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Morphometric analysis of black and white European cave salamanders, Proteus anguinus
Author(s) -
Arntzen J. W.,
Sket B.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of zoology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.915
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1469-7998
pISSN - 0952-8369
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-7998.1997.tb05742.x
Subject(s) - biology , cave , salamander , karst , balkan peninsula , zoology , ecology , proteus , evolutionary biology , paleontology , genetics , escherichia coli , gene
Morphometric data for the cave salamander, Proteus anguinus , from the Dinaric Karst of south‐eastern Europe are analysed with data for the recently described black and non‐troglomorphic Proteus anguinus parkelj from south‐eastern Slovenia. Proteus a. anguinus and P. a. parkelj are morphologically distinct. Within P. a. anguinus , inland and coastal populations possess distinguishable phenotypes. Mantel permutation tests show that no firm evidence is available that demonstrates the existence of clinal variation. The characters that best describe differences within P. a. anguinus (head, trunk and tail length, the number of costal grooves) also document the differentiation between P. a. anguinus and P. a. parkelj. The claim that P. a. parkelj falls within the (clinal) variation of P. a. anguinus is untenable. Accordingly, its taxonomic status is upheld.