Two new Cnemaspis Strauch, 1887 (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from the Shevaroy massif, Tamil Nadu, India, with a preliminary ND2 phylogeny of Indian Cnemaspis

Abstract

We present a preliminary ND2 phylogeny of South Asian Cnemaspis, recovering a number of deeply divergent clades within Indian Cnemaspis, endemic to the southern and northern Western Ghats besides the Mysore Plateau and hills of Tamil Nadu. There are a number of unnamed lineages that are >5% divergent on ND2 across the phylogeny, including three from the gracilis clade on an elevation gradient (800–1400 m asl.) around Yercaud in the Shevaroy massif, Salem district, Tamil Nadu. We describe two of these as new species— Cnemaspis shevaroyensis sp. nov. and Cnemaspis thackerayi sp. nov. are both allied to Cnemaspis gracilis and can be diagnosed from all other Indian Cnemaspis by the absence of spine-like scales on flank, heterogeneous dorsal pholidosis, presence of femoral and precloacal pores, tail with enlarged, strongly keeled, conical tubercles forming whorls, a median row of enlarged and smooth sub-caudals. They differ from C. gracilis and each other in body size, the number of tubercles around midbody, the number of tubercles in paravertebral rows, the number of femoral and precloacal pores, the number of poreless scales in-between precloacal pores and between femoral and precloacal pores, and subtle colour pattern differences; besides uncorrected mitochondrial sequence divergence (7.9–16.6 %). We also provide a description of Cnemaspis yercaudensis from its type locality and an additional locality. The discovery of two endemic species and a third unnamed divergent lineage from an isolated massif in peninsular India outside the Western Ghats indicate that many other such understudied hill ranges may harbour high endemic biodiversity.

Granite boulders act as deep‐time climate refugia: A Miocene divergent clade of rupicolous Cnemaspis Strauch, 1887 (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from the Mysore Plateau, India, with descriptions of three new species

“…nov. is the sixth from Tamil Nadu outside the Western Ghats. Ten species of Cnemaspis from three clades are now known from peninsular India outside the Western Ghats (Khandekar, 2019; Khandekar, Gaitonde, et al, 2019; Srinivasulu, Kumar, & Srinivasulu, 2015). Cnemaspis in peninsular India are found across a broad elevational range (<250 to >2,500 m asl.…”

“…We generated seven new sequences of the mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenase 2 gene ( ND2 ) for the three new species described herein, as well as other so far unsampled Cnemaspis spp. distributed outside the Western Ghats ( C. adii Srinivasulu, Kumar & Srinivasulu , C. otai, Das & Bauer) and combined these with the published dataset of Khandekar, Gaitonde, et al (2019). We targeted the type localities of Cnemaspis adii and C. otai , as well as other rocky habitats on the southern boundary of the Mysore Plateau.…”

“…A maximum‐likelihood (ML) phylogeny was constructed using RAxML HPC 8.2.10 (Stamatakis, 2006) on the codon‐partitioned ND2 dataset, applying the GTR + G model of sequence evolution, with support assessed through 1,000 bootstraps on the CIPRES Web server (phylo.org). Trees were rooted using the kolhapurensis + heteropholis clade (after Khandekar, Gaitonde, et al, 2019).…”

“…Within peninsular India, 33 Cnemaspis species are known from the Western Ghats and only seven species from other regions (Figure 1) and two species lack type locality information. The species outside the Western Ghats are associated with montane forest habitats and or rocky habitats in and around the Mysore Plateau, and a recent phylogeny places the sampled species into two broad clades, the gracilis and mysoriensis clades (Khandekar, Gaitonde, et al, 2019).…”

“…Most cool‐adapted taxa in peninsular India are restricted to these regions—including multiple gekkonid genera: (South Asian) Cnemaspis Strauch, Cyrtodactylus ( Geckoella ) Gray, and Hemiphyllodactylus Bleeker (Agarwal & Karanth, 2015; Agarwal, Khandekar, Giri, Ramakrishnan, & Karanth, 2019; Khandekar, 2019). Geckoella and Indian Hemiphyllodactylus are both derived from South‐East Asian ancestors in the late Eocene–Oligocene, while the origin of South Asian Cnemaspis has not been investigated (Agarwal et al., 2017; Agarwal, Giri, Bauer, & Khandekar, 2019; Agarwal & Karanth, 2015; Khandekar, Gaitonde, & Agarwal, 2019).…”