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| Sitana attenboroughii
Sadasivan, Ramesh, Palot, Ambekar & Mirza, 2018
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Abstract
We here describe Sitana attenboroughii sp. nov., a new species of fan-throated lizard of the genus Sitana Cuvier, 1829 from coastal Kerala in southern India. The new species morphologically is closer to Sitana visiri Deepak, 2016 (in Deepak et al. 2016a), however, differs in having higher numbers of ventral scales and a comparatively short but richly colored dewlap. Genetically the new species shows affinity to Sitana marudhamneydhal Deepak, Khandekar, Varma & Chaitanya, 2016 from which it differs in an uncorrected pairwise sequence divergence of 2.2% for a fragment of mitochondrial Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide dehydrogenase (NADH) subunit 2 gene.
Keywords: Reptilia, taxonomy, India, molecular phylogeny, mitochondrial DNA, Kerala
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| Sitana attenboroughii sp. nov. in life, holotype male (BNHS 2481) |
Sitana attenboroughii sp. nov.
Etymology. The specific epithet is a noun honoring the celebrated naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Frederick Attenborough for his contribution towards natural history documentation and wildlife conservation.
Suggested common name. Attenborough’s fan-throated lizard.
Kalesh Sadasivan, M. B. Ramesh, Muhamed Jafer Palot, Mayuresh Ambekar and Zeeshan A. Mirza. 2018. A New Species of Fan-throated Lizard of the Genus Sitana Cuvier, 1829 from coastal Kerala, southern India. Zootaxa. 4374(4); 545–564. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4374.4.5
ResearchGate.net/publication/322637530_A_new_species_of_fan-throated_lizard_of_the_genus_Sitana_from_coastal_Kerala_southern_India
ResearchGate.net/publication/322637530_A_new_species_of_fan-throated_lizard_of_the_genus_Sitana_from_coastal_Kerala_southern_India
