Andrias jiangxiensis

Conservation: Our long-term field monitoring of A. jiangxiensis sp. nov. yielded only a single incident of a breeding, wild population in the protected area at Daqi Mountain, Jing’an County. This protected area has a riverine habitat of only 6.50 km in linear distance and 36.0 km 2 of area. The upstream water runs inconstantly throughout the year, as flash floods occur occasionally in summer and droughts often occur in the winter, which lead to frequent habitat fragmentations. The downstream habitat out of the nature reserve is blocked by a dam and is inhabitable to A. jiangxiensis sp. nov. due to anthropogenic activities. This small, isolated, and sometimes fragmented population is particularly vulnerable to environmental changes, and thus the species faces a great extinction threat. Therefore, following the IUCN criteria B 1 (extent of occurrence less than 100 km 2, known to exist at only a single location, and extreme fluctuation of extent of occurrence) (IUCN, 2012), we recommend to classify A. jiangxiensis sp. nov. as Critically Endangered (CR), and we recommend to list the species as Class II protected in China, and to implement further assessments.