Abstract
We describe Uromastyx yemenensis sp. nov. from south-western Arabia, comprising two geographic subspecies, U. y. yemenensis and U. y. shobraki ssp. nov. The new species is a member of the Uromastyx ocellata species group, closely related to U. benti. It is differentiated from its sister taxon by smaller scales around midbody and smaller ventrals. The new species is restricted to the extreme south-western tip of the Arabian Peninsula. The western populations of U. yemenensis differ genetically and are constantly distinct in respect to their colour pattern and are therefore recognized as a subspecies.References
Amer, S.A.M. & Kumazawa, Y. (2005) Mitochondrial DNA sequences of the Afro-Arabian spiny-tailed lizards (genus Uromastyx; family Agamidae): phylogenetic analyses and evolution of gene arrangements. Biological Journal of the Linnaean Society, 85, 247–260.
Anderson, J. (1894) On two new Species of Agamoid Lizards from the Hadramut, South-eastern Arabia. The Annals and Magazine of Natural History, (6) 14, 376–378
Anderson, J. (1896) A Contribution to the Herpetology of Arabia with a Preliminary List of the Reptiles and Batrachians of Egypt. R.H. Porter London, 122 pp.
Arnold, E.N. (1986) A Key and Annotated Check List to the Lizards and Amphibaenians of Arabia. Fauna of Saudi Arabia 8, 385–435.
Bell, T. (1825) Description of a new species of Lizard. Zoological Journal London, 1, 457–460.
Blanford, W.T. (1874) Description of two Uromasticine Lizards from Mesopotamia and Southern Persia. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1874, 656–661.
Forskål , P. (1775) Descriptiones animalium, avium, amphibiorum, piscium, insectorum, vermium; quae in itinere Orientali observavit Petrus Forskal. Post mortem auctoris edidit C. Niebuhr, adjuncta est materia medica Kahirina atque tabula Maris Rubris geographica. Heineck et Faber, Havniae (Copenhagen), S. 20+xxxiv+164.
Hall, T.A. (1999) BioEdit: a user-friendly biological sequence alignment editor and analysis program for Windows 95/ 98/NT. Nucleic Acids Symposium Series, 41 : 95–98.
Handl, A. (2002) Multivariate Analysemethoden. Springer-Verlag, 463 pp.
Hardwicke, J. & Gray, J.E. (1827) A Synopsis of the Species of Saurian Reptiles, collected in India by Major-General Hardwicke. Zoological Journal London, 3, 213–229. Heyden, C.H.G. von (1827) Reptilien. In: Rüppel, E. (Ed.), Atlas zu der Reise im nördlichen Afrika. Frankfurt a. M.
Huelsenbeck, J.P. & Ronquist, F. (2001) MRBAYES: Bayesian inference of phylogenetic trees. Bioinformatics, 17, 754– 755.
Jardine, N. & Sibson, R. (1968) The construction of hierarchic and non-hierarchic classifications. The Computer Journal, 11, 177.
Lichtenstein, H. (1823) Verzeichnis der Doubletten des Zoologischen Museum der Königlichen Universität zu Berlin nebst Beschreibung vieler bisher unbekannter Arten von Säugetieren, Vögeln, Amphibien und Fischen. Trautwein, Berlin, X+118 pp.
Mateo, J., Geniez, P., López-Jurado, L. & Bons, J. (1998) Chorological analysis and morphological variations of Saurians of the genus Uromastyx (Reptilia, Agamidae) in western Sahara. Description of two new taxa. Rev. Esp. Herp., Madrid, (1998)12, 97–109.
Moody, S.M. (1987) A preliminary cladistic study of the lizard genus Uromastyx (Agamidae, sensu lato), with a checklist and diagnostic key to the species. Proceedings of the Fourth Ordinary General Meeting of the Society of European Herpetology, Nijmegen, Holland, pp. 285–288.
Müller, L. (1922) Über eine neue Uromastix-Art aus der Zentral-Sahara. Naturwissenschaftlicher Beobachter, 63, 193– 201.
Nylander, J.A.A. (2002) MrModeltest 1.1b, Uppsala, Sweden. O'Shaughnessy, A.W.E. (1880) Description of a new Species of Uromastix. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1880, 445–446.
Palumbi, S.R., Martin, A., Romano, S., McMillan, W.O., Stice, L. & Grabowski, G. (1991) The simple fool's guide to PCR. Department of Zoology and Kewalo Marine Laboratory, Hawai, 47 pp.
Parker, H.W. (1930) Three new Reptiles from Southern Arabia. The Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 6 (Ser. 10), 594–598.
Parker, H.W. (1932) Two Collections of Reptiles and Amphibians from British Somaliland. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1932, 335–367.
R Develoment Core Team (2005) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. ISBN 3-900051-07-0, URL http://www.R-project.org.
Rastegar-Pouyani, N. (2005) A multivariate analysis of geographic variation in the Trapelus agilis complex (Sauria: Agamidae). Amphibia-Reptilia, 26 (2005), 159–173.
Reeder, T.W. (2003) A phylogeny of the Australian Sphenomorphus group (Scincidae: Squamata) and the phylogenetic placement of the crocodile skinks (Tribolonotus): Bayesian approaches to assessing congruence and obtaining confidence in maximum likelihood inferred relationships. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 27, 384–397.
Schmitz, A. (2003) Taxonomic and phylogenetic studies on scincid lizards (Reptilia : Scincidae). Unpubl. PhD thesis. University of Bonn, 262 pp.
Steindachner, F. (1899) Sitzung der mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Classe vom 20. April 1899. Anzeiger der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Classe, 36 (12), 143–144.
Strauch, A. (1863) Charakteristik zweier neuen Eidechsen aus Persien. Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, 6, 477–480.
Swofford, D.L. (2002) PAUP*. Phylogenetic Analysis Using Parsimony (*and Other Methods). Version 4.0b10. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts, USA.
Thompson, J.D., Gibson, T.J., Plewniak, F., Jeanmougin F. & Higgins, D.G. (1997) The ClustalX windows interface: flexible strategies for multiple sequence alignment aided by quality analysis tools. Nucleic Acids Research, 24, 4876–4882.
Walsh, P.S., Metzger, D.A. & Higuchi, R. (1991) Chelex 100 as a medium for simple extraction of DNA for PCR-based typing from forensic material. BioTechniques, 10(4), 506–513.
Wilms, T (2001) Dornschwanzagamen – Lebensweise, Pflege, Zucht. Herpeton Ofenbach, 144 pp.
Wilms, T. (2005) Uromastyx – Natural History, Captive Care, Breeding. Herpeton Offenbach, 143 pp.
Wilms, T. & Böhme, W. (2000a) Revision der Uromastyx-acanthinura-Artengruppe, mit Beschreibung einer neuen Art aus der Zentralsahara (Reptilia: Sauria: Agamidae). Zoologische Abhandlungen des Staatlichen Museums für Tierkunde Dresden, 51 (8), 73–104.
Wilms, T. & Böhme, W. (2000b) A new species of the genus Uromastyx (Sauria: Agamidae: Leiolepidinae) from Southeastern Arabia, with comments on the taxonomy of Uromastyx aegyptia (Forskål 1775). Herpetozoa, 13 (3/4), 133– 148.
Wilms, T. & Böhme, W. (2000c) Zur Taxonomie und Verbreitung der Arten der Uromastyx-ocellata-Gruppe (Sauria: Agamidae). Zoology in the Middle East, 21, 55–76.
Wilms, T. & Böhme, W. (in press) A review of the taxonomy of the spiny-tailed lizards of Arabia (Reptilia: Agamidae: Leiolepidinae: Uromastyx), with new data on Uromastyx leptieni WILMS & BöHME, 2000. Fauna of Arabia Yang, Z. H., Goldman, N. & Friday, A. (1994) Comparison of Models for Nucleotide Substitution Used in Maximum- Likelihood Phylogenetic Estimation. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 11, 316–324.