Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Type: Article
Published: 2016-02-26
Page range: 406–420
Abstract views: 64
PDF downloaded: 1

Description of a new species of the genus Ptychozoon (Squamata: Gekkonidae), representing a new national record of this genus from southern Yunnan Province, China

State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol / The Museum of Biology, College of Ecology and Evolution, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, P.R. China
State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol / The Museum of Biology, College of Ecology and Evolution, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, P.R. China
State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol / The Museum of Biology, College of Ecology and Evolution, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, P.R. China
Reptilia Gekkonidae Ptychozoon morphology mtDNA new species taxonomy China

Abstract

A new species of the Parachute Gecko, Ptychozoon bannaense sp. nov., is described on the basis of two specimens from Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, China. The new species can be distinguished from eight known congeners by the following combination of morphological characters: body size moderate, SVL 83.2–87.5 mm; rostral with a short dorsomedian groove; dorsal head and body covered with granular scales without enlarged tubercles, but male with several enlarged tubercles on the occipital region; two supranasals separated from each other by a large internasal; the absence of a predigital notch in the preantebrachial cutaneous flap; male possesses 17 preanofemoral pores in a continuous scale row; tail tubercle absent, 24 pairs of lateral denticulate cutaneous lobes of the tail; width of tail and caudal lobes progressively decreasing posteriorly; the terminal caudal flap short, semicircle, not expanded; lack of lobe fusion at the terminal caudal flap border; the presence of four dark dorsal bands between fore- and hind limbs insertions, the third and fourth dorsal bands fused into a X-shaped mark. The new species is also divergent from known taxa in mitochondrial gene sequences, supporting its recognition based on morphological characters. The discovery and description of Ptychozoon bannaense brings the total number of Ptychozoon to nine, and represents the first record of the genus Ptychozoon in China.

 

References

  1. Bobrov, V.V. (1995) Checklist and bibliography of the lizards of Vietnam. Smithsonian, Herpetological Information, Service, 105, 1–28.

    http://dx.doi.org/10.5479/si.23317515.105.1

    Boulenger, G.A. (1890) The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma, Reptilia and Batrachia. Taylor and Francis, London.

    Brown, R.M. (1999) New species of parachute gecko (Squamata: Gekkonidae: genus Ptychozoon) from northeastern Thailand and central Vietnam. Copeia, 1999, 990–1001.

    http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1447974

    Brown, R.M, Ferner, J.W. & Diesmos, A.C. (1997) Definition of the Philippine parachute gecko, Ptychozoon intermedium Taylor 1915 (Reptilia: Squamata: Gekkonidae): redescription, designation of a neotype, and comparisons with related species. Herpetologica, 53, 357–373.

    Brown, R.M., Oliveros, C., Siler, C.D. & Diesmos, A.C. (2009) Phylogeny of Gekko from the northern Philippines, and description of a new species from Calayan Island. Journal of Herpetology, 43 (4), 620–635.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1670/08-207.1

    Brown, R.M., Siler, C.D., Grismer, L.L., Das, I. & McGuire, J.A. (2012) Phylogeny and cryptic diversification in Southeast Asian flying geckos. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 65 (2), 351–361.

    http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2012.06.009

    Das, I. & Vijayakumar, S.P. (2009) New species of Ptychozoon (Sauria: Gekkonidae) from the Nicobar Archipelago, Indian Ocean. Zootaxa, 2095, 8–20.

    Dring, J.C.M. (1979) Amphibians and reptiles from northern Trengganu, Malaysia, with descriptions of two new geckos: Cnemaspis and Cyrtodactylus. Bulletin of the British Museum Natural History, 34, 181–241.

    Marcellini, D.L. & Keefer, T.E. (1976) Analysis of the gliding behavior of Ptychozoon lionatum (Reptilia: Gekkonidae). Herpetologica, 32, 362–366.

    Heyer, W.R. & Pongsapipatana, S. (1970) Gliding speeds of Ptychozoon lionatum (Reptilia: Gekkonidae) and Chrysopelea ornata (Reptilia: Colubridae). Herpetologica, 26, 317–319.

    Pawar, S. & Biswas, S. (2001) First record of the smooth-backed parachute gecko Ptychozoon lionotum Annandale 1905 from the Indian mainland. Asiatic Herpetological Research, 9, 101–106.

    Pauwels, O.S.G. & Chan-ard, T. (2006) Reptiles of Kaeng Krachan National Park, western Thailand. Natural History Bulletin of the Siam Society, 54 (1), 87–106.

    Pauwels, O.S.G., Chan-ard, T., Wanchai, P., Kheowyoo, B. & Bauer, A.M. (2009) Reptile diversity of Phetchaburi Province, western Thailand: an update. Hamadryad, 34, 9–21.

    Pianka, E.R. & Vitt, L.J. (2003) Lizards: Windows to the Evolution of Diversity. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California.

    Ronquist, F. & Huelsenbeck, J.P. (2003) MrBayes 3: Bayesian phylogenetic inference under mixed models. Bioinformatics, 19 (12), 1572–1574.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btg180

    Sambrook, J., Fritsch, E.F. & Maniatis, T. (1989) Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, New York, 125 pp.

    Smith, M.A. (1930) The Reptilia and Amphibia of the Malay Peninsula. Bulletin of the Raffles Museum. Singapore, 3, 1–149.

    Smith, M.A. (1935) The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma. Reptilia and Amphibia. II. Sauria. Taylor and Francis, London.

    Sumontha, M., Pauwels, O.S.G., Kunya, K., Limlikhitaksorn, C., Ruksue, S., Taokratok, A., Ansermet, M. & Chanhome, L. (2012) A new species of Parachute Gecko (Squamata: Gekkonidae: genus Ptychozoon) from Kaeng Krachan National Park, western Thailand. Zootaxa, 3513, 68–78

    Tamura, K., Stecher, G., Peterson, D., Filipski, A. & Kumar, S. (2013) MEGA6: molecular evolutionary genetics analysis version 6.0. Molecular biology and evolution, 30 (12), 2725–2729.

    http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/molbev/mst197

    Thompson, J.D., Higgins, D.G. & Gibson, T.J. (1994) CLUSTAL W: improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position-specific gap penalties and weight matrix choice. Nucleic Acids Research, 22 (22), 4673–4680.

    http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nar/22.22.4673

    Taylor, E.H. (1922) The Lizards of the Philippine Islands. Philippine Bureau of Science, Manila, 269 pp.

    Taylor, E.H. (1963) The lizards of Thailand. University Kansas Science Bulletin, 44, 687–1077.

    Vanhooydonck, B., Meulepas, G., Herrel, A., Boistel, R., Tafforeau, P., Fernandez, V. & Aerts, P. (2009) Ecomorphological analysis of aerial performance in a non-specialized lacertid lizard, Holaspis guentheri. Journal of Experimental Biology, 212, 2475–2482.

    http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.031856

    Young, B.A., Lee, C.E. & Daley, K.M. (2002) On a flap and a foot: aerial locomotion in the ‘flying’ gecko, Ptychozoon kuhli. Journal of Herpetology, 36, 412–418.