A new endemic species of Hemidactylus (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from São Nicolau Island, Cabo Verde

Abstract

A new species of gecko of the genus Hemidactylus (Squamata: Gekkonidae) is described from São Nicolau Island, Cabo Verde Archipelago, and the Sal and Boavista island populations of Hemidactylus boavistensis (i.e., Hemidactylus boavistensis boavistensis comb. nov. and Hemidactylus boavistensis chevalieri comb. nov.) are recognized as subspecies. Hemidactylus nicolauensis sp. nov. is genetically distinct from H. bouvieri, to which it has previously been referred, and from all other closely related endemic Hemidactylus from Cabo Verde Islands in mitochondrial (12S & cyt b) and nuclear (RAG2, MC1R) markers. It is characterized morphologically by its distinct colouration and a diagnostically different arrangement of digital lamellae. With the description of this new species, São Nicolau is now known to harbour three single-island endemic gecko species, and the documented reptile diversity in Cabo Verde is raised to 23 endemic species. As a result of our taxonomic changes, existing conservation regulations should be updated and the conservation status of these taxa should be re-evaluated.

Saving collections: taxonomic revision of the herpetological collection of the Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, Lisbon (Portugal) with a protocol to rescue abandoned collections

“…Seven exotic reptiles have been recorded in Cabo Verde (Vasconcelos et al 2013;Ceríaco and Sousa 2017), and the only amphibian present in the archipelago is the exotic African Common Toad, Sclerophrys regularis (Reuss, 1833) (Vasconcelos et al 2010b). These numbers are constantly being updated, as a new species has been recently described (Vasconcelos et al 2020). The iconic giant skink, Chioninia coctei (Duméril & Bibron, 1839) is presumed to have gone extinct in the twentieth century due to a combination of human and ecological factors, and recent searches for this species have been unsuccessful (Ceríaco 2014).…”

Conflicting relationships of Vipera walser inferred from nuclear genes sequences and mitochondrial DNA

“…In addition, as shown here and recently by Freitas et al (2020) on a much larger dataset, allele sharing in nuclear loci is widespread between Eurasian viper species, even between species that are highly divergent in morphology, ecology, or mtDNA (as between V. aspis and V. berus in our dataset for example). Such allele sharing and/or weak phylogenetic signal of single-locus sequences are not restricted to vipers but are instead typical of nuclear gene sequences among closely related reptile species (e.g., Miralles et al, 2020;Vasconcelos et al, 2020) and can result from a combination of interspecific gene flow and/or incomplete lineage sorting (e.g., Pinho et al, 2008). In European vipers, it would be interesting to test whether lineage sharing is more extensive between sympatric or parapatric species than between fully allopatric species, once accounting for divergence time.…”