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| Japalura mictophola Mirza, Gowande, Thackeray, Bhosale, Sawant, Phansalkar & Patel, 2024 |
Abstract
The montane agamid lizard Japalura austeniana (Annandale, 1908), is rare and is distributed across parts of the eastern Himalayas of India and China. Support from molecular and morphological data provides evidence for the existence of a species complex in the populations referred to that binomen, and we here describe a morphologically cryptic allied new species. Evidence from molecular data suggests the presence of additional undescribed species across the distribution of that species complex. Elevation might be the restricting factor for gene flow explaining most of the diversification of that montane species complex across the Himalayas.
Keywords: Agamidae, biodiversity hotspot, biogeography, conservation, Himalayas, systematics
Japalura mictophola sp. nov.
Etymology. The specific epithet is a combination of two words, the Greek word miktós ‘μικτός’ meaning mixed, and the word phola (=scales) referring to the mixed (heterogeneous) scales on the dorsum of the species.
Zeeshan A. Mirza, Gaurang Gowande, Tejas Thackeray, Harshal Bhosale, Mandar Sawant, Pushkar Phansalkar and Harshil Patel. 2024. A New Montane-dwelling Species of Japalura Gray, 1853 (Squamata: Agamidae) from Arunachal Pradesh, India. TAPROBANICA. 13(1); 1–8. DOI: 10.47605/tapro.v13i1.317
taprobanica.org/~file/317_japalura_taprobanica_13_1_2024_mirza_etal_1_8-24a49-3349_1246.pdf
