[Herpetology • 2014] New Ichthyophis Species from Indochina (Gymnophiona, Ichthyophiidae): 1. The Unstriped Forms with Descriptions of Three New Species [Ichthyophis cardamomensis, I. catlocensis and I. chaloensis] and the Redescriptions of I. acuminatus Taylor, 1960, I. youngorum Taylor, 1960 and I. laosensis Taylor, 1969

Caecilians of the genus Ichthyophis Fitzinger, 1826 are among the most poorly known amphibian taxa within Southeast Asia. Populations of Ichthyophis from the Indochina region (comprising Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam) have been assigned to five taxa: Ichthyophis acuminatus, Ichthyophis bannanicus, Ichthyophis kohtaoensis, Ichthyophis laosensis, and Ichthyophis nguyenorum. Barcoding of recently collected specimens indicates that Indochinese congeners form a clade that includes several morphologically and genetically distinct but yet undescribed species. Although body coloration is supported by the molecular analyses as a diagnostic character at species level, unstriped forms are paraphyletic with respect to striped Ichthyophis. Based on our morphological and molecular analyses, three distinct unstriped ichthyophiid species,Ichthyophis cardamomensis sp. nov. from western Cambodia,Ichthyophis catlocensis sp. nov. from southern Vietnam, and Ichthyophis chaloensis sp. nov. from central Vietnam are described as new herein, almost doubling the number of Ichthyophis species known from the Indochinese region. All three new species differ from their unstriped congeners in a combination of morphological and molecular traits. In addition, redescriptions of three unstriped Ichthyophis species (Ichthyophis acuminatus, I. laosensis, I. youngorum) from Indochina and adjacent Thailand are provided.

Keywords: Biogeography, Caecilians, Indochina, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, mtDNA, Barcoding, COI, cyt b, Phylogeny, Integrative taxonomy

Peter Geissler, Nikolay A. Poyarkov Jr., Lee Grismer, Truong Q. Nguyen, Hang T. An, Thy Neang, Alexander Kupfer, Thomas Ziegler, Wolfgang Böhme and Hendrik Müller. 2014. New Ichthyophis Species from Indochina (Gymnophiona, Ichthyophiidae): 1. The Unstriped Forms with Descriptions of Three New Species and the Redescriptions of I. acuminatus Taylor, 1960, I. youngorum Taylor, 1960 and I. laosensis Taylor, 1969.
Organisms Diversity & Evolution. DOI: 10.1007/s13127-014-0190-6