Two new species of Limnonectes from Thailand

Southeast Asia seems to be extremely rich on species new to science. Thailand is a region, that have been quite well researched, but nevertheless, new species also are found in this country from time to time.

This time Matsui and colleagues revised the kuhlii complex of fanged frogs - and found the Thai populations to contain more seperate species.

The new species are described as Limnonectes jarujini and Limnonectes taylori.

Again i would be very interested if anybody has access to the entire publication.

Source:Matsui, M., S. Panha, W. Khonsue & N. Kuraishi. 2010. Two new species of the “kuhlii” complex of the genus Limnonectes from Thailand (Anura: Dicroglossidae). Zootaxa, 2615: 1-22.

Oedipina nica New Species from Nicaragua

Today the description of a new species of worm salamander of the genus Oedipina from the highlands of Nicaragua has been described. The species is given the name Oedipina nica.

The closest relatives to this new species is two species from Honduras, but the new species is more slender built.

If some of you have access to this article i would highly appreciate a PDF :)

Source
Sunyer, J., D.B. Wake, J.H. Townsend, S.L. Travers, S.M. Rovito, T.J. Papenfuss, L.A. Obando & G. Köhler. 2010. A new species of worm salamander (Caudata: Plethodontidae: Oedipina) in the subgenus Oeditriton from the highlands of northern Nicaragua

New Species 2010

As you might have noticed, i have an interest in the descriptions of new species. I find it fascinating to read and learn about new species and revisions of families, genera and species. A lot of species are revised these years with the resulting recognition of a lot of cryptic species - besides of this studies in areas not well researched - like e.g. Vietnam and Cambodia - keeps new species of often colourfull and special appearance to be found.

I have added a list at the right side of this blog which will list all species described in 2010 - as soon as they come to my knowledge - i think the list is very impressive already. I have offcourse added the new snake species Chironius challenger, which was described today in Zootaxa by Philippe J.R. Kok.

Four new species of Phymaturus from Argentina

A recent article from the latest issue of South American Journal of Herpetology has just come to my attention.

In this article about studies of the Phymaturus genus, four new species are described from Argentina. The new species are the following - three of which are only known from there type locality.

Phymaturus felixi, Phymaturus etheridgei, Phymaturus laurenti and Phymaturus quelque - another recently described species Phymaturus gynechlomus is synonymized with Phymaturus palluma.

This genus now contains 27 species - most of which are endemic to Argentina. I unfortunately don't have a picture of a species from this genus in my photo-library - but this plump little lizards makes Argentina very intersting as a fieldherpetological point of view. I would love to go photograph some of these very nice little lizards.

Source:
Lobo, F., C. Abdala & S. Valdecantos. 2010. Taxonomic Studies on the genus Phymaturus (Iguania: Liolaemidae): Description of Four New Species. South American J. Herpetol., 5(2): 102-126.

34 new species of Geckos desribed in 2010 so far

Been a while since i last made a post to this blog - but i will try to get it going again i think :)

I will start up with listing the 34 species of Gekkotan lizards described this year - i find this number of new species astounishing.

Cnemaspis chanardi Grismer, Sumontha, Cota, Grismer, Wood, Pauwels & Kunya, 2010 - THAILAND
Cnemaspis laoensis Grismer, 2010 - LAOS
Cnemaspis harimau Onn, Grismer, Anuar, Quah, Muin, Savage, Grismer, Ahmad, Remigio & Greer, 2010 - MALAYSIA
Cnemaspis huaseesom Grismer, Sumontha, Cota, Grismer, Wood, Pauwels & Kunya, 2010- THAILAND
Cnemaspis kamolnorranathi Grismer, Sumontha, Cota, Grismer, Wood, Pauwels & Kunya, 2010- THAILAND
Cnemaspis narathiwatensis Grismer, Sumontha, Cota, Grismer, Wood, Pauwels & Kunya, 2010- THAILAND
Cnemaspis neanghyi Grismer, Grismer & Chav, 2010 - CAMBODIA
Cnemaspis niyomwanae Grismer, Sumontha, Cota, Grismer, Wood, Pauwels & Kunya, 2010- THAILAND
Cnemaspis psychedelica Grismer, Tri & Grismer, 2010 - VIETNAM
Cnemaspis punctatonuchalis Grismer, Sumontha, Cota, Grismer, Wood, Pauwels & Kunya, 2010- THAILAND
Cnemaspis roticanai Grismer & Onn, 2010 - MALAYSIA
Cnemaspis shahruli Grismer, Onn, Quah, Muin, Savage, Grismer, Ahmad, Greer & Remegio, 2010 - MALAYSIA
Cnemaspis vandeventeri Grismer, Sumontha, Cota, Grismer, Wood, Pauwels & Kunya, 2010- THAILAND
Cyrtodactylus auribalteatus Sumontha, Panitvong & Deein, 2010 - THAILAND
Cyrtodactylus dumnuii Bauer, Kunya, Sumontha, Niyomwan, Pauwels, Chanhome & Kunya, 2010 - THAILAND
Cyrtodactylus jambangan Welton, Siler, Diesmos & Brown, 2010 - PHILIPPINES
Cyrtodactylus leegrismeri Onn & Ahmad, 2010 - MALAYSIA
Cyrtodactylus phuquocensis - VIETNAM
Cyrtodactylus roesleri Ziegler, Nazarov, Orlov, Nguyen, Vu, Dang, Dinh & Schmitz, 2010 - VIETNAM
Cyrtodactylus yangbayensis - Tri & Onn, 2010 - VIETNAM
Cyrtodactylus zhaoermii Shi & Zhao, 2010 - CHINA
Diplodactylus galaxias Doughty, Pepper & Keogh, 2010 - AUSTRALIA
Gekko canhi Rösler, Nguyen, Doan, Ho, Nguyen & Ziegler, 2010 - VIETNAM
Gekko carusidensis Linkem, Siler, Diesmos, Sy & Brown, 2010 - PHILIPPINES
Gekko takouensis Tri & Gamble, 2010 - VIETNAM
Gekko vietnamensis Sang 2010 - VIETNAM
Goniurosaurus yingdeensis Wang, Yang & Cui, 2010 - CHINA
Hemidactylus coalescens Leaché & Fujita, 2010 - CAMEROUN, CONGO, GABON
Hemidactylus eniangii Leaché & Fujita, 2010 - CAMEROUN, EQUATORIAL GUINEA, NIGERIA
Hemidactylus kyaboboensis Leaché & Fujita, 2010 - GHANA
Hemidactylus lamaensis Ullenbruch, Grell & Böhme, 2010 - BENIN
Luperosaurus gulat Brown, Diesmos, Duya, Garcia & Rico, 2010 - PHIILIPPINES
Phelsuma roesleri Glaw, Gehring, Köhler, Franzen & Vences - MADAGASKAR
Pygopus robertsi Oliver, Couper & Amey, 2010 - AUSTRALIA

Besides of these, the following species have been raised to full species status
Hemidactylus ituriensis
Phelsuma dorsivittata
Phelsuma parva

New Species Described: 2 Lizards and 1 Frog

My attention was just drawn to the latest edition of Herpetologica (september issue - sorry know i'm a bit late here).

As usual this issue is intersting - especially if you, like me, have a hang for new species :)

This issue contains the describtion of a new hylid frog from Bahia, Brazil. The species is named Bokermannohyla juiju, and is part of the martinsi group (a group containing only two other species: martinsi and langei - both endemic to Brazil) (Faivovich et al, 2009).

The two species of lizards described are the teiid lizard Cnemidophorus jalapensis from Brazil (Corti et al, 2009) and gecko Cyrtodactylus tautbatorum from Palawan, Philippines (Welton et al, 2009). The gecko is quite common on the localities in Palawan. The authors also redescribes Cyrtodactylus annulatus and designate a neotype as the holotype was destroyed in World War II

Sources:
Colli, G.R., L.G. Giugliano, D.O. Mesquita & F.G.R. Franca. 2009. A New Species of Cnemidophorus from the Jalapão Region, in the Central Brazilian Cerrado. Herpetologica, 65(3): 311-327.

Faivovich, J., L. Lugli, A.C.C. Lourenco & C.F.B. Haddad. 2009. A New Species of the Bokermannohyla martinsi Group from Central Bahia, Brazil with Comments on Bokermannohyla (Anura: Hylidae). Herpetologica, 65(3): 303-310.

Welton, Siler, Diesmos & Brown. 2009. A New Bent-Toed Gecko (Genus Cyrtodactylus) from Southern Palawan Island, Philippines and Clarification of the Taxonomic Status of C. annulatus. Herpetologica, 65(3): 328-343.

Lizards of the American Southwest - A Photographic Field Guide

A few days ago i received a package of books from Germany - among these books were my copy of the brand new Lizards of the American Southwest - a Photographic Field Guide edited by Lawrence L.C. Jones and R.E. Lovich.

This is perhaps the most outstanding book i have come across on the saurofauna of a single geographic area. The book covers the US states Arizona, California, Colorada, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas (west of the Pecos River) and Utah - and sections on the Mexican states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, Chihuahua and Sonora. This is an impressive area, and covers 96 species of lizards.

A great feature of this book, is that every single species, has its own account, and this account is authored by the best possible authority on this species - which makes this book much more trustworthy - over 60 authors have contributed - that's an amazing achivement..

The book is heavily covered with color photos of the single species, and the photos are of good to superb quality - and there is quite a lot of species i don't think i have ever seen color photos of. Each species account is approximately 4 pages, which is quite okay.

The books has 567 pages, which is quite a lot for a guide - probably not making it the perfect field guide - but as a photographic reference in the car - or on the shelves at home i would consider it a must have for anybody interested in the lizards of this area.

Its even very cheap considering its size and content - here in Europe it cost only 24,80 Euro - and in the US for 24,95 $

Besides of this book i must also make a small note on another book i just received, this is the classical monument on the herpetofauna of Baja California - the book Amphibians and Reptiles of Baja California by L.L. Grismer from 2002. This is a MUST for anybody interested in the herpetofauna of Baja California.