Cryptic diversity of teiid lizards from Gran Chaco region (Squamata: Teiidae) revealed by morphological and molecular evidence

ARIAS, F. J.; R. RECODER; B. B. ÁLVAREZ; E. ETHCEPARE; M. QUIPILDOR; F. LOBO & M. TREFAUT RODRIGUES

ZOOLOGICA SCRIPTA

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2018 p. 1 - 15

0300-3256

The Gran Chaco dry forest ecoregion corresponds to the southern portion of theSouth America diagonal belt of open formations, being one of the most threatenedsubtropical woodland savannas in the world. The area is still poorly known biologicallyand has been suffering with impressively high forest cover loss in the last10 years. Integrating morphological and molecular data, we detected and describe acryptic new species of lizard genus Ameivula endemic from the eastern part of thisecoregion, the called Humid Chaco. Ameivula apipensis sp nov. is characterised by awhitish brown vertebral stripe in adults and juveniles, a lateral field without ocelliand with overlapping spot, presence of an interfrontoparietal scale in 46.2% of thespecimens, 12?17 femoral pores, an hemipenis without lateral sac, five xiphisternalribs, and by a combination of meristic features as confirmed by discriminant analysis.The new species was recovered sister to a clade from Western Cerrado in ouranalysis, the first phylogenetic hypothesis for the Ameivula and Glaucomastix generabased on 1977 base pairs of three mitochondrial (12S, 16S and cyt-b)and one nuclear(c-mos)genes, including all the recognised species at the moment. Maximum parsimonyand Bayesian inference recovered the monophyly of Ameivula andGlaucomastix with strong support. Reinforcing previous studies, our results suggestthe presence of additional cryptic species in Ameivula from the Western Cerrado.