Two new Cyrtodactylus (Squamata, Gekkonidae) from Northeast India

Abstract

We describe two new species of Cyrtodactylus Gray, 1827, each from the Indian states of Meghalaya and Mizoram based on morphology and ND2 gene sequences. The new species are a part of the Cyrtodactylus khasiensis group. Both species represent the highland clade within the south of Brahmaputra clade of Indo-Burmese Cyrtodactylus. Based on ND2 gene sequence, the species from Meghalaya have an uncorrected p-distance of 4.21%–4.25% from a lowland species C. guwahatiensis Agarwal, Mahony, Giri, Chaitanya & Bauer, 2018 and is a sister taxon to C. septentrionalis Agarwal, Mahony, Giri, Chaitanya & Bauer, 2018. The species from Mizoram differ from its sister species C. bengkhuaiai Purkayastha, Lalremsanga, Bohra, Biakzuala, Decemson, Muansanga, Vabeiryureilai, Chauhan & Rathee, 2021 by a p-distance of 8.33%.

An updated checklist of reptiles from Dampa Tiger Reserve, Mizoram, India, with sixteen new distribution records

“…Low to mid-elevation hill slopes with extensive forested tracts are contributing factors to its native biodiversity. The reptilian diversity of the state so far comprises more than 60 species of snakes (Talukdar & Sanyal 1978;Pawar & Birand 2001;Mathew 2007;Lalremsanga et al 2011;Lalremsanga & Lalronunga 2017;Vogel et al 2017Vogel et al , 2020Ashaharraza et al 2019;Giri et al 2019a;Lalbiakzuala & Lalremsanga 2019a,b, 2020Das et al 2021;Lalronunga et al 2021a,b) and 41 species of lizards (Pawar & Birand 2001;Harit & Ramanujan 2002;Matthew 2007;Lalrinchhana et al 2011;Giri et al 2019b;Muansanga et al 2020;Purkayastha et al 2021Purkayastha et al , 2022). However, systematic herpetofauna reports from the protected areas of the state are only partially available: Nengpui Wildlife Sanctuary (Pawar & Birand 2001) and Dampa Tiger Reserve (Pawar & Birand 2001;Decemson et al 2020).…”