Iranolacerta Arnold, Arribas & Carranza, 2007

Šmíd, Jiří, Moravec, Jiří, Kodym, Petr, Kratochvíl, Lukáš, Yousefkhani, Seyyed Saeed Hosseinian, Rastegar-Pouyani, Eskandar & Frynta, Daniel, 2014, Annotated checklist and distribution of the lizards of Iran, Zootaxa 3855 (1), pp. 1-97 : 37

Iranolacerta Arnold, Arribas & Carranza, 2007

Two species formerly considered a part of the collective genus Lacerta were elevated to a distinct genus Iranolacerta by Arnold et al. (2007). Although the intergeneric phylogenetic relationships within Lacertinae have not been resolved in details yet ( Fu 1998, 2000; Arnold et al. 2007; Pavlicev & Mayer 2009; Pyron et al. 2013), Iranolacerta was confirmed to be sister to Darevskia ( Harris et al. 1998; Pyron et al. 2013). The sister-relationship of I. brandtii and I. zagrosica is strongly supported by genetic data; however, morphologically the species are very different. This is probably associated with their different life modes— I. brandtii is a ground dweller whereas I. zagrosica climbs on rocks and hides in crevices ( Arnold 1998; Arnold et al. 2006, 2007).