Authors: L. Lee Grismer, May Thu Chit, Parinya Pawangkhanant, Roman A. Nazarov, Than Zaw & Nikolay A. Poyarkov

In foto Hemiphyllodactylus zalonicus sp. nov. - Grismer et al. 2022

La scoperta di Hemiphyllodactylus zalonicus sp. nov. ci ricorda quanto sia importante preservare gli habitat e gli animali al suo interno, anche e soprattutto quando si tratta di piccole aree. Infatti, H. zalonicus potrebbe essere un micro-endemismo presente solo nei pressi del Monte Zalon (da cui prende il nome la specie), situato nella regione di Sagaing a Nord del Myanmar. Gli autori ipotizzano che questi gechi potrebbero popolare altre aree della catena montuosa Mangin, ma ad oggi non ci sono dati a confermarlo. L'habitat presente nell'areale distributivo della specie è principalmente composto da foresta mista di dipterocarpi semidecidui.

Habitat Hemiphyllodactylus zalonicus sp. nov. - Grismer et al. 2022

Abstract

Phylogenetic analyses of the 49 nominal species of the gekkonid genus Hemiphyllodactylus based on the mitochondrial gene NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 and its flanking tRNAs resulted in a strongly supported tree composed of a number of regionally localised mono-phyletic lineages consistent with previous genus-wide analyses. One such lineage from Western Indochina is composed of three previously recognised clades plus an additional species from southern Thailand. An integrative taxonomic analysis of one of these clades (clade 3 from Western Yunnan, China) recovered a new species from the Mangin Mountain Range that represents the third independent origin of Hemiphyllodactylus in Myanmar (not counting the widespread parthe-nogenetic H. typus). Hemiphyllodactylus zalonicus sp. nov. from Mt. Zalon, Sagaing Region, is the first species of Hemiphyllodactyus known from the northern part of Ayeyarwady Basin and bears a 15.0-18.9% uncorrected sequence divergence from other clade members as well as having discretely non-overlapping meristic and mensural differences. This discovery brings the total number of Hemiphyllodactylus in Myanmar to at least 11 species.

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