Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Responsive image
Issue: Vol. 4668 No. 4: 12 Sept. 2019
Type: Article
Published: 2019-09-12
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4668.4.4
Page range: 503–524
Abstract views: 312
PDF downloaded: 4

A new species of Girdled Lizard (Squamata: Cordylidae) from the Serra da Neve Inselberg, Namibe Province, southwestern Angola

Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources (CIBIO), Research Network in Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology (InBIO), University of Porto, Rua Padre Armando Quintas 7, Vairão, 4485-661 Porto, Portugal Departamento de Zoologia e Antropologia (Museu Bocage), Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, Universidade de Lisboa, Rua da Escola Politécnica, 58, 1269-102 Lisboa, Portugal
Departamento de Zoologia e Antropologia (Museu Bocage), Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, Universidade de Lisboa, Rua da Escola Politécnica, 58, 1269-102 Lisboa, Portugal Museu de História Natural e da Ciência da Universidade do Porto, Praça Gomes Teixeira 4099-002 Porto, Portugal
Department of Natural History, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of 17 Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA
Department of Biology, Villanova University, 800 Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, Pennsylvania 19085-1699, USA Instituto Nacional da Biodiversidade e Áreas de Conservação, Ministério do Ambiente de Angola, Centralidade do Kilamba, Rua 26 de Fevereiro, Quarteirão Nimi Ya Lukemi, edifício Q11, 3º andar, Luanda, Angola.
Department of Biology, Villanova University, 800 Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, Pennsylvania 19085-1699, USA
Department of Biology, Villanova University, 800 Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, Pennsylvania 19085-1699, USA
Reptilia Cordylus phonolithos sp. nov. molecular phylogeny computed tomography endemism taxonomy Africa

Abstract

A new species of rupicolous girdled lizard is described from Serra da Neve Inselberg, Namibe Province, southwestern Angola. We sequenced two mitochondrial gene regions (16S and ND2) for the new species and compared these data with those previously published for other Cordylus species. The new species is genetically divergent from the closely related Cordylus machadoi and C. namakuiyus and morphologically distinguished by head scale arrangement, coloration, and osteological characters. Serra da Neve is the second highest peak in Angola and one of the most understudied areas of the country. The discovery of this new species highlights the importance of this inselberg for regional endemism and emphasizes the high conservation importance of the area.

 

References

  1. Baptista, N., António, T. & Branch, W.R. (2018) Amphibians and reptiles of the Tundavala region of the Angolan Escarpment. Biodiversity & Ecology, 6, 397–403.

    https://doi.org/10.7809/b-e.00351

    Barker, N., Clark, R., Neef, G., Maiato, F., Francisco, D. & Goyder, D. (2015) Learning the ABC’s: Angolan botanical collecting—part 2: bush pilots and old volcanoes. Veld & Flora, 101 (3), 116–119.

    Bayliss, J., Timberlake, J.R., Branch, W.R., Bruessow, C., Collins, S., Congdon, C., Curran, M., de Sousa, C., Dowsett, R.J., Dowsett-Lemaire, F., Fishpool, L.D.C., Harris, T., Georgiardis, S., Kopp, K., Liggitt, B., Monadjem, A., Patel, H., Ribeiro, D., Spottiswoode, C., Taylor, P., Willcock, S. & Smith, P. (2014) The discovery, biodiversity and conservation of Mabu forest—the largest mid-altitude rainforest in southern Africa. Oryx, 48, 177–185.

    https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605313000720

    Biton, D.T. (2014) Two new water beetles from the Hantamsberg, an inselberg in the Northern Cape of South Africa (Coleoptera, Hydraenidae). Zootaxa, 3887 (4), 471–480.

    https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3887.4.5

    Bocage, J.V.B. (1895) Herpétologie d’Angola et du Congo. Ministério da Marinha e das Colónias, Lisbonne, 203 pp., 20 pls.

    Branch, W.R. (1998) Field Guide to Snakes and Other Reptiles of Southern Africa, 3rd edition. Ralph Curtis Books, Sanibel Island, Florida, 399 pp.

    Branch, W.R. & Bayliss, J. (2009) A new species of Atheris (Serpentes: Viperidae) from northern Mozambique. Zootaxa, 2113 (1), 41–54.

    https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.2113.1.2

    Branch, W.R. & Tolley, K.A. (2010) A new species of chameleon (Sauria: Chamaeleonidae: Nadzikambia) from Mount Mabu, central Mozambique. African Journal of Herpetology, 59, 157–172.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/21564574.2010.516275

    Branch, W.R., Rödel, M.-O. & Marais, J. (2005) A new species of rupicolous Cordylus Laurenti 1768 (Sauria: Cordylidae) from Northern Mozambique. African Journal of Herpetology, 54, 131–138.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/21564574.2005.9635526

    Branch, W.R., Bayliss, J. & Tolley, K.A. (2014) Pygmy chameleons of the Rhampholeon platyceps complex (Squamata: Chamaeleonidae): Description of four new species from isolated ‘sky islands’ of northern Mozambique. Zootaxa, 3814 (1), 1–36. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3814.1.1

    Branch, W.R., Vaz Pinto, P., Conradie, W. & Haacke, W.D. (2014) Reptile diversity in southwest Angola. Abstracts and Program of the 12th Herpetological Association of Africa, 2014, 4.

    Brand, R.F., Brown, L.R. & Du Preez, P.J. (2011) Biogeography of Platberg, Eastern Free State, South Africa: links with Afromontane regions and South African biomes. In: Grillo, O. & Venora, G. (Eds.), Biodiversity Loss in a Changing Planet. InTech Publisher International, Rijeka, pp. 113–136.

    Broadley, D.G. & Mouton, P. le F.N. (2000) A new species of rupicolous Cordylus Laurenti from Malawi (Sauria: Cordylidae). African Journal of Herpetology, 49, 169–172.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/21564574.2000.9635443

    Broadley, D.G. & Branch, W.R. (2002) A review of the small east African Cordylus (Sauria: Cordylidae), with the description of a new species. African Journal of Herpetology, 51, 9–34.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/21564574.2002.9635459

    Bruke, A. (2001) Determinants of inselberg floras in arid Nama Karoo landscapes. Journal of Biogeography, 28, 1211–1220.

    https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2699.2001.00623.x

    Bruke, A. (2003) The role of Namibian inselbergs in contributing to local and regional plant species richness. Biodiversity and Conservation, 12, 469–486.

    https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022491723262

    Bruke, A. (2005) Biodiversity patterns in arid, variable environments, a case study of Namibian Inselberg and Mountain Flora. Mountain Research and Development, 25, 228–234.

    https://doi.org/10.1659/0276-4741(2005)025[0228:BPIAVE]2.0.CO;2

    Butler, B.O., Ceríaco, L.M.P., Marques, M.P., Bandeira, S., Júlio, T., Heinicke, M. & Bauer, A.M. (2019) Herpetological survey of Huíla Province, Southwest Angola, including first records from Bicuar National Park. Herpetological Review, 50 (2), 225–240.

    Ceríaco, L.M.P., de Sá, S.A.C., Bandeira, S., Valério, H., Stanley, E.L., Khun, A.L., Marques, M.P., Vindum, J.V., Blackburn, D.C. & Bauer, A.M. (2016) Herpetological survey of Iona National Park and Namibe Regional Natural Park, with a synoptic list of the amphibians and reptiles of Namibe Province, southwestern Angola. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, Series 4, 63, 15–61.

    Ceríaco, L.M.P, Marques, M.P., Bandeira, S., Agarwal, I., Stanley, E.L., Bauer, A.M., Heinicke, M.P. & Blackburn, D.C. (2018) A new earless species of Poyntonophrynus (Anura, Bufonidae) from the Serra da Neve Inselberg, Namibe Province, Angola. ZooKeys, 780, 109–136.

    https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.780.25859

    Congdon, T.C.E., Collins, S. & Bayliss, J. (2010) Butterflies of south-east Africa’s mountains (Mozambique and Malawi). Metamorphosis, 21 (2), 45‒107.

    Conradie, W., Measey, G.J., Branch, W.R. & Tolley, K.A. (2012) Revised phylogeny of African sand lizards (Pedioplanis), with the description of two new species from south-western Angola. African Journal of Herpetology, 61, 91–112.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/21564574.2012.676079

    Conradie, W., Bittencourt-Silva, G.B., Farooq, H.M., Loader, S.P., Menegon, M. & Tolley, K.A. (2018) New species of mongrel frogs (Pyxicephalidae: Nothophryne) for northern Mozambique inselbergs. African Journal of Herpetology, 67, 61–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/21564574.2017.1376714

    Daniels S.R. & Bayliss, J. (2012) Neglected refugia of biodiversity: mountainous regions in Mozambique and Malawi yield two novel freshwater crab species (Potamonautidae: Potamonautes). Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society, 164, 498–509.

    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-3642.2011.00773.x

    Daniels, S., Phiri, E. & Bayliss, J. (2014) Renewed sampling of inland aquatic habitats in southern Africa yields two novel freshwater crab species (Decapoda: Potamonautidae: Potamonautes). Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society, 171, 356–369.

    https://doi.org/10.1111/zoj.12139

    Edgar, R.C. (2004) MUSCLE: Multiple sequence alignment with high accuracy and high throughput. Nucleic Acids Research, 32, 1792–1797.

    https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkh340

    Felsenstein, J. (1895) Confidence limits on phylogenies: an approach using the bootstrap. Evolution, 39, 783–791.

    https://doi.org/10.2307/2408678

    Grandvaux-Barbosa L.A. (1970) Carta fitogeoráfica de Angola. Instituto de Investigação Científica de Angola, Luanda, 323 pp.

    Greenbaum, E., Stanley, E.L., Kusamba, C., Moninga, W.M., Goldberg, S.R. & Bursey, C.R. (2012) A new species of Cordylus (Squamata: Cordylidae) from the Marungu Plateau of south-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. African Journal of Herpetology, 61, 14–39.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/21564574.2012.666505

    Gonçalves, F.M.P., Braine, D., Bauer, A.M., Valério, H., Marques, M.P. & Ceríaco, L.M.P. (2019) Rediscovery of the poorly known Angolan Adder, Bitis heraldica (Bocage, 1889) (Serpentes: Viperidae): New records, live photographs and first case history of envenomation. Herpetological Review, 50 (2), 241–246.

    Huelsenbeck, J.P. & Hillis, D.M. (1993) Success of phylogenetic methods in the four-taxon case. Systematic Biology, 42, 247–264.

    https://doi.org/10.2307/2992463.

    Huntley, B. & Matos, E.M. (1994) Botanical diversity and its conservation in Angola. Strelitzia, 1, 53–74.

    IUCN (2001) IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria. Version 3.1. 2nd Edition. IUCN, Gland and Cambridge, iv + 32 pp.

    Kumar, S., Stecher, G., Li, M., Knyaz, C. & Tamura, K. (2018) MEGA X: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis across computing platforms. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 35, 1547–1549.

    https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msy096

    Linder, H.P., de Klerk, H.M., Born, J., Burgess, N.D., Fjeldsta, J. & Rahbek, C. (2012) The partitioning of Africa: Statistically defined biogeographical regions in sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Biogeography, 39, 1189–1205.

    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2012.02728.x

    Loveridge, A. (1944) Revision of the African lizards of the family Cordylidae. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy, 95, 1–118, pls. 1–12.

    Marques, M.P., Ceríaco, L.M.P., Blackburn, D.C. & Bauer, A.M. (2018) Diversity and distribution of the amphibians and terrestrial reptiles of Angola—Atlas of historical and bibliographic records (1840–2017). Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, Series 4, 65 (supplement 2), 1–501.

    Michael, D.R., Cunningham, R.B. & Lindenmayer, D.B. (2008) A forgotten habitat? Granite inselbergs conserve reptile diversity in fragmented agricultural landscapes. Journal of Applied Ecology, 45, 1742–1752.

    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2008.01567.x

    Miller, M.A., Pfeiffer, W. & Schwartz, T. (2010) Creating the CIPRES Science Gateway for inference of large phylogenetic trees. Proceedings of the Gateway Computing Environments Workshop (GCE), New Orleans, Louisiana, 14 November 2010, 1–8.

    https://doi.org/10.1109/GCE.2010.5676129

    Mills, M.S.L., Olmos, F., Melo, M., Richard, W. & Dean, J. (2011) Mount Moco: its importance to the conservation of Swierstra’s Francolin Pternistis swierstrai and the Afromontane avifauna of Angola. Bird Conservation International, 21 (2), 119–133.

    https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959270910000493

    Monadjem A., Schoeman, M.C., Reside, A., Pio, D.V., Stoffberg, S., Bayliss, J., Cotterill, F.P.D., Curran, M., Kopp, M. & Taylor, P.J. (2010) A recent inventory of the bats of Mozambique with documentation of seven new species for the country. Acta Chiropterologica, 12, 371‒391.

    https://doi.org/10.3161/150811010X537963

    Nielsen, S.V. & Colston, T.J. (2014) The phylogenetic position of Ethiopia’s sole endemic and biogeographically enigmatic cordylid lizard, Cordylus rivae (Squamata: Cordylidae), and a discussion of its conservation status. African Journal of Herpetology, 63, 166‒176.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/21564574.2014.953606

    Nylander, J.A.A. (2008) MrModeltestv2.3. Program distributed by the author. Evolutionary Biology Center, Uppsala University, Uppsala.[Program]

    Pereira, E. (1977) Serra da Neve (Angola)—Nota sobre a geomorfologia da região e idade das aplanações. Boletim da Sociedade Geológica de Portugal, 20, 277‒282.

    Pereira, E. & Moreira, A. (1977) Sobre o complexo de estruturas anelares da Serra da Neve (Angola). In: II Centenário da Academia das Ciências de Lisboa. Reconhecimento Científico de Angola: Estudos de Geologia e Paleontologia e de Micologia. Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Lisboa, pp. 97‒120.

    Porembski, S. (2007) Tropical inselbergs: habitat types, adaptive strategies and diversity patterns. Brazilian Journal of Botany, 30, 579‒586.

    https://doi.org/10.1590/S0100-84042007000400004

    Porembski, S. & Barthlott, W. (2000) Granitic and gneissic outcrops (inselbergs) as centers of diversity desiccation-tolerant vascular plants. Plant Ecology, 151, 19–28.

    https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026565817218

    Porembski, S., Becker, U. & Seine, R. (2000) Islands on islands: habitats on inselbergs. In: Porembski, S. & Barthlott, W. (Eds.), Inselbergs—Biotic Diversity of Isolated Rock Outcrops in Tropical and Temperate Regions. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 49–67.

    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59773-2_4

    Portik, D.M., Travers, S.L., Bauer, A.M. & Branch, W.R. (2013) A new species of Lygodactylus (Squamata: Gekkonidae) endemic to Mount Namuli, an isolated ‘sky island’ of northern Mozambique. Zootaxa, 3710 (5), 415–435.

    https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3710.5.2

    Poynton, J.C. & Broadley, D.G. (1978) The herpetofauna. In: Werger, M.J.A & van Bruggen, A.C. Biogeography and Ecology of Southern Africa. Dr. W. Junk Publishers, The Hague, pp. 927–948.

    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9951-0.

    Ronquist, F., Teslenko, M., van der Mark, P., Ayres, D.L., Darling, A., Höhna, S., Larget, B., Liu, L., Suchard, M.A. & Huelsenbeck, J.P. (2012) MrBayes 3.2: Efficient Bayesian Phylogenetic Inference and Model Choice Across a Large Model Space. Systematic Biology, 61 (3), 539–542.

    https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/sys029

    Stamatakis, A. (2006) RAxML-VI-HPC: maximum likelihood-based phylogenetic analyses with thousands of taxa and mixed models. Bioinformatics, 22, 2688–2690.

    https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btl446

    Stanley, E.L., Bauer, A.M., Jackman, T.R., Branch, W.R. & Mouton, P. le F.N. (2011) Between a rock and a hard polytomy: Rapid radiation in the rupicolous girdled lizards (Squamata: Cordylidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 58, 53–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2010.08.024

    Stanley, E.L., Ceríaco, L.M.P., Bandeira, S., Valerio, H., Bates, M.F. & Branch, W.R. (2016) A review of Cordylus machadoi (Squamata: Cordylidae) in southwestern Angola with the description of a new species from the Pro-Namib desert. Zootaxa, 4061 (3), 201–226.

    https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4061.3.1

    Simmons, R.E., Griffin, M., Griffin, R.E., Marais, E. & Kolberg, E. (1998) Endemism in Namibia: patterns, processes and predictions. Biodiversity and Conservation, 7, 513–530.

    https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008879712736

    Taylor, P.J., Stoffberg, S., Monadjem, A., Schoeman, M.C., Bayliss, J. & Cotterill, F.P.D. (2012) Four new bat species (Rhinolophus hildebrandtii complex) reflect Plio-Pleistocene divergence of dwarfs and giants across an afromontane archipelago. PLoS ONE, 7, e41744.

    https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0041744

    Uetz, P., Freed, P. & Hošek, J. (2019) The Reptile Database. Available from: http://www.reptile-database.org (accessed 6 April 2019)