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| Cyrtodactylus kazirangaensis
Agarwal, Mahony, Giri, Chitanya & Bauer, 2018
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Abstract
We use mitochondrial sequence data to identify divergent lineages within the gekkonid genus Cyrtodactylus in northeast India and use morphological data to describe six new species from within the Indo-Burma clade of Cyrtodactylus. The new species share an irregular colour pattern but differ from described species from the region in morphology and mitochondrial sequence data (>11 % uncorrected pairwise sequence divergence). Three new species are from along the Brahmaputra River and three are from mountains south of the Brahmaputra, including the largest Cyrtodactylus from India and the fifth gecko to be described from a major Indian city, Guwahati.
Keywords: Reptilia, Cyrtodactylus khasiensis, endemic species, morphology, Myanmar, ND2, taxonomy
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Results:
We recovered the same topology as Agarwal et al. 2014, with moderate support for the south of Brahmaputra clade
(Fig. 2). A basal split within the south of Brahmaputra clade separates a mountain (clade M in Agarwal et al. 2014)
and lowland clade (clade N), which contain a total of seven, unnamed divergent lineages. The lowland clade
includes taxa from lowlands south of the Brahmaputra—the species C. ayeyarwadyensis Bauer, C. khasiensis, and
C. tripuraensis Agarwal, Mahony, Giri, Chaitanya and Bauer; and the new species C. guwahatiensis sp. nov., C.
kazirangaensis sp. nov., and C. septentrionalis sp. nov. The mountain clade has three species from Myanmar, C.
brevidactylus Bauer, C. chrysopylos Bauer, and C. gansi Bauer; and the new species C. jaintiaensis sp. nov., C.
montanus sp. nov., C. nagalandensis sp. nov. and the unnamed C. sp. Mizoram from mountains in northeast India.
ND2 p-distance results are provided in Table 2 and are discussed below in comparisons sections. We describe six of
these genetically divergent lineages from across the lowland and mountain clades as new species below. |
| FIGURE 3. Cyrtodactylus guwahatiensis sp. nov. in life (adult male holotype, BNHS 2146). |
Cyrtodactylus guwahatiensis sp. nov.
Etymology. The specific epithet is a toponym for the type locality of the species, Guwahati, the largest city in Assam and northeast India.
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| FIGURE 6. Cyrtodactylus kazirangaensis sp. nov. in life (adult male paratype BNHS 2149). |
Cyrtodactylus kazirangaensis sp. nov.
Etymology. The specific epithet is a toponym for Kaziranga National Park, which is adjacent to the type locality. Kaziranga, a World Heritage Site, is best known for having most of the world’s surviving Indian one-horned rhinoceros, though it has high biodiversity across taxonomic groups.
Cyrtodactylus septentrionalis sp. nov.
Etymology. The specific epithet is a nominative, masculine, singular, Latin adjective meaning “northern”, as this species is the only known member of the lowland clade (Agarwal et al. 2014) that is found north of the Brahmaputra River, the other five known species of the clade are found south of the Brahmaputra River.
Cyrtodactylus jaintiaensis sp. nov.
Etymology. The specific epithet is a toponym named after the type locality of the new species in the Jaintia Hills, West Jaintia Hills district, Meghalaya.
Cyrtodactylus montanus sp. nov.
Etymology. The specific epithet is a nominative, masculine, singular, Latin adjective meaning “pertaining to a mountain” as this species is a member of the mountain clade, and is restricted to a mountainous region in northwestern Tripura.
Cyrtodactylus nagalandensis sp. nov.
Etymology. This is the first endemic gecko from Nagaland, and the specific epithet is a toponym for the state.
Ishan Agarwal, Stephen Mahony, Varad B. Giri, R. Chitanya and Aaron M. Bauer. 2018. Six New Cyrtodactylus (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from northeast India. Zootaxa. 4524(5); 501–535. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4524.5.1
