Biology:Fire belly newts

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Short description: Genus of amphibians

Fire belly newts
アカハライモリ Japanese fire belly newt.jpg
Scientific classification e
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Urodela
Family: Salamandridae
Subfamily: Pleurodelinae
Genus: Cynops
Tschudi, 1839

The fire belly newts or fire newts are 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]

Image Scientific name Common Name Distribution
Cynops chenggongensis Kou and Xing, 1983 Chenggong fire belly newt* Chenggong District of Yunnan
Cynopscyanurus.jpg Cynops cyanurus Liu, Hu, and Yang, 1962 Chuxiong fire-bellied newt or blue-tailed fire belly newt* Guizhou and Yunnan
Cynops ensicauda popei.jpg Cynops ensicauda (Hallowell, 1861) Japanese sword-tail newt Ryukyu Archipelago in Japan
Cynops fudingensis Wu, Wang, Jiang, and Hanken, 2010 Fuding fire belly newt* Fuding in northeastern Fujian,
Cynops glaucus Yuan, Jiang, Ding, Zhang, and Che, 2013 Guangdong, China.
Chinese firebelly newt (2).jpg Cynops orientalis (David, 1873) Chinese fire belly newt* China
Cynops orphicus Risch, 1983 Dayang newt or Dayang fire belly newt* Jiexi County in eastern Guangdong
Cynops pyrrhogaster (Karikomi Pond).JPG Cynops pyrrhogaster (Boie, 1826) Japanese fire belly newt Japan
Cynops wolterstorffi (Boulenger, 1905) Yunnan lake newt* Yunnan, China
Cynops yunnanensis Yang, 1983 Yunnan, 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. [citation needed] 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. [citation needed]

References

Wikidata ☰ Q390135 entry