Investigating morphological characteristics of the Lorestan newt (Neurergus kaiseri) in west and southwest of Iran

The Lorestan newt, Neurergus kaiseri is one of the endemic amphibians, distributed in some parts of Lorestan and Khuzestan Provinces in west and south western Iran. In the current study, morphological characteristics of the Lorestan newt was investigated through sampling of 85 individuals from eight sites in the south of Lorestan and north of Khuzestan during 2015-2016. Four main morphological features including, tail length (TL), head length (HL), body length (SVL), total length (BL) and four ratios: (BL/ HL), (BL/ TL), (BL/SVL) and (TL/ SVL) were measured and compared among populations. The average body length for females in Luristan and Khuzestan Provinces were 13.331cm (12.95- 13.72) and 12.782 cm (12.53-13.09) respectively and for male specimens were 11.815 cm (11.49- 12.21) and 12.11 cm (11.80- 12.36). The results obtained from the ANOVA analysis indicated that there were significant differences (P ≤ 0.05) in all morphological characteristics of the newt between northern and southern clades except for the total body length.