Ichthyosaura Sonnini de Manoncourt and Latreille, 1801

Class: Amphibia > Order: Caudata > Family: Salamandridae > Subfamily: Pleurodelinae > Genus: Ichthyosaura

Ichthyosaura Sonnini de Manoncourt and Latreille, 1801 (An. X), Hist. Nat. Rept., 4: 310. Type species: Proteus tritonius Laurenti, 1768, by monotypy.

Hemitriton Dugès, 1852, Ann. Sci. Nat., Paris, Ser. 3, 17: 255. Type species: Triton alpestris Laurenti, 1768, by subsequent designation of Fatio, 1872, Fauna Vert. Suisse, 3: 516. Synonymy by Dubois and Raffaëlli, 2009, Alytes, 26: 51. Preoccupied by Hemitriton Van der Hoeven, 1833, Handb. Dierkd., 2: 305.

Mesotriton Bolkay, 1927, Zool. Anz., 72: 282. Type species: Triton alpestris Laurenti, 1768, by subsequent designation of Thorn, 1968, Salamand. Eur. Asie Afr. Nord: 191. Coined as a subgenus of Triton.

English Names

None noted.

Distribution

Western Ukraine to southern Denmark, northern and eastern France, Belgium, Netherlands, northern Italy, and in Balkan Peninsula from western Bulgaria and Slovenia to central Greece; isolated populations in northwestern Spain; introduced in southern England.

Comment

See comment under Triturus. Weisrock, Papenfuss, Macey, Litvinchuk, Polymeni, Ugurtas, Zhao, Jowkar, and Larson, 2006, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 41: 855-857, recovered Mesotriton (as Triturus alpestris) as the sister taxon of Lissotriton (as the the Triturus vulgaris group). Steinfartz, Vicario, Arntzen, and Caccone, 2007, J. Exp. Zool., 308B: 139-142, found Mesotriton to form the sister taxon of a group composed of Pachytriton and Cynops (sensu lato). Schmidtler, 2004, Sekretär, 4: 10-28, suggested that Ichthyosaura Latreille, 1801, has priority over Mesotriton Bolkay, 1927. See nomenclatural discussion by Dubois and Raffaëlli, 2009, Alytes, 26: 50-51.

Contained taxa

Ichthyosaura alpestris (Laurenti, 1768)

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