A New Species of the Genus Thermophis (Serpentes: Colubridae) from Shangri-La, Northern Yunnan, China, with a Proposal for an Eclectic Rule for Species Delimitation

The hot-spring snakes, Thermophis, were previously known only from the Tibet Autonomous Region and Western Sichuan, China. During the past two years, three adult hot-spring snakes (2 females, 1 male) were sampled in Shangri-La, northern Yunnan, China, thus expanding their known distribution region towards the southeast. This site is the southeastern-most corner of the Tibetan Plateau and the southernmost tip of the Hengduan Mountains (Mts.). Phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial (mt) and nuclear (n) DNA segments suggested that the three specimens belong to the genus of Thermophis. Morphologically, the new species is more similar to T. zhaoermii. However, it is distinguished from T. zhaoermii in the number of maxillary teeth (15), distance between the two eyes/head width, rostral width/ height, mental width/height, in one character limited to female: head width/length, and in four characters restricted to male: occurrence of the reduction from 10 to 8 (8 to 6, 6 to 4) scales in each dorsal row on the tail. There are differences in morphology, genetics (mtDNA, nDNA), and geography between the putative new species and T. zhaoermii, the new species meets our proposed eclectic and feasible "four-differences" rule.