A new species of the Giant Salamander genus Andrias (Amphibia, Urodela, Cryptobranchidae) from Yuexi, Anhui, China

Zhihao Jiang, Ruyi Huang, Jingjing Yang, Kai Zhao, Yixue Zhang, Tierui Zhang, Yucai Zhang, Jun Chu, Jinmin Chen, Song Huang

Abstract

Chinese giant salamanders (genus Andrias), encompassing the largest extant amphibian species in the world, are widespread in China. Several molecular studies have shown that there are several undescribed species of Andrias. A new species, Andrias yaoluopingensis sp. nov., is described, based on mitochondrial genomes and morphological characteristics from Yuexi County, Anqing City, Anhui Province, China. Morphologically, the new species is characterised by the combination of seven external characters: (1) head and trunk flat, head slightly longer than wide; (2) tubercles above the orbit few and irregularly distributed; (3) eye diameter longer than naris diameter; (4) lateral neck fold discontinuous with body fold at fore-limb insertion; (5) interdigital webbing slightly present; (6) finger length formula FIII > FII > FI > FIV; and (7) dorsum tan in life, darker blotches present on trunk. Molecularly, the new species and an undescribed clade (identified in previous studies) of Andrias form an independent clade with strong support (1.00/100) in the phylogenetic trees, based on mitochondrial genomes. The number of species in Andrias now reaches six, but cryptic species richness in the Chinese giant salamanders deserves further attention.

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Asako Yoshihama

🐞

Look at me.

Look me directly in the eyes while I say this.

You can just make things.

You can simply create something and put it into the world.

That's allowed.

People have been doing it for centuries.

They sell blank VHS tapes. They sell blank DVDs. Blank CDs. You can buy flash drives by the bucketful if you really want to. If you create a movie, an album, a game, a documentary, or a four-hour video essay about the mating habits of fictional space goblins, you are entirely permitted to put that thing on physical media and sell it.

That is not piracy.

Piracy is taking something that belongs to someone else and reproducing or distributing it without permission.

If I buy a DVD of a movie, I own that copy of the movie. I do not own the movie itself. I didn't acquire the rights to duplicate it, press a thousand copies, and start selling them out of my garage like I've become the regional distributor for Warner Bros.

The copyright, distribution rights, and intellectual property still belong to whoever created it or whoever legally acquired those rights.

If I start burning copies of Iron Lung and selling them myself without Markiplier's permission, that's piracy.

If Markiplier, who made and owns the rights to Iron Lung, burns copies and sells them himself, that's just distribution.

He's the rights holder.

He's distributing his own work.

If you made it, if it came from your own mind, your own work, your own time, your own resources, then congratulations. You own the thing. You don't need a corporation to bless it with legitimacy.

The corporation is not what makes it real.

The fact that it exists is what makes it real.

I think we've accidentally spent so many years living inside a world dominated by mass-produced media that some people have developed the strange assumption that all media emerges from a factory somewhere. As if films naturally occur in shrink-wrapped plastic cases and descend from the heavens aboard a pallet truck.

But independent artists have been burning discs, dubbing tapes, printing books, pressing records, and mailing things directly to people for longer than many of us have been alive.

That's not a bootleg.

That's just a product.

It's not "bootleg."

It's just... leg.

The normal kind.

Image source: wikipedia

Image descriptions:

A DVD disc with "The Original, Free Range, Locally Sourced, Leg. By an Indie Artist (Corporation not included)" written on the front with black font on a white background)"

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CUSTOM TASKBAR: retrobar on github (lots of different options)

CUSTOM CURSOR: theres a lot of places to find these, but rw-designer open cursor library is a good place to start

DISCORD: betterdiscord, im using the clearvision v7 theme with a custom background

EXTENSIONS (these are for firefox, might or might not exist on other browsers):

tabliss for the new tab theme

stylus for tumblr -> specifically the 'tumblr - custom dashboard pallette' theme for colors + bg, and this for the pre-twitterifcation layout

enhancer for youtube for custom youtube colors