Abstract
We describe a new species of the genus Cyrtodactylus from Khammouane Province, central Laos based on morphological features and molecular data. Morphologically, Cyrtodactylus bansocensis sp. nov. is differentiated from other congeners by a unique combination of the following characters: medium size, SVL reaching 74.0 mm; dorsal pattern consisting of four light transverse bands between limb insertions; supranasals in contact with each other; dorsal tubercles at midbody in 14–15 irregular rows; lateral folds present without interspersed tubercles; ventral scales between ventrolateral folds 34–35; precloacal and femoral pores in males 34, separated by four poreless scales in the male holotype and in a continuous row in the male paratype; enlarged femoral and precloacal scales present; postcloacal tubercles 5–7 on each side; dorsal tubercles present at tail base; and subcaudal scales transversely enlarged. Molecular analyses revealed the new species to be closely related to Cyrtodactylus rufford, which is also found in Khammouane Province.
References
Claridge, G. & Tsechalicha, X. (1997) Khammouane Province: A Preliminary Environmental Inventory. IUCN-The World Conservation Union, Vientiane, 50 pp.
Dring, J.C.M. (1979) Amphibians and reptiles from northern Trengganau, Malaysia, with descriptions of two new geckos: Cnemaspis and Cyrtodactylus. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), 34, 181–241.
Ivanova, N.V., de Waard, J. & Hebert, P.D.N. (2006) An inexpensive, automation-friendly protocol for recovering high-quality DNA. Molecular Ecology Notes, 6, 998–1002.
Le, M., Raxworthy, C.J., McCord, W.P. & Mertz, L. (2006) A molecular phylogeny of tortoises (Testudines: Testudinidae) based on mitochondrial and nuclear genes. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 40, 517−531.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2006.03.003
Luu, V.Q., Calame, T., Bonkowski, M., Nguyen, T.Q. & Ziegler, T. (2014) A new species of Cyrtodactylus (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Khammouane Province, Laos. Zootaxa, 3760 (1), 54−66.
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3760.1.3
Luu, V.Q., Calame, T., Nguyen, T.Q., Bonkowski, M. & Ziegler, T. (2015) A new species of Cyrtodactylus (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from limestone forest, Khammouane Province, central Laos. Zootaxa, 4058 (3), 388–402
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4058.3.6
Luu, V.Q., Calame, T., Nguyen, T.Q., Le, M.D., Bonkowski, M. & Ziegler, T. (2016) Cyrtodactylus rufford, a new cave-dwelling bent-toed gecko (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Khammouane Province, central Laos. Zootaxa, 4067 (2): 185–199.
http://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4067.2.4
Nazarov, R., Poyarkov, N.A., Orlov, N.I., Nguyen, S.N., Milto, K.D., Martynov, A.A., Konstantinov, E.L. & Chulisov, A.S. (2014) A review of genus Cyrtodactylus (Reptilia: Sauria: Gekkonidae) in fauna of Laos with description of four new species. Proceedings of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 318, 391–423.
Ngo, T.V. & Pauwels, O. (2010) A new cave-dwelling species of Cyrtodactylus Gray, 1827 (Squamata: Gekkodidae) from Khammouane Province, southern Laos. Zootaxa, 2730, 44–56.
Nguyen, T.Q., Le, M.D., Pham, A.V., Ngo, H.N., Hoang, C.V., Pham, C.T. & Ziegler, T. (2015) Two new species of Cyrtodactylus (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from the karst forest of Hoa Binh Province, Vietnam. Zootaxa, 3985 (3), 357–390.
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3985.3.3
Nguyen, S.N., Yang, J.-X., Le, T.-N.T., Nguyen, L.T., Orlov, N.L., Hoang, C.V., Nguyen, T.Q., Jin, J.-Q., Rao, D.-Q., Hoang, T.N., Che, J., Murphy, R.W. & Zhang, Y.-P. (2014) DNA barcoding of Vietnamese bent-toed geckos (Squamata: Gekkonidae: Cyrtodactylus) and the description of a new species. Zootaxa, 3784 (1), 48–66.
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3784.1.2
Panitvong, N., Sumontha, M., Tunprasert, J. & Pauwels, O.S.G. (2014) Cyrtodactylus saiyok sp. nov., a new dry evergreen forest-dwelling Bent-toed Gecko (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Kanchanaburi Province, western Thailand. Zootaxa, 3869 (1), 64–74.
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3869.1.6
Pauwels, O.S.G. & Sumontha, M. (2014) Cyrtodactylus samroiyot, a new limestone-dwelling Bent-toed Gecko (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, peninsular Thailand. Zootaxa, 3755 (6), 573–583.
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3755.6.4
Pauwels, O.S.G., Sumontha, M., Panitvong, N. & Varaguttanonda, V. (2014) Cyrtodactylus khelangensis, a new cave-dwelling Bent-toed Gecko (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Lampang Province, northern Thailand. Zootaxa, 3755 (6), 584–594.
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3755.6.5
Pollack, J., Kambesis, P., Osburn, B., Bunnell, D., Addison, A., Stanway, K., Sawatzky, D. & Whitfield, P. (2009) Tham Khoun Xe – The Great Cave on the Xe Bang Fai River. NSS News, July 2009, 4–11.
Posada, D. & Crandall, K.A. (1998) MODELTEST: testing the model of DNA substitution. Bioinformatics, 14, 817−818.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/14.9.817
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, 539−542.
Schneider, N., Nguyen, T.Q., Le, M.D, Nophaseud, L., Bonkowski, M. & Ziegler, T. (2014) A new species of Cyrtodactylus (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from the karst forest of northern Laos. Zootaxa, 3835 (1), 80–96.
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3835.1.4
Sumontha, M., Pauwels, O.S.G., Panitvong, N., Kunya, K. & Grismer, J.L. (2015) A new lowland forest Bent-toed Gecko (Squamata: Gekkonidae: Cyrtodactylus) from Ranong Province, peninsular Thailand. Zootaxa, 3911 (1), 106–118.
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3911.1.6
Swofford, D.L. (2001) PAUP*. Phylogenetic Analysis Using Parsimony (* and Other Methods), version 4. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts.
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, 25, 4876−4882.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nar/25.24.4876
Ziegler, T., Luu, V.Q., Soudthichak, S. & Nguyen, T.Q. (2015) Rediscovery of the Siamese crocodile (Crocodylus siamensis) in Khammouane Province, central Lao PDR. Crocodile Specialist Newsletter, 34 (3), 11–13.