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| Gloydius chambensis Kuttalam, Santra, Owens, Selvan, Mukherjee, Graham, Togridou, Bharti, Shi, Shanker & Malhotra, 2022 |
ABSTRACT
Gloydius is a widespread pitviper group occurring from Eastern Europe to Korea and Siberia, with only one known species, G. himalayanus (Günther, 1864), found south of the Himalayas. We provide combined genetic and morphological data for G. himalayanus from specimens collected from Himachal Pradesh, India. Bayesian Inference and Maximum Likelihood phylogenetic analysis were performed on four concatenated mitochondrial genes, along with a multi-locus coalescent analysis of these and five additional nuclear genes. Our results indicate that G. himalayanus from the Chamba Valley, in western Himachal Pradesh, are highly distinct from the remaining studied populations. Haplotype networks of each nuclear locus showed that G. himalayanus contains high haplotype diversity with low haplotype sharing between the Chamba Valley population and populations from further west. Principal component analysis and canonical variate analysis conducted on morphological data of live and museum specimens also highlight the morphological distinctiveness of the Chamba population and we herein describe this population as a new species, Gloydius chambensis sp. nov. Recent descriptions of other new species of snakes from this valley underscores its isolation and suggests that further herpetological investigation of the highly dissected landscapes of the western Himalayas is needed to assess the true diversity of the region.
Keywords: Western Himalayas, pitviper, multi-locus coalescent, Bayesian phylogenetics, multivariate morphometrics
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| a–d. Gloydius chambensis sp. nov., holotype, ♂ (Specimen Number 18.13; Churah Valley, HARC R359). a. Whole body b–d. Close-up of the head in dorsal (b), lateral (c) and ventral (d) views. d. The first and 10th ventrals have been marked with black marker to assist with counting scales. e. A whole body view of specimen 17.v20 from Bhanjraru, Chamba. Photos provided by J.B. Owens and V. Santra. |
Gloydius chambensis sp. nov.
Diagnosis: Gloydius chambensis sp. nov. can be identified by the number of gular scales in contact with the infralabial scales (4–5, mean 4.17), number of sublabial scales (9–10, mean 9.57) and the proportion of the first temporal scale covered by the postocular stripe (covering less than a quarter of the temporal scale).
Etymology: The specific epithet ‘chambensis’ means ‘from Chamba’ in reference to the species being distributed in Chamba District. The suggested common name is the ‘Chamba Pitviper’.
Sourish Kuttalam, Vishal Santra, John Benjamin Owens, Melvin Selvan, Nilanjan Mukherjee, Stuart Graham, Anatoli Togridou, Omesh K. Bharti, Jingsong Shi, Kartik Shanker and Anita Malhotra. 2022. Phylogenetic and Morphological Analysis of Gloydius himalayanus (Serpentes, Viperidae, Crotalinae), with the Description of A New Species. European Journal of Taxonomy. 852(1); 1–30. DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2022.852.2003