Formal recognition of the species of Oreosaurus (Reptilia, Squamata, Gymnophthalmidae) from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia

Abstract

Oreosaurus is one of the two genera extracted from the former Riama sensu lato, which was recently recognized as polyphyletic. Oreosaurus is a small clade (five named and two undescribed species) of montane gymnophthalmid lizards and exhibits an exceptional distributional pattern. Its nominal and undescribed species are discontinuously distributed on the Cordillera de la Costa of Venezuela, the tepuis from the Chimantá massif in Venezuela, the highlands of the island of Trinidad, and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia (SNSM). Herein, we describe the species of Oreosaurus that is endemic to the SNSM. Historically, this species associates with two names that are currently nomina nuda: Proctoporus serranus and P. specularis. Formal nomenclatural recognition of Oreosaurus serranus sp. n. renders specularis a permanently unavailable name for this taxon. Oreosaurus serranus sp. n. is the sister of all remaining congeners, and differs primarily from them in having only one pair of genial scales, as well as a unique pattern of scutellation. We provide an identification key to the species of Oreosaurus.

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

“…Regarding the morphology, Sánchez-Pacheco et al (2017b) found the genus Oreosaurus being clearly different from Andinosaura and Riama by lacking a narrow band of differentiated granular lateral scales. On the other hand, Sánchez-Pacheco et al (2017a) show that Oreosaurus serranus can be distinguished morphologically from all other Oreosaurus species by having only one pair of genial scales. Therefore, taking into account the above-mentioned discrepancies in the results of molecular analyses, and the morphological distinctiveness of O. serranus from other Oreosaurus species, the character of nucleotide divergence between O. serranus and the other Oreosaurus species should be examined in detail in order to trace the inconsistency in the phylogenetic reconstructions.…”

“…While most of them could be assigned to currently existing genera (and some have been taxonomically revised since (Goicoechea et al 2013; Sánchez-Pacheco et al 2017a)), there were clades whose high levels of genetic divergence and morphological disparity indicated towards the existence of yet unknown clades at the level of genera (Torres-Carvajal et al 2016). Similarly, our phylogenetic analyses also identified several previously undetected evolutionary lineages.…”

“…At the species level, recent taxonomic advances made possible by the tremendous effort of many authors are making considerable progress in stabilising the taxonomy of cercosaurines (e.g., Goicoechea et al 2013; Torres-Carvajal et al 2014; Venegas et al 2016; Sánchez-Pacheco et al 2017a; among many others), yet non-monophyletic species are still present in the phylogeny. For example, the seven samples of Potamites ecpleopus used in this study form two groups, one is distributed in eastern Ecuador and the other in northeastern and southern Peru.…”

The poverty of adult morphology: Bioacoustics, genetics, and internal tadpole morphology reveal a new species of glassfrog (Anura: Centrolenidae: Ikakogi) from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia

“…Other recent studies have demonstrated that the diversity of the highly endemic herpetofauna of SNSM is underestimated (e.g. [84, 85, 81, 86]). These findings, coupled with the present study, suggest that the diversity of amphibians and reptiles in the SNSM of Colombia is greater than the current estimates and underscore the need to conduct additional surveys of the SNSM fauna.…”

An elusive new species of gymnophthalmid lizard (Cercosaurinae, Selvasaura) from the Andes of northern Peru

“…In the last five years, several Cercosaurinae genera have been described or resurrected (e.g., Torres-Carvajal et al 2016;Sánchez-Pacheco et al 2018;Lehr et al 2019Lehr et al , 2020Vásquez-Restrepo et al 2020;Rojas-Runjaic et al 2021). The fast pace of generation of knowledge about the diversity of Cercosaurinae is, in part, due to the inclusion of samples from little-surveyed localities in recently published phylogenies (Goicoechea et al 2013(Goicoechea et al , 2016Torres-Carvajal et al 2016;Sánchez-Pacheco et al 2017;Moravec et al 2018;Fang et al 2020;Mamani et al 2020;. These studies have revealed that the highly diverse montane forests of the eastern slopes of the Andes of Peru (Young and León 2000) harbor new and endemic lineages of Cercosaurinae lizards (Goicoechea et al 2013;Chávez and Catenazzi 2014;Echevarría et al 2015;Mamani et al 2015Mamani et al , 2020Venegas et al 2016;Chávez et al 2017;Moravec et al 2018;Lehr et al 2019Lehr et al , 2020Torres-Carvajal et al 2020).…”