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Issue: Vol. 4370 No. 4: 12 Jan. 2018
Type: Article
Published: 2018-01-12
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4370.4.2
Page range: 345–362
Abstract views: 100
PDF downloaded: 2

Unrealized diversity in an urban rainforest: A new species of Lygosoma (Squamata: Scincidae) from western Sarawak, Malaysia (Borneo)

Department of Biology, Villanova University, 800 Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, PA 19085, USA. Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 3101 Valley Life Sciences Building, University of California, Berkeley, CA 97420, USA.
Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, University of Oklahoma, 2401 Chautauqua Avenue, Norman, OK 73072, USA.
Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, 94300 Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia.
Department of Biology, La Sierra University, 4500 Riverwalk Parkway, Riverside, California, 92515-8247 USA.
Department of Biology, Villanova University, 800 Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, PA 19085, USA.
Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, 94300 Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia.
Reptilia Borneo Sarawak Scincidae Lygosoma samajaya new species

Abstract

We collected two specimens of an undescribed species of Lygosoma from pitfall traps in an urban rainforest in Kuching and from the base of a forested hill in western Sarawak, East Malaysia. The new species is diagnosable from all south-east Asian congeners by morphological characters, and most closely resembles Lygosoma herberti from the Thai-Malay Peninsula. The new species shows substantial molecular divergence from its closest relatives in two protein-coding genes, one mitochondrial (ND1) and one nuclear (R35) that we sequenced for several south-east Asian congeners. We describe the new species on the basis of this distinct morphology and genetic divergence. It is the third species of Lygosoma known from Borneo, and highlights the continuing rise in lizard species diversity on the island. In addition, the discovery of this species from a small urban rainforest underscores the importance of preserving intact rainforest areas of any size in maintaining species diversity.

 

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