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| Cnemaspis vangoghi Khandekar, Thackeray & Agarwal, 2024 |
Abstract
Two new species allied to Cnemaspis galaxia are described from the eastern slopes of the south Western Ghats, Tamil Nadu, India. Both new species are members of the ornata subclade within the beddomei clade. The two new species can be easily distinguished from all other members of the beddomei clade and each other by a combination of nonoverlapping morphological characters such as small body size, distinct colouration of both sexes, the number of dorsal tubercles around the body, the number or arrangement of paravertebral tubercles, the number of midventral scales across the belly and longitudinal ventral scales from mental to cloaca, besides uncorrected pairwise ND2 and 16S sequence divergence of ≥ 7.4% and ≥ 2.7%. The two new species are distributed from low elevation, deciduous forests of Srivilliputhur, and add to the five previously known endemic vertebrates from Srivilliputhur-Megamalai Tiger Reserve.
Key words: Asia, biodiversity hotspot, dwarf geckos, integrative taxonomy, phylogeny, species complex
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| Cnemaspis vangoghi sp. nov., in life A adult male (holotype, NRC-AA-8342) B adult female (paratype, NRC-AA-8345), and C subadult male (paratype, NRC-AA-8348). Photos by Akshay Khandekar. |
Cnemaspis vangoghi sp. nov.
Etymology: The specific epithet is a patronym for Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890). The colouration of the new species is reminiscent of one of Van Gogh’s most iconic paintings, The Starry Night. Suggested common name is Van Gogh’s starry dwarf gecko.
Cnemaspis sathuragiriensis sp. nov.
Etymology: The specific epithet is a toponym for the type locality of the new species, Sathuragiri mountain in Srivilliputhur-Megamalai Tiger Reserve (SMTR), Virudhunagar District, Tamil Nadu. Suggested Common name is Sathuragiri dwarf gecko.
Akshay Khandekar, Tejas Thackeray and Ishan Agarwal. 2024. Two New Species of the Cnemaspis galaxia complex (Squamata, Gekkonidae) from the eastern slopes of the southern Western Ghats. ZooKeys. 1196: 209-242. DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1196.117947
