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Type: Articles
Published: 2005-03-10
Page range: 1–11
Abstract views: 39
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A new species of Mabuya (Squamata, Scincidae) from the Venezuelan Andes

Département d’Ecologie et de Gestion de la Biodiversité, FRE 2696 – Adaptation et évolution des systèmes ostéomusculaires, 55 rue Buffon, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, 75005 Paris, France
Museo de Historia Natural La Salle, Apartado postal 1930, Caracas 1010-A, Venezuela
Department of Biology, The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019, USA
Reptiles Andes herpetofauna Mabuya meridensis new species Scincidae Venezuela

Abstract

Mabuya meridensis sp. nov. is described from the Cordillera de Mérida, Venezuelan Andes. This species differs from all other Mabuya species by the combined presence of seven dark and four whitish longitudinal stripes, paired frontoparietals, and forelimbs touching hindlimbs when adpressed against body. Mabuya meridensis is the second species of Mabuya to be described from the Andes. The only other species described from the Andes is M. cochabambae, native to the Inner-Andean dry valley of central Bolivia. With addition of the new species, five species of Mabuya are now known to occur in Venezuela (M. carvalhoi, M. croizati, M. falconensis, M. meridensis, and M. nigropunctata).

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