Blanus mariae, Albert, Eva M. & Fernández, Adrián, 2009

Albert, Eva M. & Fernández, Adrián, 2009, Evidence of cryptic speciation in a fossorial reptile: description of a new species of Blanus (Squamata: Amphisbaenia: Blanidae) from the Iberian Peninsula, Zootaxa 2234 (1), pp. 56-68 : 64-65

Blanus mariae , new species

Holotype. MNCN 44638 Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid, Spain. An adult female collected by Eva M. Albert and Jordi Bascompte on March 2002 in the Faro region, Loulé (37º 08´N, - 8º 02´W), Portugal. Figure 5 .

Paratypes. All samples are in the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid, Spain ; MNCN /ADN 21754 from Alanis , Sevilla, Spain , collected in May 2002 by E. M. Albert; MNCN /ADN 21774 female from Baena , Córdoba, Spain , collected in May 2003 by M. García-París and E. Recuero; MNCN /ADN 21719 male from San José del Valle , Cádiz, Spain collected in April 2001 by M. García-París and E. Recuero; MNCN / ADN 21721 male from Oliva de la Frontera, Badajoz , Spain collected in May 2001 by M. García-París and E. Recuero.

Diagnosis. The new species Blanus mariae is similar in external color and patterns to Blanus cinereus , but shows some different morphological characteristics and present genealogical concordance of the mitochondrial and nuclear DNA haplotypes. B. mariae is larger than its sister species; average SVL of adults 175 mm, with heads larger; average 7.4 mm and has more body annuli; average 116.6, but B. mariae has fewer dorsal and ventral segments (between 13-17 and 13-18 respectively) than B. cinereus . Color in live goes from pale pink to dark brilliant purple, with a reticulate pattern due to the intersegmental sutures. All plates of the body have the same dark purple color. Some head scales, specifically the prefrontal plate appeared slightly clearer, showing a pale pink. Coloration in preservative is reticulate mottling of brown and with the lateral sulci and the background of light beige. Usually the snout of some specimens in preservation is light beige. Genetically, both species are clearly different. The phylogenetic tree shows two well differentiate clades, forming reciprocally monophyletic units with high support of bootstrap and posterior probabilities values. The sequence divergence between B. cinereus and B. mariae in the mitochondrial gene ND4 is very high, from 10.5 to 12.4% The populations of the new species have five unique and different mitochondrial haplotypes from mitochondrial genes (GenBank accession number EF036215- EF036466 , data not shown) and one unique diagnostic haplotype from the AUNL. No heterozygotes were found when AUNL was analyzed, suggesting no gene flow between B. cinereus and B. mariae . B. mariae differs from other congeneric in molecular features; from B. tingitanus in one single polymorphism and from B. metteta li in two nucleotides in AUNL data ( Fig. 4 ). At morphological level, B. mettetali has between 8 and 10 cloacal pores, are clearly smaller (around 145 mm), with heads shorter (around 5.6 mm), with more body annuli (128.8 as average) and more number of ventral segments (between 17.8-17.5 as average) than B. mariae . B. tingitanus have the same number of precloacal pores than B. mariae (6), but is also smaller (between 152-157 mm as mean value) and with heads shorter (around 6 mm), B. tingitanus also have more body annuli than B. mariae (between 124 and 125 as average).

Description of the holotype. Snout-vent length 186.3 mm, tail length 24.9 mm, head length 7.5 mm, head width 5.8 mm, prefrontal length 2.4 mm, prefrontal width 2.8 mm, 112 body annuli, 19 caudal annuli, 3+3 precloacal pores, 16 dorsal body segments and 18 ventral body segments. The body is moderately stocky with the tail slightly clavate and the head rounded. The lateral sulci is well marked and the dorsal sulci is visible from the end of the head until the medium body. The rostral plate has moderate size and the prefontral is large, slighly wider than longer, with the nostril situated in the first of the three supralabials. Following to the prefontral plate there are three pairs of quadrangular plates on the occipital. Without preocular plate, the eye appears as a black fine point in the translucent ocular plate. The first of the three infralabials is smaller than the third. The mental plate is trapezoidal and is bigger as the postmental. The postmental is followed by two rows of small quadrangular plates. The head is set off from the neck by a well marked furrow of small plates that round the trunk. Color in life was uniform brilliant dark purple with the characteristic reticulate pattern due to intersegmental sutures. In preservation, the color varies between dark brown to pale beige with slightly intersegmental sutures, light enought to cause a noticiable pattern. The variation of the paratypes (MNCN/ ADN 21754, MNCN/ ADN 21774, MNCN/ ADN 21719, MNCN/ ADN 21721) agree well with the holotype. MNCN/ ADN 21719 is slightly larger, with an average SVL of 192.6 mm. All paratypes have 6 precloacal pores. The color in life of the paratypes was very similar to the holotype. Some individuals appear with rounds of no pigmentation (white color) in the dorsal part perhaps due to old scars.

Distribution. Southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. The population limits to the west corresponds to the lower third of Portugal including the Algarve and the Baixo Alentejo area up to Elvas locality. Its limits to the north and east are Cáceres and Córdoba and Málaga provinces respectively. The exact distribution limit between the southern and central clades is actually unknown. It would be desirable more molecular and morphological studies in order to determine it.

Etymology. Named in honor of Maria Rosario Tortajada Aguilar E.M.A.´s grandmother, who died in tragic accident years ago, for her constant support.

Figures

FIGURE 4. Haplotypes of the anonymous unknown nuclear locus (AUNL) belonging to Blanus from Iberia (B. cinereus; central clade and B. mariae; southwestern clade) and from Morocco (B. tingitanus; Northern Morocco and B. mettetali; Southwestern Morocco). The following Genbank accession numbers correspond to these sequences: EI011512-EI011566.

FIGURE 5. Photograph showing the holotype of Blanus mariae MNCN44638, which is deposited in the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid, Spain. The scale shown in the lowest part of the picture is in centimeters.