hamadryad, 27: 286–287, provided records for Bhutan. Sarkar, Biswas, and Ray, 1992, State Fauna Ser., 3: 94–95, provided a brief account for West Bengal, India. Sarkar and Ray, 2006, In Alfred (ed.), Fauna of Arunachal Pradesh, Part 1: 313, provided a brief report for Arunachal Pradesh.Nutphund, 2001, Amph. Thailand: 50–51, provided a very brief account and photo. Chan-ard, 2003, Photograph. Guide Amph. Thailand: 72, provided a very brief account, map for Thailand, and photograph. Nguyen, Ho, and Nguyen, 2005, Checklist Amph. Rept. Vietnam: 10, provided a specific locality for Vietnam. In the Tylototriton verrucosus group of Fei, Ye, Huang, Jiang, and Xie, 2005, in Fei et al. (eds.), Illust. Key Chinese Amph.: 42 (although they only addressed Chinese species). Fei, Hu, Ye, and Huang, 2006, Fauna Sinica, Amph. 1: 280–283, provided an account and range map. Raffaëlli, 2007, Les Urodèles du Monde: 145, provided a brief account, figure, and map. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted several larval descriptions in the literature. Devi and Shamungou, 2006, J. Exp. Zool. India, 9: 317–324, provided specific localities within Manipur, India (as Pleurodeles verrucsosus). Hegde and Deuti, 2007, Cobra, Chennai, 1 (2): 29–36, provided specific localities from West Bengal, northeastern India. Chuaynkern, Chantipinthara, Songchan, and Duengkae, 2008, Herpetol. Rev., 39: 361, described range in Thailand. Ahmed, Das, and Dutta, 2009, Amph. Rept. NE India: 52, provided a brief account for northeastern India. Chuaynkern, Chantipinthara, Songchan, and Duengkae, 2008, Herpetol. Rev., 39: 361, provided a range extension in Thailand and discussed the range within that country. Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 123, provided a brief characterization and photograph. Nguyen, Nguyen, Hồ, Le, and Nguyen, 2009, Tạp chí Công nghệ Sinh học, 7: 325–333, discussed the species in Vietnam, although  Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 181, suggested that these specimens are referable to other species. Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2010, Colored Atlas of Chinese Amph.: 81, provided a brief account including photographs. Li, Zhao, and Dong, 2010, Amph. Rept. Tibet: 11–12, provided an account for Xizang, China. See Shah and Tiwari, 2004, Herpetofauna Nepal: 31, for brief account for Nepal. Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2012, Colored Atlas Chinese Amph. Distr.: 82–83, provided an account, photographs, and a map. Wangyal, 2013, J. Threatened Taxa, 5: 4776, provided records from south-central Bhutan.  Raffaëlli, 2013, Urodeles du Monde, 2nd ed.: 181–182, provided a brief account, photographs, and range map. Records from Myanmar were referred to Tylototriton shanorum by Nishikawa, Matsui, and Rao, 2014, Nat. Hist. Bull. Siam Soc., 60: 9–22. Wangyal and Gurung, 2012, Frog Leg, 18: 31–44, and Wangyal and Gurung, 2012, J. Threatened Taxa, 4: 3218–3222, reported on the range in the Punakha-Wangdue Valley, Bhutan. Records for Laos now have been referred to Tylototriton podichthys. Sparreboom, 2014, Salamanders Old World: 373–377, reviewed the biology, characteristics, distribution, reproduction, and conservation of the species. Wangyal, 2014, J. Bhutan Ecol. Soc., 1: 29, discussed the range in Bhutan.  Subba, Aravind, and Ravikanth, 2016, Check List, 13(1: 2033): 12, considered the presence of this species in Sikkim, India, to be doubtful and confused with another species. Grismer, Wood, Quah, Thura, Espinoza, Grismer, Murdoch, and Lin, 2018, Zootaxa, 4500: 553–573, reported on the phylogenetics of the species of Tylototriton, noting an unnamed species in northern Myanmar previously associated with Tylototriton verrucosus. Chettri, 2017, Das (ed.), Diversity Ecol. Amph. India: 98, doubted the presence of this species in Sikkim, India, as that political unit is currently defined. Pomchote, Khonsue, Sapewisut, Eto, and Nishikawa, 2020, Tropical Nat. Hist., Thailand, 20: 1–15, reported the species (genetically confirmed) from Doi Chang, Chiang Rai Province, Thailand; other populations in Thailand have been reassigned to Tylototriton uyenoi, Tylototriton anguliceps, and Tylototriton panhai. Bernardes, Le, Nguyen, Pham, Pham, Nguyen, Rödder, Bonkowski, and Ziegler, 2020, ZooKeys, 935: 121–164, implied that several populations tentatively applied to this name may be distinct and provided a range map restricting the species to northeastern Myanmar and adjacent western Yunnan, China. See account (Tylototriton cf. verrucosus) by Che, Jiang, Yan, and Zhang, 2020, Amph. Rept. Tibet: 57–61. Zaw, Yin, Chit, and Hmwe, 2020, Univ. Mandalay Res. J., 11: 59–72, characterized the population from Sinlum Mountain, Momauk Township, Banmaw District, Kachin State, Myanmar, via morphometrics and molecular markers. See account and discussion of Tylototriton cf. verrucosus in Tibet by Che, Jiang, Yan, and Zhang, 2020, Amph. Rept. Tibet: 62–65. In the Tylototriton (Tylototriton) verrucosus species group of Poyarkov, Nguyen, and Arkhipov, 2021, Taprobanica, 10: 4–22, who discussed phylogenetics. In the Tylototriton verrucosus group of Lyu, Wang, Zeng, Zhou, Qi, Wan, Li, and Wang, 2021, Vert. Zool., Senckenberg, 71: 697–710, who discussed phylogenetics. Zug, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 653: 7, discussed identification, habitat, and range in Myanmar. Pomchote, Peerachidacho, Sapewisut, Hernandez, Onishi, and Nishikawa, 2022, J. Asia-Pacific Biodiversity, 15: 30–39, reported on the morphological variation, conservation status, and molecular markers of a population from Doi Pha Hom Pok National Park (DPHPNP), Chiang Mai Province, northern Thailand. Raffaëlli, 2022, Salamanders & Newts of the World: 302–306, provided an account, summarizing systematics (suggesting the possibility that northern Thailand populations are assignable to Tylototriton shanjing), life history, population status, and distribution (including a polygon map). See comment under Tylototriton panwaensis, a possible synonym. Tshering and Wangmo, 2023, Asian J. Res. Agr. Forest., 9: 171–179, reported on habitat distributions and Punakha District, Bhutan, although the identifications require genetic confirmation (DRF). Sánchez-Vialas, Copete-Mosquera, and Calvo-Revuelta, 2024, Zootaxa, 5457: 31, noted that specimens from the Kakhien Hillis of northern Myanmar formerly regarded sas Tylototriton verrucosus are referrable to Tylototriton panwaensis. 

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