A new species of Acanthodactylus Fitzinger 1834 (Sauria: Lacertidae) from southern Iran

Abstract

A new and distinctive species of lacertid genus Acanthodactylus Fitzinger, 1834 is described from 7 km east of Khamir Port, Hormozgan Province, southern Iran at an elevation of 30-40m above sea level (asl). Analyses of morphological characters and the comparison with other formerly known species of this genus have proven the status of this taxon as a new, distinct species. Combinations of scalation characters and distinct morphology, coloration and habitat peculiarities in calcareous mountains distinguish Acanthodactylus khamirensis sp.nov from all remaining species of the genus in the area. In order to show the validity of the new species, we carried out a comparative statistical analysis using 13 metric and six meristic morphological characters on all of the neighboring congeners of the new species using descriptive (one-way ANOVA) as well as multivariate analyses (PCA and DFA). The results confirm the specific status of the new taxon. Detailed information and an updated identification key for the genus Acanthodactylus in Iran are presented.

The roles of environmental factors on reptile richness in Iran

“…Anderson and Levitón, 1966;Nilson and Andren, 1978;Moravec, 1994;Rastegar-Pouyani and Rastegar-Pouyani, 2005;Ananjeva et al, 2006;Bostanchi et al, 2006;Rastegar-Pouyani et al, 2006;Venchi and Sindaco, 2006;Mozaffari and Parham, 2007;Nazarov and Rajabizadeh, 2007;Nilson and Rastegar-Pouyani, 2007;Rastegar-Pouyani et al, 2008;Fahimi, Papenfuss and Anderson, 2009;Gholamhosseini et al, 2009;Nazarov, Ananjeva and Radjabizadeh, 2009;Fathinia and RastegarPouyani, 2010;Rajabizadeh et al, 2010;Ahmadzadeh et al, 2011 ;Farhadi Qomi et al, 2011 ;Fathinia et al, 2011 ;Gholamifard, 2011;Karamiani and Rastegar-Pouyani, 2011;Kazemi et al, 2011 ;Moradi and Shafiei, 2011 ;Mozaffari, Ahmadzadeh and Parham, 2011;Torki, 2011;Torki, Manthey and Barts, 2011 ;Rajabizadeh, Nilson and Kami, 2011;Nazarov, Bondarenko and Radjabizadeh, 2012;Rajabizadeh et al, 2012;Heidari et al, 2013;Krause et al, 2013;Uetz and Hallermann, 2013). The list includes species recognized on the basis of biological, evolutionary and morphological species concepts (Uetz and Hallermann, 2013).…”

Ecological niche differentiation between Acanthodactylus micropholis and A. khamirensis (Sauria: Lacertidae) in southern Iran

“…The model predicted suitable habitat for A. khamirensis in southern coastal regions of Iran from Bushehr province to Sistan-Baluchestan province. The regions included in the prediction near Bandar-e Lengeh reflect the current distribution pattern of the species, but predictions of suitable habitat in Bushehr and Sistan-Baluchestanare outside of the current distribution of the species (Heidari et al 2013(Heidari et al , Šmid et al 2014 (Fig. 1).…”

“…All occurrence records of both species were obtained from the literature (Heidari et al 2013(Heidari et al , 2014(Heidari et al , Šmid et al 2014. In total, 45 presence records belonging to both species (nine records for A. khamirensis and 35 records for A. micropholis) (Appendix 1) were used.…”

“…So far, eight species of this genus have been recorded from Iran (Safaei-Mahroo et al 2015). Recently, the genus has been revised using molecular phylogeny (Heidari et al 2014) and a new species, A. khamirensis, was described as belonging to the "micropholis" species complex (Heidari et al 2013). In both species description papers, morphological and molecular markers confirmed the specific level of the newly described species.…”

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Acanthodactylus micropholis Heidari, Rastegar-Pouyani, Rajabizadeh, 2013 and A. khamirensis Blanford, 1874 are genetically and morphologically distinct, but their ecological differentiation has not previously been evaluated. The ecological niche models of these two sister species Acanthodactylus were reconstructed using climate and geographical data.

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