The genus Tylototriton Anderson (1871) consists of nine species which are distributed over southern, eastern and southeastern Asia, including China, Vietnam, Laos, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, and India (Fei et al., 2006; Böhme et al., 2005; Stuart et al., 2010). The nine species are classified into two clades: the T. verrucosus group and T. asperrimus group (Fei et al., 2005, 2006), or two subgenera, the subgenus Tylototriton and subgenus Yaotriton (Dubois and Raffaëlli, 2009).
The T. verrucosus group (= the subgenus Tylototriton; Dubois and Raffaëlli, 2009) includes four species: T. kweichowensis (Fang and Chang, 1932), T. shanjing (Nussbaum et al., 1995), T. taliangensis (Liu, 1950), and T. verrucosus (Anderson, 1871). The T. asperrimus group (= the subgenus Yaotriton; Dubois and Raffaëlli, 2009) consists of five species: T. asperrimus (Unterstein, 1930), T. hainanensis (Fei et al., 1984), T. wenxianensis (Fei et al., 1984), T. vietnamensis (Böhme et al., 2005), and T. notialis (Stuart et al., 2010). Chen et al. (2010) described a new subspecies, T. wenxianensis dabienicus, based on the specimens collected from the Dabie Mountains in Henan, China, which were previously included in T. wenxianensis by Fei et al. (2005, 2006, 2010).
A new species of the genus Tylototriton is described in this article based on morphological and genetic evidence. The new species is identified belonging to the T. asperrimus group and is similar to T. wenxianensis. The diagnostic characters of the new species are as follows: dorsal ridge broad and thick, its width approximately equal to eye diameter (P < 0.001); tail height greater than width at base of tail (P < 0.001); no villous genital papilla found inside the male anal fissure; nodule-like warts, along lateral margin of the trunk, bulge and forming tubercles, and thin and
transverse striae present between the tubercles.
Researchers from Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and College of Life Sciences, Hunan Normal University cooperated to study this job.