Northern Spain Quiz

[Mario Schweiger]

Some infos on outer "morphology", but these observations are all from gallaica specimens, originated from Portugal:
Gallaica:
a really stout Salamandra with a big and high head. Markings show a horseshoe like or arabesk appearance, with black, sometimes red, inside.
Bejarae:
a "normal" Salamandra, resembling the nominate form a bit.
Red occurs in both ssp.

Salam. s. bejarae; 1 year old; Miranda (west of Bejar), captive bred in 1993

Mario

[Kamil Szepanski]

Hello,

I once received a map from a friend showing the distribution of certain S.s. subspecies in northern spain. According to this map your animals are S.s.gallaica.

Best Greetings,
Kamil

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

I once received a map from a friend showing the distribution of certain S.s. subspecies in northern spain. According to this map your animals are S.s.gallaica.

I would stick with Garcia-Paris et al. (2003). If Miranda is gallaica, the transition has to be extremely closeby? Damn those subspecies...

[Peter Oefinger]

According to Mario's morphological aspects it seems to be bejarae - I cannot see any horseshoes or arabesks at my animal...

[Wouter Beukema]

Almanzoris indeed only occurs on higher altitudes of the Sierra de Gredos and Sierra de Guadarrama; additionally, this taxon doesn't show any red spots. To me, that Salamandra looks more like bejarae than gallaica due to the rather short, blunt snout and low amount of spots. However, this is completely subjective; the phenotypical variation in both S. s. gallaica and S. s. bejarae is huge (both within and among populations) and current subspecies descriptions and phylogenetic analyses do not cover this. So, maybe "gallaica/bejarae" is indeed the best

[Mike Brown]

I visited the area around Santiago de Compostella and La Coruna in October 2008 and all the Podarcis I saw more closely resembled P. bocagei, judging by the descripions in Arnold & Ovenden, although I saw juveniles with blue tails. Can anyone suggest any definitive pointers as to distinguishing between the two species?

Cheers
Mike Brown

[Peter Oefinger]

all the Podarcis I saw more closely resembled P. bocagei

I know what you mean: all my Podarcis shots from Galicia turned out to be hispanicus. Look at this:

Colouration doesn't help - but hispanicus has a more pointed snout than bocagei. Furthermore, bocagei has dorsolateral stripes...

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Furthermore, bocagei has dorsolateral stripes...

OK, but not always, right? Furthermore, hispanicus morpho 1 can have then too...