A new species of the Pantepui endemic genusRiolama(Squamata: Gymnophthalmidae) from the summit of Murisipán-tepui, with the erection of a new gymnophthalmid subfamily

Abstract

The gymnophthalmid lizard Riolama inopinata sp. nov. is described from the summit of Murisipán‐tepui, Bolívar State, Venezuela. The new species is characterized by its small size, slender body, short neck, chestnut brown dorsum with two conspicuous orange‐brown dorsolateral stripes, 30 or 31 mid‐dorsal scales, and 18 or 19 ventral scales in transverse rows, 28 scales around midbody, seven supralabials, five or six infralabials, subdigital lamellae divided in small granular scales, ten or 11 small femoral pores in males, dorsal surface of tongue covered with oblique chevron‐shaped plicae interrupted by a small midsection of imbricate scale‐like papillae, and a small weakly bilobed hemipenis having the sulcus spermaticus flanked by an extensive nude area on each side, and the asulcate and lateral faces of the organ with short series of small roughly equidistant, feebly developed flounces, each bearing a single medial hook‐shaped spine. Molecular phylogenetic analyses based on one nuclear and two mitochondrial DNA genes confirm the allocation of the new species to the genus Riolama, but do not support the assignation of Riolama to the subfamily Cercosaurinae as previously suggested based on overall morphological similarities, nor to any other known subfamily of the Gymnophthalmidae. Therefore, a new subfamily, the Riolaminae, is proposed to accommodate the genus. © 2015 The Linnean Society of London

Systematics of Neotropical microteiid lizards (Gymnophthalmidae, Cercosaurinae), with the description of a new genus and species from the Andean montane forests

“…Although more species are being included in the phylogenetic analyses of cercosaurines every year and new phylogenetic hypotheses are being presented, our understanding of the systematics of the subfamily is still far from settled. New genetic data often bring unexpected results that reshuffle the taxonomy of cercosaurines, such as reassignments of species to different genera (Kok 2015; Sánchez-Pacheco et al 2017b), resurrections of generic names that had once been synonymised (Goicoechea et al 2012; Chávez et al 2017), identification of new clades at the genus level (this study; Torres-Carvajal et al 2016), recognition of cryptic species (Goicoechea et al 2013), or detection of paraphyletic species or genera (this study; Goicoechea et al 2012; Torres-Carvajal et al 2016). Therefore, it is critical to build the phylogenetic trees on extensive taxon sampling, as otherwise many of the above listed issues may go unnoticed.…”

“…The models identified as most suitable were as follows: GTR+I+Γ for the 12S, 16S, and ND4, SYM+I+Γ for cytb and HKY+I+Γ for cmos. As outgroups, we used 21 species representing the genera Rhachisaurus , Gymnophthalmus , Alopoglossus , Riolama , Ecpleopus , and Bachia that are known to be closely related to the cercosaurine genera but not being part of the subfamily (Pyron et al 2013; Kok 2015). The outgroup species are also listed in Suppl.…”

“…Moreover, basically every new phylogenetic study published to date brought evidence for cryptic species being present (Goicoechea et al 2012; Torres-Carvajal et al 2015, 2016; Sánchez-Pacheco et al 2017b). The amount of overall cryptic diversity within all cercosaurines is not straightforward to gauge because most previous phylogenies had a narrow focus on particular genera (Doan et al 2005; Goicoechea et al 2012; Torres-Carvajal and Mafla-Endara 2013; Aguirre-Peñafiel et al 2014) or regions (Kok et al 2012), or had species represented by a single sample (Pellegrino et al 2001b; Kok 2015). The most comprehensive phylogenetic reconstructions of higher clades were published recently by Torres-Carvajal et al (2015, 2016), Goicoechea et al (2016), and Sánchez-Pacheco et al (2017b).…”

Molecular systematics of teioid lizards (Teioidea/Gymnophthalmoidea: Squamata) based on the analysis of 48 loci under tree‐alignment and similarity‐alignment

“…() and Colli et al. (), and placed in Riolaeminae by Kok () for reason of it being phylogenetically distant from Cercosaurinae], which forms the sister group of a clade composed of Rhachisaurus (Rhachisaurinae) and Gymnophthalminae as sister groups. Within Gymnophthalminae, our analyses support the tribes Gymnophthalmini and Heterodactylini sensu Pellegrino et al.…”

“…Very late in the development of this manuscript (while finalizing the final submission) three papers appeared which bear on our overall objective, the first of which, Kok (), recognized on the basis of molecular and morphological data that Riolama is not part of Cercosaurinae, but relatively basal in the gymnophthalmid tree. He recognized a new subfamily, Riolaminae, for this taxon.…”