A new species of Plestiodon (Squamata: Scincidae) from Sierra Madre del Sur of Guerrero, México

Abstract

We describe a new species of lizard of the genus Plestiodon from the Sierra Madre del Sur of Guerrero, Mexico. Plestiodonnietoi sp. nov. shares a characteristic with all members of the P. brevirostris group in that the scale that medially bordersthe postgenial is wider than long. This species is most similar to P. brevirostris and P. indubitus from which it differs byhaving the following combination of characters: large adult size, interparietal enclosed posteriorly by parietals, and a pale lateral line on the neck.

A new rare species of the Rhadinaea decorata group from the Sierra Madre del Sur of Guerrero, Mexico (Squamata, Colubridae)

“…However, the west and east portions of the Sierra have been largely ignored. Recent visits to the west portion have yielded a number of discoveries of new species (e.g., Campbell and Flores-Villela 2008, Campbell et al 2009, Pavón-Vázquez et al 2011, Feria-Ortiz and García-Vázquez 2012, Campbell et al 2014). This suggests that the diversity of the Sierra Madre del Sur of Guerrero is higher than currently known (Palacios-Aguilar and Flores-Villela 2018), particularly for small and secretive snakes as exemplified by the present work and the recent descriptions of Epictiaschneideri Wallach, 2016, Geophisoccabus Pavón-Vázquez, García-Vázquez, Blancas-Hernández & Nieto-Montes de Oca, 2011, and Rhadinelladysmica Campillo, Dávila-Galavíz, Flores-Villela & Campbell, 2016.…”

A phylogenomic perspective on the biogeography of skinks in the Plestiodon brevirostris group inferred from target enrichment of ultraconserved elements

“…Our results based on phylogenetic analyses of over 3,000 genomic loci shed new light on the systematics of the P. brevirostris group and highlight potential areas for future taxonomic research. Additional species‐level diversity may be present within the group, as proposed previously (Feria‐Ortiz et al ., ; Feria‐Ortiz & García‐Vázquez, ). For example, we found both putative subspecies P. l. lynxe and P. l. belli to be genetically distinct.…”

“…and Appendix S1 in Supporting Information). We were unable to include the enigmatic species P. colimensis from the coastal foothills of western Mexico and the recently described species P. nietoi from the Sierra Madre del Sur (Feria‐Ortiz & García‐Vázquez, ). We also sequenced a population of an undescribed species in the group previously confounded with P. indubitus from northern Colima and southern Jalisco (here referred to as ‘ P .…”

“…We also sequenced a population of an undescribed species in the group previously confounded with P. indubitus from northern Colima and southern Jalisco (here referred to as ‘ P . indubitus West’), and a morphologically divergent population of P. bilineatus from Jalisco (‘ P. bilineatus South’) that represents another possibly undescribed species (Feria‐Ortiz et al ., ; Brandley et al ., ; Feria‐Ortiz & García‐Vázquez, ). We included P. tetragrammus as an outgroup (Brandley et al ., ).…”

Taxonomic reassessment of two subspecies of Chinese skink in Taiwan based on morphological and molecular investigations (Squamata, Scincidae)

“…The scincid lizard genus Plestiodon Duméril & Bibron, 1839, comprises some 45 species, is distributed across East Asia and North America (Brandley et al 2012, Feria-Ortiz and García-Vázquez 2012, Okamoto and Hikida 2012, Kurita and Hikida 2014a, b). Among these, P. chinensis (Gray, 1838) is a large-sized skink widely distributed in Asia including continental China, Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, and islands offshore from these areas (Hikida 1993).…”