From
this text, Atschan seems to be in the vicinity of Qiemo (= Qargan/Cherchen/Tschertschen), Xinjiang (38°05'N 85°33'E). Presumably Atschan (At Shan?) is a peak in the Altun Shan, and Atschan-darja is a stream/river descending from it.
Thanks Richard :t:
So, the scope is potentially widening: Saxicola przewalskii Przevalski's/Eastern Stonechat (including ssp stejnegeri)? Or could it even prove to be S indicus (including sspp przewalskii and stejnegeri)...?
What is available from the range of
indicus is:
- A single cytochrome b sequence from Illera
et al. 2008 [
pdf], indeed labelled
indicus.
- Six brand new sequences (cytb, nd2, myo, odc, g3pdh, rag1--but mainly cytb and nd2 are interesting: there are not enough other available sequences of the nuclear genes for phylogeographic inference) obtained by Price et al. 2014 [
pdf], from a bird labelled "
Saxicola torquatus", from Kipsung in Nepal. (But note that this bird's ID has a question mark the the
AMNH specimen database--choose "Ornithology", then enter "Saxicola" as genus and "torquatus" as species to find it--; it's just a tissue sample.)
Illera et al.'s
indicus clustered with their
S. leucurus, in a position basal to (
torquatus + [
rubicola +
maurus]), which is compatible with the position of the
stejnegeri clade. (As only nd2 and cox1 have been sequenced from birds known to be definitely part of this clade, being really sure is not possible.) Interestingly, though, Price et al. 2014 also produced sequences from a
S. leucurus, including a cytochrome b that was highly similar to Illera et al.'s sequence of this taxon, and a nd2 that, when combined with other,
ia. Russian sequences, appears sister to the
stejnegeri clade. IOW, Illera et al.'s
indicus was close to two congruent
leucurus, one of which, based on another gene, was close to
stejnegeri. Again, this is consistent with Illera et al.'s
indicus being part of the
stejnegeri group, thus, even if still not a direct proof.
(That being said... As you know, Illera et al. initially recovered sequences similar to their
indicus sequence from two
rubicola as well. I can only
hope that the problem they had there, was due to contaminations. The other possible, and much more disturbing explanation would be numts. Should their original "
indicus-like
rubicola" sequences happen to be numts, their
indicus sequence would certainly be wrong as well...)
And now, for the funny part:
The Price et al. 2014 cytochrome b and nd2 sequences are unlike anything that has been produced to date. They place this bird sister to the (
rubicola +
maurus) clade...