Revisão taxonômica do gênero Coleodactylus Parker, 1926 (Squamata, Sphaerodactylidae) / Taxonomic review of Coleodactylus genus Parker, 1926 (Squamata, Sphaerodactylidae)

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

Coleodactylus genus is widespread among the north of South America and assembles five species of dimunitive lizards that live in forests leaf-leather. The majority of studies regarding this genus do not consider morphological variations between species. Vanzolini (1967) made the last revision about this group. Species from this genus are known for being cryptical. Except for more evident differences that separate C. amazonicus from other species of this genus, diagnostic characters are mainly related to the number of scales in the head. Recently, a work based on molecular data was published. It hypothesized the relationship between species and indicated that diversity in this group is underestimated (Geurgas et al., 2008). Herein we performed the taxonomic revision of the genus, guided by molecular analysis, considering external morphological data. The evaluation of 3904 specimens, which were sampled in almost the entire geographical distribution of the genus, indicated strong morphological similarity among Coleodactylus clades, showing also conserved external morphology, despite the accentuated genetic differentiation. Results from this work, in general terms, corroborated the analysis of Geurgas et. al (2008). Diagnosed species were morphologically congruous with monophyletic groups found in this molecular work. Morphological variations found here will allow the recognition of four new species, two of them allocated in C. septentrionalis and another two in C. meridionalis, increasing to nine the number of species in the genus. Due to their external morphology homogeneity and diminutive size, we strongly suggest that studies of different nature (osteological, ecological, etc) should be made in order to unravel the real diversity of the genus.

ASSUNTO(S)

coleodactylus sphaerodactylidae sphaerodactylidae coleodactylus taxonomia espécies crípticas cryptical species taxonomy

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