The fire belly newt or fire newt is a genus (Cynops) of newts native to Japan and China. All of the species show bright yellow or red bellies, but this feature is not unique to this genus. Their skin contains a toxin that can be harmful if ingested.

Fire belly newts
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Urodela
Family: Salamandridae
Subfamily: Pleurodelinae
Genus: Cynops
Tschudi, 1839

Species

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Species recognized as of October 2019:[1]

Image Scientific name Common Name Distribution
Cynops chenggongensis Kou and Xing, 1983 Chenggong fire belly newt* Chenggong District of Yunnan
  Cynops cyanurus Liu, Hu, and Yang, 1962 Chuxiong fire-bellied newt or blue-tailed fire belly newt* Guizhou and Yunnan
  Cynops ensicauda (Hallowell, 1861) Okinawan sword-tail newt Ryukyu Archipelago in Japan
Cynops fudingensis Wu, Wang, Jiang, and Hanken, 2010 Fuding fire belly newt* Fuding in northeastern Fujian, China
Cynops glaucus Yuan, Jiang, Ding, Zhang, and Che, 2013 Guangdong, China
  Cynops orientalis (David, 1873) Chinese fire belly newt* China
Cynops orphicus Risch, 1983 Dayang newt or Dayang fire belly newt* Jiexi County in eastern Guangdong
  Cynops pyrrhogaster (Boie, 1826) Japanese fire belly newt Japan
 
Cynops wolterstorffi (Boulenger, 1905) Yunnan lake newt* Yunnan, China
Cynops yunnanensis Yang, 1983 Yunnan, China

(A * means that the newt has been moved into the genus Hypselotriton in some classifications [2][3])

Taxonomic controversy

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The genus Cynops has been suggested to be due for a split, with the Chinese species being placed in a separate genus from the Japanese ones.[4] The species Cynops cyanurus is at the centre of all this. There is much debate about the validity of C. cyanurus and C. chenggongensis. All the known captive animals could be something different from C. cyanurus, as they do not entirely match the original description of the species. [citation needed] The only known animals that match that are animals originating from Chemnitz Zoo, but the F2 animals have not bred well, which could suggest they are in fact a hybrid of C. cyanurus and C. chenggongensis or an undescribed Cynops species. [citation needed]

References

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  1. ^ Frost, Darrel R. (2019). "Cynops". Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.0. American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA. Retrieved 11 October 2019.
  2. ^ "From Cynops to Hypselotriton - when did this happen? - Caudata.org Newt and Salamander Forum". www.caudata.org. Archived from the original on 2013-06-27.
  3. ^ "Revision of salamandrid taxonomy - Caudata.org Newt and Salamander Forum". www.caudata.org. Archived from the original on 2010-09-13.
  4. ^ Chan, L. M.; Zamudio, K. R.; Wake, D. B. (2001). "Relationships of the salamandrid genera Paramesotriton, Pachytriton, and Cynops based on mitochondrial DNA sequences" (PDF). Copeia. 2001 (4): 997–1009. doi:10.1643/0045-8511(2001)001[0997:rotsgp]2.0.co;2. JSTOR 1448388.
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