Cynops chenggongensis

[angus]

Nate,

Please allow me to take some times to dig out the Kou and Xing's original Chinese paper. And if possible, I will request to have a picture of the specimen which the paper wrote according on from my connection.
Before that, it is no point to continue on this topic anymore, it will never end!
Furthermore, genetic analysis won't tell you if it is chenggongensis or not, it can only tell you if it is cyanurus. No one has the genetic coding of chenggongensis! How can people do the comparison without that?
That's it for now!

 

[nate]

Furthermore, genetic analysis won't tell you if it is chenggongensis or not, it can only tell you if it is cyanurus.

Hehe, ok...

I was assuming that animals from the type locality of C. chenggongensis would be included in such an analysis, in which case your animals could be compared. It will also tell us if it is clearly not cyanurus, and if that is the case, then chenggongensis becomes the most likely explanation until the new species boundaries are known.

 

[paul]

Hi Angus,

can you please give us a translation of the original Chinese chenggongensis description?

Paul

 

[paul]

Oh - when I ask you for a work, I first will give you my own information to chenggongensis:

This species differs from Cynops cyanurus (Liu, Hu & Yang) in that,
1) it is longer than the latter, its total lengths of female and male
being 97 mm, and 86 mm. respectively;
2) the skin is rather smooth;
3) the vertebral ridge is not prominent;
4) the tail of the female has conspicuous spots;
5) when living, most of them have, on each side, a row of orange-yellow spots, appearing from the shoulder to the base of the tail.

Paul

 

[jesper]

Hi Angus,
I haven't read the original description, I was merely looking at your photo and noticing that it does not have the line of spots that Nate and now Paul describes as of typical chenggongensis character.
The french text that Nate quotes says that "chez plupart des exemplaires" about the line of spots meaning "most of them" exactly as paul has written. Kind of a loose description to base an identification of a species on or?

I've never seen a pic of chenggongensis, that is why I posted this topic. Can't somebody post one?
Or is it possibly so that nobody here has ever seen one?

 

[paul]

When this picture on Angus page is not a chenggongensis, I think nobody here ever saw a photo or a living animal of this species.
I only have a drawing of a male. You can see it on my homepage in the part oft Cynops Register, photo archives.

Paul

 

[william]

i found this pic on livingunderworld(please don't shot me for that one

) it's probably the same as yours paul. but i can't paste it over here. it's not very informative (grey and red) but have a look anyway.

 

[jesper]

"I do know the animals seen at LivingUnderworld have been shown to Zhao Ermi in China, and he has confirmed them as C. cyanurus cyanurus."
Quoted from above

 

[ira]

I dont really know that much about the rare cynops or C. cyanurus, but i would like to point out that the Chenggongenis on the pro breeder page does have a few of the traits listed by Paul (smooth skin, non proment vertebral ridge, and tail spots).

just my 2 cents.

 

[nate]

Well Ira, those of us keeping cyanurus know all of those traits (except the stripe) can be found in cyanurus as well. They are highly variable. This makes sense when you consider Zhao's comments (as said by Angus):

There is one important thing I want to add to your comment; according to him, there is no Cynops chenggongensis in China; chenggongensis is cyanurus. The Cynops chenggongensis is just a fake species some scientists make up for their flame! Also, according to Zhao, the C. cyanurus is so variable, appearance is not a key factor to identify them.

Now a researcher like Zhao would probably not say such a thing lightly or without good reason. Add to this the fact that Angus' animals lack stripes...

 

[ira]

nate, i suspected as much, but just thought i would share becasue no one had mentioned it.

Thats pretty interesting about what Zhao had to say.

 

[TJ]

For reference, here is the illustration for C. chenggongensis from "Atlas of Amphibians of China":

By the way, the very same illustration appears in Rare and Economic Amphibians of China, though it appears there in black & white.

I have a few books on order: A Survey of Chinese Amphibia, Notes on Chinese Amphibians, and Studies on Chinese Salamanders so it'll be interesting to see if they shed any light on the matter

By the way, Kai wrote on this forum before that C. chenggongensis "seems to be a valid species and is probably closely related to wolterstorffi". Any idea where this info might have come from?

(Message edited by TJ on September 26, 2004)

 

[TJ]

Also, for whomever it is relevant, here is the Chinese-language species description for C. chenggongensis from the Atlas of Amphibians:

The description in Rare and Economic Amphibians of China is more detailed.

(Message edited by TJ on September 26, 2004)

 

[william]

don't happen to have a translation of that do you?


p.s. got the reply Tim.

 

[nate]

Thanks for the post, tim. Any chance you could follow up with a translation?

I suspect that Kai said that based on some of the more recent Chinese herp books that still listed chenggongensis as a valid species but had removed C. shautokokensis, suggesting that some sort of effort had been made to verify all these species. When Kai made those comments, I would have had to agree back then. But now with Zhao's comments coming to light, seems pretty clear that chenggongensis will soon be a subspecies at best...if the populations with that original color pattern even exist any longer.

 

[angus]

Tim,
Thanks for posting the description! I got the same description and it didn't mention the "row of orange-yellow spots, appearing from the shoulder to the base of the tail" that both Paul and Nate talk about.
I am thinking that will it be a problem on the translation? Will the yellow vertebral line mentioned on our description be the same as the row of orange-yellow spot appearing from the shoulder to the base of the tail mentioned on Nate's description?
It could be just a translation problem!

If interested please click below to see Tim's description (Translated English Version).

http://www.probreeder.com/cheng.jpg

 

[TJ]

I can try...

As far as potentially useful documents go (though I can't attest to their reliability), Rare and Economic Amphibians of China is pretty good in terms of confusing species comparisons.

Here's the one relevant to the topic at hand:

<font color="ff0000">The dichotomous key that was here has been moved by accident, and can be seen here:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/13/23644.jpg</font>

(Message edited by TJ on September 30, 2004)

 

[TJ]

Angus, thanks a lot for providing us that translation!

I have a two-page follow-up document to post...

 

[TJ]

Source: Rare and Economic Amphibians of China

 

[nate]

Hi Angus/Tim, I'll try to have a friend of mine translate it this week too. I'm going to try and hunt down Kou and Xing's original paper and have that original description translated as well, and not just go by the English summary.

There looks to be a row of spots along the side of the drawings where the "stripe" would be according to the French/English translations. You guys agree?