New records of the Turkish Lycian salamanders (Lyciasalamandra: Salamandridae)

Abstract

During fieldwork conducted between end of February and mid-April 2012 14 new localities were ascertained for four different taxa of the amphibian genus Lyciasalamandra (L. l. basoglui, L. l. finikensis, L. arikani and L. atifi). This paper represents the first record of L. l. basoglui from Muğla province (Saklıkent, Fethiye). Unlike the common belief in previous researches based on literature we determined that there are almost no gaps between the distributional areas of the known subspecies of L. luschani, moreover the subspecies were found in contact. The recently discovered populations of L. arikani and L. atifi were found to have some distinctive morphological differences compared to other populations of the respective species.