Cynops pyrrhogaster (southern range)

[TJ]

A friend brought me a group of these from southern Kyushu Island (Miyazaki prefecture), and they have since bred for me.

 

[TJ]

 

[TJ]

 

[TJ]

 

[wouter]

A, nice! Southern Kyushu's! I've had a pair of these two, the female looked exactly the same as yours. It's still one of the most beautiful varieties to my opinion.

Have they laid many eggs Tim?

 

[TJ]

Hi Wouter. I haven't noticed any eggs but then again I haven't been looking for them. I've just been removing larvae with a turkey baster as I come across them. Only 6 so far.

The southeastern Kyushu type used to be lumped into the "Hiroshima race" on the basis of morphology but it turns out the genetic distance between them and those elsewhere in Kyushu, in Shikoku and in western Honshu is quite significant. They don't get nearly as large and bulky as say the Sasayama, Kanto or Tohoku types. A high proportion of them have very few markings on their bellies, and sometimes none. That goes for other "Hiroshima race" pyrrhogaster as well. In fact, these are from Gokase Town in the northwestern part of Miyazaki Prefecture, near the border with Kumamoto Prefecture, so I'm not sure they're among the genetically distinctive populations. Since they're location-known, I'll look it up in Hayashi's report to find out

I've also had for several years now some other C. pyrrhogaster said to be from Miyazaki, but beyond that their origin is unknown. I don't know which side of the cutoff line (if it's that simple...) they're on.

And I have a group of C. pyrrhogaster said to be from even further south, namely the island of Yakushima, but that location data is unverified...and contested even as there's no scientific record of this species being found there.

(Message edited by TJ on June 17, 2006)

 

[wouter]

Hm, mine were from northern Miyazaki too. I noticed too that north Miyazaki is a bit out of the range of the southern Kyushu form (genetically seen). Morphologically, my couple looked like the Kyushu variant though.

I once wrote to Highton, he has published a report about cryptic salamander species. To his opinion, the southern Kyushu variant was genetically distinct enough from the other C. pyrrhogaster races to elevate it to a species! C. pyrrhogaster were genetically more related to C. ensicauda from Amami, then to the southern Kyushu ones.

 

[TJ]

Here's a hatchling that I just removed from the adults' tank:

 

[anthony]

Very Beautiful, congratulations on their breeding Tim! Seems like you work with quite a few species.........
Anthony

 

[TJ]

Hi Wouter. I was waiting until I found my misplaced Hayashi & Matsui report before I replied.

Well, I think there's some confusion or maybe just a language problem. Are you sure you got that right about what Highton said about pyrrhogaster? You wrote:

"C. pyrrhogaster were genetically more related to C. ensicauda from Amami, then to the southern Kyushu ones."

That info seems to be mistaken. Let's look at it this way:

A = southernmost pyrrhogaster
B = pyrrhogaster from other parts of Japan
C = ensicauda

What you said would mean B is more closely related to C than it is to A. But the Hayashi & Matsui study of 23 populations of pyrrhogaster shows that B is more closely related to C than A is to C. Or in other words:

"C. pyrrhogaster (from other parts of Japan) were genetically more related to C. ensicauda from Amami, <u>than are</u> the southern Kyushu ones."
<font size="-2">(not their exact words, of course)</font>

It's a slight change in wording but a big change in meaning ;-P

In Hayashi's own words, it was "noteworthy that the greatest genetic difference was observed between geographically most adjacent populations of C. pyrrhogaster from southernmost Kyushu and C. ensicauda."

"In spite of their adjaceny to the range of C. ensicauda, southernmost populations of C. pyrrhogaster reach higher level of genetic differentiation from C. ensicauda than do remaining conspecific populations."

According to the data, the mean Neis's D value between populations of ensicauda and the southernmost populations of pyrrhogaster is 0.532 (range 0.326-0.724), while the mean D value between ensicauda and remaining populations of pyrrhogaster is 0.330 (range 0.239-0.418). The mean D value between three populations from the southernmost part of Kyushu and the remaining pyrrhogaster populations is 0.156 (range 0.044-0.336)

<font size="-2">Source:
Biochemical Differentiation in Japanese Newts, Genus. Cynops (Salamandridae)
Terutake Hayashi and Masafumi Matsui
Zoological Science, 5, 1988</font>

Also, you wrote:

"To his opinion, the southern Kyushu variant was genetically distinct enough from the other C. pyrrhogaster races to elevate it to a species!"

As for Hayashi & Matsui, they don't seem to suggest the southern variant can be differentiated from other pyrrhogaster at a species level. They were instead arguing that pyrrhogaster and ensicauda are genetically distinct enough to be considered separate species, as ensicauda was once regarded as a subspecies of pyrrhogaster. But in any case, a Nei's D value of 0.156 doesn't seem enough to differentiate at a species level -- or does it?!

I'm no biologist, so I may have misinterpreted the data. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong

 

[wouter]

Tim, you're right about the Hayashi report, I read my version again, and I was indeed wrong about that genetical part. Thanks for clearing that up!

I'm sure about the Highton report though, but I can't find it, it is probably somewhere between all the other papers

. If you look at the Amphibian Species of the World database, you can read the following;

Highton, 2000, In Bruce et al., Biol. Plethodontid Salamanders, : 224, discussed previously published allozyme data and on that basis suggested that possibly two species with a narrow hybrid zone would be found on Kyushu.

The link for this one: http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/references.php?id=23237.

I'll try to find the report to get more info about that! I presume that Highton's statement is only made because of the allozyme differences.

 

[TJ]

Hi Wouter. No problem at all. Disproving that gave me a chance to go through the document in a way I would not likely have done otherwise

I'd very much like to see that Highton report sometime.

 

[TJ]

Thanks Anthony. Yeah, I do keep quite a few species (that's my submission for understatement of the year). Mostly native hynobiids and Cynops.

Wouter, the three populations of southernmost C. pyrrhogaster that really stood out were from the following localities:

1) Tano town, Miyazaki Prefecture
2) Miyazaki city, Miyazaki Prefecture
3) Kanoya town, Kagoshima Prefecture

Both of the Miyazaki localities from which samples were collected are in the southeastern part of the prefecture. While that doesn't mean the distinctive ones are absent elsewhere, the report's data does cover a population of newts in the northeastern town of Tsuno. Since they weren't included in the distinctive pyrrhogaster group, I reckon that mine, being from the far northwestern part of the prefecture, wouldn't be in there either. But who's to say, since as far as this report goes, no surveying was done in Gokase or anywhere near there

By the way, the genetic distances between the Tsuno pyrrhogaster and the other two southern Miyazaki groups are recorded as 0.155 and 0.205, respectively.

(Message edited by TJ on June 22, 2006)

 

[terry]

Thanks very much for the photos and the information Tim! Been observing the threads for a while and was awaiting new information about Japan's caudates. Excellent photos I must add!

 

[TJ]

Thanks Terry. Glad to be of service

I'm up to about 15 of these now, and still haven't spotted any eggs.

 

[TJ]

Hatching:

(Message edited by TJ on June 28, 2006)

 

[TJ]

Ah, here they are:

I was beginning to think I had the first ever known Cynops live-bearers on my hands

 

[TJ]