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Issue: Vol. 5319 No. 3: 26 Jul. 2023
Type: Article
Published: 2023-07-26
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5319.3.5
Page range: 389-402
Abstract views: 556
PDF downloaded: 36

A new species of the genus Achalinus (Squamata: Xenodermidae) from Nanning, Guangxi, China

Anhui Province Key Laboratory of the Conservation and Exploitation of Biological Resource; College of Life Sciences; Anhui Normal University; Wuhu 241000; Huangshan Noah Biodiversity Institute; Huangshan 245000; China
Anhui Province Key Laboratory of the Conservation and Exploitation of Biological Resource; College of Life Sciences; Anhui Normal University; Wuhu 241000; China; School of Life Sciences; Anhui Agricultural University; Hefei 230036; China; Huangshan Noah Biodiversity Institute; Huangshan 245000; China
Guangxi Nanning Photography Player Culture Communication Co.; Ltd; Nanning 530021; China
Anhui Province Key Laboratory of the Conservation and Exploitation of Biological Resource; College of Life Sciences; Anhui Normal University; Wuhu 241000; Huangshan Noah Biodiversity Institute; Huangshan 245000; China
Anhui Province Key Laboratory of the Conservation and Exploitation of Biological Resource; College of Life Sciences; Anhui Normal University; Wuhu 241000; Huangshan Noah Biodiversity Institute; Huangshan 245000; China; Engineering Research Center of Environmental DNA and Ecological Water Health Assessment; Shanghai Ocean University; Shanghai 201306; China
Guangxi Nanning Photography Player Culture Communication Co.; Ltd; Nanning 530021; China
Nanning Qingxiu Shan Tourist Attraction; Nanning 530000; China
Graduate Program in Ecology and Evolution; Department of Ecology; Evolution; and Natural Resources; Rutgers; the State University of New Jersey; New Brunswick; NJ 08901; USA
Anhui Province Key Laboratory of the Conservation and Exploitation of Biological Resource; College of Life Sciences; Anhui Normal University; Wuhu 241000; Huangshan Noah Biodiversity Institute; Huangshan 245000; China
Reptilia Achalinus damingensis sp. nov. Shanglin County morphology molecular phylogeny taxonomy

Abstract

We describe a new species of the genus Achalinus Peters, 1869 from Daming Mountain, Shanglin County, Nanning City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China, based on a single adult male specimen. It can be distinguished from all the other species in Achalinus by a combination of the following morphological characters: (1) a bright yellow collar around the neck, extending forward to the ventral of the head; (2) tail length comparatively long, TaL/Tol ratio 0.25; (3) DSR 23-23-23, moderately keeled; (4) VS 3+162; (5) SC 74, unpaired; (6) cloacal plate entire; (7) SPL 6, the fourth and fifth in contact with the eye; (8) IFL 6, the first three touching the first pair of chin shields; (9) a single loreal; (10) length of suture between internasal significantly longer than that between prefrontal, LSBI/LSBP ratio 1.34; (11) two pairs of chin shields; (12) longitudinal vertebral line absent. In addition, the uncorrected p-distances between the new species and other known congeners ranged from 6.3% to 25.4% for the cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (CO1). With the addition of the new species the total number of described Achalinus species is increased to 23 of which 17 are found in China.

 

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