Fire belly newts
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Urodela
Family: Salamandridae
Subfamily: Pleurodelinae
Genus: Cynops
Tschudi, 1839

The fire belly newt or fire newt is a genus (Cynops) of newts native to Japan and China. All of the species show bright yellow or red bellies, but this feature is not unique to this genus. Their skin contains a toxin that can be harmful if ingested.

Species

Species recognized as of October 2019:[1]

ImageScientific nameCommon NameDistribution
Cynops chenggongensis Kou and Xing, 1983Chenggong fire belly newt*Chenggong District of Yunnan
Cynops cyanurus Liu, Hu, and Yang, 1962Chuxiong fire-bellied newt or blue-tailed fire belly newt*Guizhou and Yunnan
Cynops ensicauda (Hallowell, 1861)Okinawan sword-tail newtRyukyu Archipelago in Japan
Cynops fudingensis Wu, Wang, Jiang, and Hanken, 2010Fuding fire belly newt*Fuding in northeastern Fujian,
Cynops glaucus Yuan, Jiang, Ding, Zhang, and Che, 2013Guangdong, China.
Cynops orientalis (David, 1873)Chinese fire belly newt*China
Cynops orphicus Risch, 1983Dayang newt or Dayang fire belly newt*Jiexi County in eastern Guangdong
Cynops pyrrhogaster (Boie, 1826)Japanese fire belly newtJapan
Cynops wolterstorffi (Boulenger, 1905)Yunnan lake newt*Yunnan, China
Cynops yunnanensis Yang, 1983Yunnan, China

(A * means that the newt has been moved into the genus Hypselotriton in some classifications [2][3])

Taxonomic controversy

The genus Cynops has been suggested to be due for a split, with the Chinese species being placed in a separate genus from the Japanese ones.[4] The species Cynops cyanurus is at the centre of all this. There is much debate about the validity of C. cyanurus and C. chenggongensis. All the known captive animals could be something different from C. cyanurus, as they do not entirely match the original description of the species. The only known animals that match that are animals originating from Chemnitz Zoo, but the F2 animals have not bred well, which could suggest they are in fact a hybrid of C. cyanurus and C. chenggongensis or an undescribed Cynops species.

References

  1. ↑ Frost, Darrel R. (2019). "Cynops". Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.0. American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA. Retrieved 11 October 2019.
  2. ↑ "From Cynops to Hypselotriton - when did this happen? - Caudata.org Newt and Salamander Forum". www.caudata.org. Archived from the original on 2013-06-27.
  3. ↑ "Revision of salamandrid taxonomy - Caudata.org Newt and Salamander Forum". www.caudata.org. Archived from the original on 2010-09-13.
  4. ↑ Chan, L. M.; Zamudio, K. R.; Wake, D. B. (2001). "Relationships of the salamandrid genera Paramesotriton, Pachytriton, and Cynops based on mitochondrial DNA sequences" (PDF). Copeia. 2001 (4): 997–1009. doi:10.1643/0045-8511(2001)001[0997:rotsgp]2.0.co;2. JSTOR 1448388.

Media related to Cynops at Wikimedia Commons

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.