''Lissotriton'' is a genus of
newt
A newt is a salamander in the subfamily Pleurodelinae. The terrestrial juvenile phase is called an eft. Unlike other members of the family Salamandridae, newts are semiaquatic, alternating between aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Not all aqua ...
s native to
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
and parts of
Asia Minor
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
. As most other newts, they are aquatic as larvae and during breeding time but live in terrestrial, humid environments over the rest of the season.
These rather small species used to be included in genus ''
Triturus'', but
phylogenetic
In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...
analyses demonstrated that genus as
paraphyletic
Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...
.
In the following, the name ''Lissotriton'', originally introduced by
Thomas Bell in 1839, was reinstated for the small-bodied species related to the
type species
In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...
''Lissotriton vulgaris'' (the smooth newt).
Their exact phylogenetic placement within the newts (subfamily Pleurodelinae) is still uncertain.
Species
Currently, ten species are listed in ''Amphibian Species of the World''
– the rank of some of these as species or subspecies is however controversial:
*''
Lissotriton boscai''
(Lataste, 1879) – Bosca's newt
*''
Lissotriton graecus''
(Wolterstorff, 1906) – Greek newt
*''
Lissotriton helveticus''
(Razoumovsky, 1789) – Palmate newt
*''
Lissotriton italicus''
(Peracca, 1898) – Italian newt
*''
Lissotriton kosswigi''
(Freytag, 1955) – Kosswig's smooth newt
*''
Lissotriton lantzi''
(Wolterstorff, 1914) – Caucasian smooth newt
*''
Lissotriton maltzani''
(Boettger, 1879) – Portuguese smooth newt
*''
Lissotriton montandoni''
(Boulenger, 1880) – Carpathian newt
*''
Lissotriton schmidtleri''
(Raxworthy, 1988) – Schmidtler's smooth newt
*''
Lissotriton vulgaris''
(Linnaeus, 1758) – Smooth newt
Phylogeny
Intrinsic phylogenic tree of genus ''Lissotriton''.
Gallery
Mate selection
Female
mate choice
Mate choice is one of the primary mechanisms under which evolution can occur. It is characterized by a "selective response by animals to particular stimuli" which can be observed as behavior.Bateson, Paul Patrick Gordon. "Mate Choice." Mate Choi ...
is an important concept in evolutionary biology because it bears on female and male reproductive success. Experiments were carried out with ''
Lissotriton vulgaris'' in which female newts were paired sequentially with two males having different degrees of genetic relatedness to the female. It was found that the more genetically dissimilar male had a higher paternity share than the more related male.
Female choice may reflect an avoidance of inbreeding with related males that could lead to less fit progeny (
inbreeding depression
Inbreeding depression is the reduced biological fitness caused by loss of genetic diversity as a consequence of inbreeding, the breeding of individuals closely related genetically. This loss of genetic diversity results from small population siz ...
).
References
External links
*
*
Taxa named by Thomas Bell (zoologist)
Amphibian genera
{{Salamandridae-stub