'New' species of Nile Crocodile

[9Naja]

I thought some of you might be interested in a paper in molecular ecology that deals with the taxonomy of the Nile Crocodile and uses ancient DNA to determine their paraphyly and identify potentially cryptic species/divergent evolutionary lineages of conservation relevance.

M. T. P. GILBERT. 2011.The mummy returns… and sheds new light on old questions. Molecular Ecology 20 (20) 4195–4198. Perspective.

EVON HEKKALA1,2,†, MATTHEW H. SHIRLEY3,†, GEORGE AMATO2, JAMES D. AUSTIN3, SUELLEN CHARTER4, JOHN THORBJARNARSON3,5, KENT A. VLIET6, MARLYS L. HOUCK4, ROB DESALLE2, MICHAEL J. BLUM7. 2011.An ancient icon reveals new mysteries: mummy DNA resurrects a cryptic species within the Nile crocodile. Molecular Ecology 20 (20) 4199–4215.

the first link is to a Free Open Access perspective about the paper [linked to HTML full version]. The second is the link to the abstract of the paper, would require subscription to read the full text version but I am sure some of you might have such access.

[Warren Klein]

Interesting that the early Egyptians had already made the distinction between the two back then.

[9Naja]

super interesting that South African, Zimbabwean, Kenyan and Egyptian etc. populations (those along the east of Africa) seem to be more closely related to the American/Cuban/Orinoco/Mexican crocodiles than to those found in Ghana, Senegal and populations in west Africa, and the two separate clades might come in contact around some areas, like Uganda

[Bushviper]

Now the new species needs to go onto CITES I because they always assumed that because the Nile croc occurs over such a huge range the species can be harvested etc. Now it seems that the various populations need better protection.

[9Naja]

Definitely BV these things need to be taken into account as soon as they come to light, especially considering the east and west split around the congo is thought to be around 8million years of genetic divergence, this genetic diversity needs to be conserved...hell even the north south split of the eastern group around Tanzania/Zambia shows populations that diverged over 3 million years ago. Harvesting in Uganda where both clades may occur together needs particular care so you know which populations you are impacting and their specific conservation status.