Lizards of the genus Calotes are geographically restricted to South Asia, Indo-China and parts of Southeast Asia. The greatest diversity of the genus is from the biodiversity hotspots in South Asia: Western Ghats (Peninsular India), Sri Lanka and Indo-Burma. Here, we present a systematic revision of members of the genus Calotes from Peninsular India using a combination of molecular phylogeny, geographical distribution and morphological characters. We show that Calotes from the Western Ghats is paraphyletic and consists of three major clades, one of which is widely distributed in South and Southeast (SE) Asia, while the others are restricted to Peninsular India. The Peninsular Indian clade is composed of two sister clades: Psammophilus, with a wider distribution and a second clade, composed of two extant species, Calotes rouxii and Calotes ellioti and two new species, all restricted to the Western Ghats region. Based on morphological differences, we retain the generic status of Psammophilus and assign its sister clade to a new genus Monilesaurus gen. nov. and transfer the following species, C. rouxii and C. ellioti, to this new genus. We also provide diagnoses and descriptions for two new species recognized within Monilesaurus gen. nov. In addition, Calotes aurantolabium from the Western Ghats was observed to be deeply divergent and to share a sister-relationship with the clade composed of Calotes, Monilesaurus gen. nov., and Psammophilus. Based on its phylogenetic position and morphological attributes, we assign this species to a new genus Microauris gen. nov. These new discoveries highlight the evolutionary significance of the Western Ghats in housing novel lizard diversity.
The highly speciose gekkonid genus
Cnemaspis
Strauch, 1887 is polyphyletic, with three distantly related and geographically isolated clades from Africa, South Asia (SA), and Southeast Asia. At present, there are 85 known species within SA
Cnemaspis
, although the number continues to increase rapidly with focused surveys and rigorous taxonomic work. Recent studies have provided valuable insights into the diversity and evolutionary history of SA
Cnemaspis
; however, most of these studies lack sufficient sampling in the Western Ghats (WG), where the genus has its greatest diversity. We addressed this research gap by conducting extensive sampling across the WG and re-examining museum specimens, thus providing a systematic account of various extant
Cnemaspis
species along with their distribution and natural history. We described 12 new species and a southern WG endemic clade of SA
Cnemaspis.
Ten of the newly described species are endemic to the forests of the southern WG. We also identified 10 well-supported subclades that can be separated across morphological, geographic, and phylogenetic axes. A time-calibrated phylogeny and ancestral area reconstructions confirmed the Paleocene origin of SA
Cnemaspis
in the WG and provide insights into its evolutionary history and biogeography. The discovery of multiple endemic and deeply divergent lineages further highlights the evolutionary significance of the WG for lizards.
We describe a divergent clade and three new rupicolous species of dwarf geckos of the genus Cnemaspis from the Mysore Plateau, southern India. Cnemaspis bangarasp. nov., C. graniticola sp. nov., and C.yelagiriensis sp. nov. differ from each other by 9%–18% uncorrected ND2 sequence divergence and other South Asian Cnemaspis by 17%–33% and are morphologically distinguishable from all regional congeners and each other. The new species are known from only granite boulders in montane habitats (>1,000 m asl.), just 60–120 km straight‐line distance apart from each other. A fossil‐calibrated timetree and ancestral area reconstructions indicate South Asian Cnemaspis originated in Western Ghats forests with initial divergence in the Paleocene‐Eocene making it perhaps the oldest Indian squamate clade. Cnemaspis that occur in Peninsular India in the dry zone outside the Western Ghats form three independently derived clades that occur in significantly warmer and drier habitats than those in the Western Ghats. The discovery of a Miocene divergent clade from rocky hills on the southern edge of the Mysore Plateau reveals these habitats as novel, long‐term climate refugia. This adds to the body of work revealing ancient origins of taxa in the Indian dry zone and supports the Mysore Plateau as an important and overlooked hot spot of lizard biodiversity.
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