| A morphologically distinct cavernicolous salamander Proteus anguinus from southeastern Slovenia (Bela Krajina) is described as P. a. parkelj ssp. n. It differs from P. a. anguinus in a dark pigmentation, fully developed eyes, a skull with broader and shorter bones and fewer teeth, a voluminous jaw musculature that gives the head a bulky appearance, a proportionally longer trunk with a higher number of vertebrae, shorter extremities, and a shorter tail. Most of these traits are considered to be plesiomorphic character states. An allozyme analysis over 40 loci has shown the new dark pigmented taxon to be genetically similar to a white and troglomorphic neighbouring population from Stična (DNei = 0.23). Both populations in turn are genetically dissimilar to a... |
