Mesalina brevirostris Blanford, 1874

Jiří Šmíd, Jiří Moravec, Václav Gvoždík, Jan Štundl, Daniel Frynta, Petros Lymberakis, Paschalia Kapli, Thomas Wilms, Andreas Schmitz, Mohammed Shobrak, Saeed Hosseinian Yousefkhani, Eskandar Rastegar-Pouyani, Aurora M. Castilla, Johannes Els & Werner Mayer, 2017, Cutting the Gordian Knot: Phylogenetic and ecological diversification of the Mesalina brevirostris species complex (Squamata, Lacertidae), Zoologica Scripta 46 (6), pp. 1-30 : 17

Mesalina brevirostris Blanford, 1874

Mesalina brevirostris – Blanford (1874)

Eremias brevirostris – Boulenger (1887)

Eremias brevirostris brevirostris – Haas & Werner (1969)

Mesalina brevirostris brevirostris – Szczerbak (1989)

Lectotype. BMNH 1946.8 .6.25. Designated herein. Type locality: Arabian / Persian Gulf, Iran. MorphoBank pictures: M407236–M407250.

Tumb

Island,

Paralectotypes. BMNH 1917.3.6.16–17, same locality as the lectotype ; BNHM 1946.8 .6.34, Kalabagh , Punjab, Pakistan. MorphoBank pictures: M407251–M407267.

Distribution. Southern Iran, including islands in the Arabian/Persian Gulf, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and adjacent Saudi Arabia ( Fig. 1 ). Apart from the paralectotype BNHM 1946.8.6.34, the species has been reported from Pakistan by some authors (e.g. Haas & Werner 1969; Khan 2006). The Pakistani range seems to be formed by two disjunct populations – (i) coastal, which might represent an eastern continuation of the range of M. brevirostris s. s. documented in Iran, and (ii) the Punjab population. Unfortunately, we were not able to obtain any Pakistani material for the genetic analyses and we thus cannot confirm whether the Pakistani populations are conspecific with those from the Arabian/Persian Gulf. Khan (2006) noticed the presence of occipital shield in the Punjab population (found also in the paralectotype) which is usually absent in M. brevirostris s. s. and which may indicate a possible distinction of the northern Pakistani population.

Notes. The type locality restriction made by Schmidt (1939) to ‘Kalabagh, Punjab’ without designating a lectotype is per se not valid according to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature , Articles 74.1 and 76.2 ( ICZN 1999 ). The type locality designated herein represents Blanford’s original collection site on the Tumb Island, which is located close to the genetically screened populations ( Fig. 1 ).

Figures

Figure S 1. Results of the BI analysis of concatenated mtDNA data and GMYC species delimitation analysis. (a) MCC tree from the mtDNA analysis with posterior probabilities ≥ 0.95 shown by nodes. Sample codes correspond to those in Table S 1. Branches colored in red indicate putative species identified by the GMYC species delimitation analysis. (b) Likelihood values produced by GMYC to estimate the transition between cladogenesis and intraspecific coalescence. (c) Lineage­through­time plot based on the depicted tree that shows the transition from interspecific to intraspecific branching events (red line). The time scale in (b) and (c) is relative.