Tag: zoogeography

Southernmost crocodile newt record is a threatened new species

“Exceptional discovery” for its colors, the amphibian is also the first crocodile newt species known from the Central Highlands of Vietnam.

A spectacular crocodile newt from the Central Highlands of Vietnam was just published in the international peer-reviewed open-access academic journal ZooKeys.

“It is an exceptional discovery as it is one of the most colourful species in the genus Tylototriton. This is also the first time that a crocodile newt species is recorded from the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Occurring at elevations from 1,800 to 2,300 m above sea level, this discovery sets an elevational record for the genus in the country, with former distribution ranges between 250 m and 1,740 m.”

says discoverer and first author of the study Trung My Phung.

Furthermore, the discovery by the Vietnamese-German researcher team, which was supported by the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology and the Cologne Zoo (Germany), represents the southernmost distribution range of the genus known to date.

The habitat of the new species is located approximately 370 air km away from the nearest Tylototriton population, which makes it an important discovery in terms of evolution and zoogeography. 

The name “ngoclinhensis” refers to the type locality of the new species, Ngoc Linh Mountain. Restricted to evergreen montane forest, the Ngoc Linh Crocodile Newt is currently known only from the Ngoc Linh Nature Reserve, Kon Tum Province, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. This is the eighth salamander taxon described from Vietnam, and is the thirty-ninth Tylototriton species officially recognized.

The newly described crocodile newt Tylototriton ngoclinhensis sp. nov.
Photo by Prof. Dr. Tao Thien Nguyen.

Crocodile newts, scientifically known as the genus Tylototriton, include nearly 40 species inhabiting montane forest areas throughout the Asian monsoon climate zone. Remarkably, 15 of these species have been described in the past five years, and there remain several unnamed taxa, which contain cryptic species that are morphologically difficult to distinguish. 

Established in 1986, Ngoc Linh Nature Reserve is a key biodiversity area for rare species like the endangered Golden-winged Laughingthrush and the Truong Son Muntjac. The Ngoc Linh Crocodile Newt certainly will represent another flagship species of this protected area and its surroundings, say the researchers.

Ngoc Linh has become a hotspot of amphibian diversity, with numerous endemic species. An earlier study – published in the Nature Conservation journal in 2022 – highlighted the extraordinary endemism rate of amphibians in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.

“[The Central Highlands is] where the highest amphibian species diversity was recorded for Vietnam, with 130 species, while also containing the highest number of regionally occurring, micro-endemic amphibians, amounting for 26 species,”

explains one of the authors of this and the present study, Prof. Dr. Truong Quang Nguyen, vice director of the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources (IEBR), Hanoi.

Scientists identify gaps in the protection of Vietnam’s amphibians

This recent discovery is another remarkable case, “demonstrating that the Central Highlands play a special role in Vietnamese amphibian diversification and evolution,” by the words of co-author Dr. Cuong The Pham from IEBR. 

The Ngoc Linh Crocodile Newt belongs to the group of range-restricted, so-called micro-endemic species, which face the greatest risk of extinction because of their presumably small population size. Unfortunately, on top of its special zoogeographic situation and rarity, its particularly colorful appearance will likely make it highly attractive to illegal collectors.

“Therefore, this discovery is of high conservation relevance,”

says one of the corresponding authors, Prof. Dr. Tao Thien Nguyen from the Institute of Genome Research, Hanoi.

The species should be provisionally considered to be listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List of threatened species, the researchers say. All the species of the genus Tylototriton are already listed in the Appendices of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and also in the Governmental Decree No. 84/2021/ND-CP of Vietnam. The new species thus is automatically protected under these regulations.

Now, conservation activities on site have priority, but the team is already working on breeding conservation measures, which is in line with the One Plan Approach to Conservation, developed by IUCN’s Conservation Planning Specialist Group, which combines in-situ and ex-situ efforts and various expertises for the optimum protection of a species. 

“This has already been successfully implemented for another recently discovered, micro-endemic crocodile newt species from Vietnam, Tylototriton vietnamensis, of which already more than 350 individuals could have successfully been reproduced at the Cologne Zoo in Germany and also at the Melinh Station for Biodiversity in Vietnam, which is a promising example for IUCN’s Reverse the Red campaign and the idea of the conservation zoo”,

says Prof. Dr. Thomas Ziegler, Vietnam conservation team member and coordinator from Cologne Zoo, Germany.

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Research article:

Phung TM, Pham CT, Nguyen TQ, Ninh HT, Nguyen HQ, Bernardes M, Le ST, Ziegler T, Nguyen TT (2023) Southbound – the southernmost record of Tylototriton (Amphibia, Caudata, Salamandridae) from the Central Highlands of Vietnam represents a new species. ZooKeys 1168: 193-218. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1168.96091

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Golden jackals might be settling in the Czech Republic, hint multiple observations

The first living golden jackal in the Czech Republic was reported by researchers from Charles University, Prague. The scientists captured the canid on camera multiple times over the span of a year and a half some 40 km away from the capital. Once considered native to northern Africa and southern Eurasia, the species seems to be quite rapidly extending its range towards the north of Europe. The study is published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

In June 2015, while doing a research project for her Master’s degree in Central Bohemia, Czech Republic, Klára Pyšková, a student at the Department of Ecology, Faculty of Science of Charles University in Prague, produced the first photograph of a living golden jackal individual captured by a camera trap in the country.

The aim of her study was broader, addressing common carnivore species composition in different habitats typical for central European landscape, about 40 km away from Prague. While the golden jackal capture was not completely unexpected, since several individuals of this species had previously been reported from the country, it was still a surprising discovery – all previously observed animals were either shot or victims of roadkill, and considered rather incidental records.

“The habitat, where the golden jackal decided to settle, resembles the landscapes which these animals prefer in their natural distribution area, the Balkans – an open grass-shrubland surrounded by a forest. It is one of the warmest areas in the country, with mild winters. The observed animal was mostly active at dusk and dawn, with majority of the sightings occurring in the morning hours,” explains Klára Pyšková. In a paper, she co-authored with a group of researchers from Charles University and Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, among them her supervisors Ivan Horáček and David Storch, they report on a long-term monitoring of the animal in an area of approximately 90 km².

The golden jackal first reached the Czech republic in the late 1990s, probably coming from Austria. The first, albeit unconfirmed report of its presence is from May of 1998, of two individuals reportedly sighted in central Bohemia. Almost a decade later, in 2006, a carcass of an adult golden jackal was found by the side of the road in Moravia, the eastern part of the country. Since then, several verified and non-verified records have been made. The photographs captured by Klára Pyšková were the first evidence of a living individual that seems to have settled permanently in the country. The researchers have not observed any cubs or a mate, and although they cannot completely dismiss the occurrence of another individual, they consider it very unlikely. The sex of the animal could not be determined.

“While the golden jackal is a species that has historically never lived in the area, where the study was conducted, and, therefore, might not be appropriate to call it native, it cannot be considered invasive. Invasive species are those that have been intentionally or unintentionally brought to a new area by humans – this is not the case of the golden jackal here,” says Klára Pyšková.

“This being said, there are several factors that have likely facilitated the spread, including indirect human influence,” adds the researcher. “Ongoing global change is bringing about shifts in species distributions that include both the spread of populations of invasive species and range expansions or contractions of native biota. In Europe, this is typically reflected in species moving from the south-eastern part of the continent to the north-west, most often in response to increasing temperatures that allow organisms to colonize areas that were previously unsuitable. Other suggested factors are human-caused changes in the overall character of landscapes, the lack of natural predators, particularly wolves, and high adaptability of the species.”

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Original source:

Pyšková K., Storch D., Horáček I., Kauzál O. & Pyšek P. (2016) Golden jackal (Canis aureus) in the Czech Republic: the first record of a live animal and its long-term persistence in the colonized habitat. ZooKeys 641: 151-163 doi: 10.3897/zookeys.641.10946